Substance Found in Frogs Illegally Helping Racehorses Run Faster

Waxy monkey frog.
There’s a lot of money to be won by picking the winner in a horse race and over time there have been a lot of stories about unsavory owners and trainers giving their horses illegal drugs to make them run faster.

 Here’s another story, a really weird one.

 According to reporting in the New York Times, a compound found in a substance of a South American frog has been injected into a number of racehorses. The substance, dermorphin, reportedly dulls the pain of an injury, allowing the racehorse to think he’s okay to run fast.

 As of now, nobody knows how extensive this problem is. But given that the waxy monkey tree frog is pretty common, the number of horses that have been injected could turn out to be a lot higher than the 30 or so known so far.

 To learn more, read this MongaBay story.