WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – An official at a Florida pharmacy said Thursday the business incorrectly prepared a supplement given to 21 polo horses that died over the weekend while preparing to play in a championship match.

Jennifer Beckett of Franck's Pharmacy in Ocala, Fla., told The Associated Press in a statement that the business conducted an internal investigation that found "the strength of an ingredient in the medication was incorrect." The statement did not say what the ingredient was.

Beckett, who's the pharmacy's chief operating officer, said the pharmacy is cooperating with an investigation by state authorities and the Food and Drug Administration.

The horses from the Venezuelan-owned Lechuza polo team began crumpling to the ground shortly before Sunday's U.S. Open match was supposed to begin, shocking a crowd of well-heeled spectators at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington.

"On an order from a veterinarian, Franck's Pharmacy prepared medication that was used to treat the 21 horses on the Lechuza Polo team," Beckett said. "As soon as we learned of the tragic incident, we conducted an internal investigation."

She said the report has been given to state authorities.

Lechuza also issued a statement to AP acknowledging that a Florida veterinarian wrote the prescription for the pharmacy to create a compound similar to Biodyl, a French-made supplement that includes vitamins and minerals and is not approved for use in the United States.

"Only horses treated with the compound became sick and died within 3 hours of treatment," Lechuza said in the statement. "Other horses that were not treated remain healthy and normal."

Lechuza also said it was cooperating with authorities that include the State Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

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Too terrible to comprehend. Again, beautiful animals perish due to human greed. Makes me very angry.
What a tragic story....what the heck was so wonderful about the "compound" that the horses were given and what went wrong......I'm long enough in the tooth to look at this story and wonder about the "aroma" that swirls around the real reasons behind it.......
It is really just sickening. I'm sure the owners were beside themselves to have to watch their horses collapse and die one after the other. Too horrible!
Hm, true, but what type of prescription does a vet give for 21 horses at a time that has an ingredient to kill all of them that quickly?

Biodyl? That's basically Vitamin B12 and Selen. Ok Selen can be deadly if used in too high concentration but you need to make a pretty stupid mistake when mixing it.

In any case Biodyl is used to abreviate the recreation time after exhausting exercises. Wouldn't that be doping?

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