When I was younger, my older uncle told me "Tommy, I give you one mission, make sure you ride the waves once, and only once"

I completed this mission when I was in college due to those very same goggles, and I have to admit, it was quite fun.

There's a shock, vets are pro-medication. Gee they're not remotely benefiting financially from the Lasix,etc. that they put in the horses. The AVMA is also pro-slaughter. They might call what they're peddling here pro-horse. I don't believe that's the case myself. Even if you think the horses shouldn't be neglected and are convinced that that'll happen, you can be pro-euthanasia. I don't see them out there pushing people with lousy colts to geld them. The more horses with Lasix that run and go on to breed, the worse the bleeding situation gets in future generations. It should be a negative when you go to a stallion that he was a known bleeder. Not unlike a really weak hind end or pencil thin pasterns. Not 'oh nevermind, he'll just take Lasix.' It's a defect plain and simple. The heart-lung mechanism is one of if not the most important things on a horse. As wonderfully conformed as Secretariat was, he did what he did thanks to heart-lung efficiency. Need to see that in action? Watch the gusts in the Canadian International. As for the masking of other drugs, yeah I guess the World Anti-Doping Agency has it on the banned list because it masks other drugs based on no evidence whatsoever.

Vets would make far more money treating bleeders WITHOUT Lasix. A shot of Lasix is about $20. We used to spend hundreds in NY before they allowed Lasix treating horses for bleeding. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars in antibiotics following a post race bleeding episode. I have yet to see any studies that show that bleeding is an inheirited trait. I know of several mares that were confirmed bleeders that have been fantastic producers. Of course you have experise in all of these areas I'm sure. It is the same crap that gets spread in the business that sounds like it may have some merit and suddenly it is gospel. Naturally no one ever actually considers the horses that we have now, not some pie in the sky bullshit about how we need to weed out the bleeders to make the breed better. That assumes that #1 mares that bleed wont get bred, which is not going to happen and #2 that the elimination of it will benefit the racing public in some PR fashion, which it wont. Horses will still have the same issues that are here now and trainers still have to address them. By eliminating the LEGAL and economical means to deal with these issues you are basically forcing trainers to try other methods to treat issues, some of which may be much less effective and others which may be questionable legally. The rules are already tilted towards the cheaters simply by spending so much time and money on bs like Lasix and steroids and ignoring the real performance enhancers that currently go undetected and unresearched. The elimination of Lasix will cause more erratic performances especially as the chemists ahead of the curve develop a diueritic that will take the place of lasix while the guys who play by the rules get screwed again. Lasix works on the majority of bleeders better than anything else that we can use. It is cheap and it's side effects are not severe. All trainers have access to it and it is easily regulated. Suggesting that Vets are in favor of it because they profit from it is like saying Doctors root for their patients to get cancer so they can make more money treating them.

The World Anti-Doping Agency sounds authoritative but aren't these the people that framed Floyd Landis

Question I have:

Is Lasix used extensively on horses that have not bled or have bled what might be considered insignficant amounts ? (I guess insignificant would mean no breathing problems or infections likely, etc... because the amount of bleeding is so small).

Once a horse bleeds, its Lasix for life, if the trainer so chooses?
I also know that in Texas anyway, a horse can get on lasix if bleeding occurs
during a workout which makes sense. But the vets have to have a look.

If a horse shows a propensity to bleed even a small amount they have a greater chance of bleeding signifigntly in the future. Since very few horses come with crystal balls to tell us if today is the day that we bleed badly it is used as a preventative measure in many cases.

Vet has to give the OK in the first place but not thereafter?
And does the horse have to bleed.
In other words, if a horse has never bled, Lasix is
still used, or bleeding must have occurred.

And then
once it occurs, since it is likely the horse will bleed again,
its used as prevention.

"The rules are already tilted towards the cheaters simply by spending so much time and money on bs like Lasix and steroids and ignoring the real performance enhancers that currently go undetected and unresearched."

You are sounding like Scuds. And I don't mean that in a bad way. This is what he keeps screaming and getting flamed about.

A vet has to observe and certify that the horse bled in a work or a race, and the horse can then go on the offical "bleeder's list" so it can get the drugs to try and prevent bleeding.

Horses that have bled are tracked by the offical track vet, and have varying periods of mandatory time off from racing after a bleeding episode.

The various jurisdictions have their own regulations.

So...are you proposing that if you bleed, you can't run? Or should they run despite it? Or are all bleeders just a fallacy to get lasix...or...well...what are you saying should be done if they bleed..assuming you believe they bleed in the first place.

Wild horses were never meant to run like T-breds do. Tens of thousands of years of evolution cannot be undone in a heartbeat.

The game involves horses running at very high speeds in some cases up to 2 minutes straight.
If you got all those guts coming forward on a diaphragm that is right on those huge lungs that contains massive numbers of very tiny capillaries, guts slamming into them from behind for two minutes (each time a horses front hooves hit the ground), I find it hard to believe that capillaries will not break.

I really dont know how easily this can be bred out. I dont think anyone does. If you find a horse that never bleeds and mate this to a horse that never bleeds, we cannot assume the offspring will be the same. There might be a myriad of reasons some horses might not bleed. One major reason could be because they are slow. I know the horses that run the really long course races do not bleed nearly as often if at all... horses basically gallop these courses.

We want fast horses over short distances (1 1/4 being short). Lots of inertia involved in that type of running. So lots of damage.

The horse was never meant to do what is asked of these animals, they just were not meant for this. We bred them to run, and run hard. So all sorts of consequences follow. I dont like this, but have accepted this. And I surely dont want horses being pushed on with lungs full of blood, or having to face the consequences of massive septic infection due to all the crap that might enter bleeding capillaries or grow in blood within lungs.

Every horse in the first 2yo race at Kee was on Lasix. I tend to think it is used a lot more liberally than you let on.

You dont need me to tell you when or where it is used since it is right there in black and white. Are 2 year olds somehow immune to bleeding? As long as there is equal access and the information is made public I dont see why you would care.

I don't see why anyone cares.

The author's article has some compelling statistics, but none of them correlate with Lasix use other than the timing of the legalization of the drug and the decline of field sizes and races run per horse. Quite possibly sheer coincidence, although he says, Why can't it be a coincidence?

Another gem, How does Lasix not solve bleeding problem. Does he have any statistics of horses bleeding through Lasix vs. horses that don't, in order to help his stance that it does not solve bleeding? I don't think it will ever be completely solved, but any trainer or vet can tell you it definitely helps the bleeding.

He also states, Where is that evidence? The aforementioned smaller field sizes and less races per career? There are no other reasons that horses are running less and less often? It's solely the fault of Lasix? Please.

If he offered up some medical or physical proof that Lasix is making the breed more fragile, then we could have a discussion of it's positives and negatives. Otherwise this is just a poorly researched witch hunt.

I'm just curious why they need lasix without ever having raced. About 99% of them get lasix first time out now. Those that don't get it are at a competitive disadvantage, plain and simple.

There is very little doubt in my mind that lasix enables horses to run faster whether they bleed or not, thus everyone uses it.

As for why I would care, I happen to like the sport. Horses ran a lot more and broke down a lot less before lasix and other drugs were legalized. I'd like to see that happen again someday, though I know I won't.

Here's the problem with his claim that Lasix is the cause for declining field size- bleeding has NOT caused reduced fields, trainers seduced by the completely BOGUS Ragozin idea that significant time off between races is required for optimal performance (see: Denis of Cork); not to mention hundreds of years of inbreeding for speed which has made the breed more fragile.

Horses used to run 30+ times a year. Now it's 15 for even the "hardest knocking" types. Multiply the number of races run and reduce the number of starts per year, even with a siginficant increase in total registered foals per year, and you have reduced fields.

You don't see this across the POND, because they don't want to breed bleeders. Easy that way

Bustin Stones ran 1st time L, just because he showed some indication of blood, and Bruce played the safe side. Can't blame for 20.00 bucks, and his 1st G1

This is simply not true. Do you or anyone else have any evidence that horses brokedown less? They only started collecting the data recently on breakdowns and horses making fewer starts has been a trend since 1960 which is long before lasix.