The NFL is a perfect example belying the "perception" argument of the ban-Lasix crowd that people won't wager on an athletic contest if they suspect the participants are utilizing drugs to in order to be able to participate in the contest. There are many reasons why members of the general public won't wager or attend horse racing. That Lasix is given to the horses before they race (most people don't even know that occurs) is far down on that list of reasons.

Racing officials need to recognize that, like almost all sports today with the exception of football, baseball and basketball, it is a niche sport with a core group of passionate followers that is unlikely to be embraced widely by the general public. Industry leaders should address the concerns of the passionate followers the sport already has and stop worrying about broader public perception.

One other thing that really bothers me about the whole episode. To implement a rule that could so fundamentally alter the sport as we know it, they need to have broad industry consensus. To implement it on an 8-6 vote, or something like that, is a huge mistake.

Man, Romans was awesome today on ATR...

Thanks. To answer your question because they don't want critical thinking on the issues, they want it their "way" because in their little minds they want to dial the clock back to a 1960'ish pollyanna version of racing. The anti-medication cartel has already changed course by trumpeting lasix as a performance enhancer despite the obvious major difference between what we think of with that label (EPO, sublimaize, etorphine) and something that is innocous, regulated and all in all a pretty tame and effective medication. That so many people now believe what they are saying shows that not only is the cartel willing to engage in a scorched earth policy, consequences be damned in order to get their way but that so many people within the industry don't know a damn thing about what is going on. The policy of labeling lasix as a performance enhancer is what emboldened the NY Times and anti-medication cartel lapdog Drape into this supposed expose they are doing. Rather than properly educating people (both inside and ouside) about the issues and managing the damage from any reform campaigns that are embarked about (there is no way to discuss breakdowns as an issue in a positive light, using stats showing a trend of fewer can also be tossed back into ones face if there is a bad run like the one in NY), the issue gets politicized and in the ensuing scramble to curry the publics favor, a political correctness comes about which dooms any hope of getting anything reasonably effective done. There is an element of class warfare here, a distinct effort by some who are simply looking to profit by keeping more of their partnerships money if in fact vet bills are lowered (that wont happen but it a whole different tangent), and a segment of owners who want to reshape horseracing into something more similar to steeplechase racing which will rid them of statebred programs, racino's and weekday or night cards.

If you have a cold and take medicine do you feel that you are enhanced and are providing your employer with better than ordinary effort?

The thing is that they argue that all those things occur and keep repeating the mantra until people believe it. In the end all you are doing is taking the L in the program away and telling people that everything is good now. Of course when a guy starts to go on one of his patented runs where every horse runs off the screen or an unknown trainer emerges as a 47% winner no one will believe a damn thing changed. If you are going to do something and tell everyone that this is a game changer (for the good) well you better be right or you will just become chicken little which is directly where we are headed. It is a good thing that the horseplayer in general has a short memory or they might have recalled all the wonderous things and changes that banning anabolic steroids was going to do...

Point taken. My attempt was to point out the only partially plausible argument for medication reform. A lasix ban misses the mark entirely. The fact is, we need more horses in more races generating more revenue for the whole industry. As you correctly point out, there are certain forces that don't see it that way and are willing to go to great lengths to impose their will.

So true. What I keep saying is that the negative public percetion about medication in the sport comes mostly from people within the sport. If they are worried about public perception than they need to change course 180 degrees and shut the hell up. When Peta is using your quotes in their propaganda that should be your hint that you may need to censor yourself.

What is worse than a lasix ban is the negative manner in which those who wish to ban it operate. It is hard to change public perception and making things seem much worse than they really are is hardly a way to make things better. Dividing the sport rather than bringing it together won't bring about positive change and is going to leave long lasting damage that won't easily go away. It isn't like we have all this surplus revenue and goodwill to throw away chasing ghosts.

The most annoying part of this whole thing has been how people reference surveys of horseplayers and say how "x-out-of-y" want a ban of said drug or other raceday meds.

I don't know about anyone else, but I know, from a gambling perspective, I have no interest in handicapping a minefield where I have to guess which horses may or may not bleed or what have you.

I'll bet half of the "x" couldn't even say what the meds are, what they do and what affect they have on horses to begin with.

Exactly, it makes a hard game to play even harder from a gambling standpoint.

I'm very interested to see what happens this year at the BC with their lasix ban on the 2 year old races. Personally, I'm not going to play any race or multi-sequance that includes any of those races. I wonder if the handle is down enough on those races, if we will see a reversal of course by the BC.

Put a poll up that says do you want full fields, reasonable takeout and quality racing or do you want to ban lasix and see what they vote for.

I think the logic of people who think we should use lasix is twisted. They race all over the world without lasix. How can you say that we need lasix here when they don't use it anywhere else? Do you think they should start using it in England, Dubai, and Hong Kong? Is our racing the model for the world? I don't think so. It's the exact opposite. We are the laughing stock of the world. To say we need lasix here, when it is not used anywhere else, is a losing argument.

By the way, there of plenty of trainers out there that will tell you lasix is a performance enhancing drug that does mask other drugs. In addition, it totally knocks horses out. Lasix completely dehydrates you. Do you think it a good idea to do any type of rigorous physical task while you are totally dehydrated? It's terrible for a person and it's terrible for a horse.

Speak for yourself.

If we are the laughing stock of the world, why are our stallions and bloodlines so desirable the world over? And, furthermore, if lasix is such a problem for overseas outfits, why do they always use it when they race in the US?

I don't think anyone is saying that banning lasix is the cure-all. I think they are saying that it would be a good start. You can only do one thing at a time. Banning steroids was a good start. Banning lasix would be a good next step. There would still be an extremely long way to go. The sport needs comprehensive change. I do believe in the expression, "If it isn't broke, don't fix it." Unfortunately racing is broken in the U.S.

There needs to be major change. I don't know how you can support the status quo. Why would you want to continue to go do down the same broken path that has completely ruined racing in the U.S.?

We are the laughingstock of the world? Yeah ok so when all those buyers come to Keeneland every year they are snickering as they write those checks?

Who gives a damn what they do elsewhere? I like basketball but don't follow the WNBA so don't give a **** what happens there just like I dont care about what is going on in Singapore or Ireland. If you knew enough about racing in other countries to know that the average racehorse in Ireland makes 3 starts a year and the average horse in France makes 4 starts a year perhaps you wouldnt be in such a hurry to emulate them. The idea that we should care what people who represent one tenth of one percent of our customers think is beyond stupid.

Plenty of trainers are f cking morons too. When the chemists at the labs say that when following the 4 hour protocols that Lasix doesn't mask any known medications I tend to believe them.

Funny that the millions of people that take lasix daily aren't all sitting home drinking water because they are so knocked out that they couldnt possibly go out and work.

You are taking the extemely myopic view that the supporters of the ban dispense. While Lasix may be banned outside of North Amercia, it is used in training of horses and banned on raceday when horses need it most. Please explain to me why it is ok to train on it but not race on it.

What do owners in jurisdictions that ban Lasix do when their horses can't compete because of bleeding? They either ship their horses to North America and race them here or sell them to North American owners. They are laughing alright, all the way to the bank. The vast majority who ship here for one or two races run their horses on Lasix when they do.

I would love to see those trainers who say that Lasix is a performance enhancing drug come up with any credible scientific study to support that position. It won't happen because it does not exist.

If Lasix is such a drain on horses, than why are 99% of horses racing in North America racing with it? There is no rule against trainers running their horses without Lasix, so why are many more not doing that? Just because someone says something is true does not make it so, and that is the type of slippery slope BS that Chuck is talking about that divides the industry. Then again, Obama won an election and will run for a second term with the same type of if we say it enough people will believe it nonsense which is proven to work.

I am sure as a horseplayer you look forward to horses being taken out of training more often, retired earlier in their careers, less incentive for people to own a horse which will have a more limited racing career, more unwanted horses in need of a home, smaller fields and being duped by betting a horse that will bleed and burn money. Sounds like a great idea.

We do have some good stallions here. I'm not saying that anyone thinks all of our stallions are bad.

With regards to the Europeans using lasix in the US, they use it because they thing it's performance enhancing and they think they would be at a disadvantage by not using it.

A good start to what? Are you so delusional as to believe there is a real business plan that calls for the humiliation of the sport as to rid it of a simple duiretic? Banning lasix is the reddest of red herrings.

If you believe that banning lasix is going to have a positive effect on business I would love to know what evidence you base this misguided opinion on? The steroid ban was followed by a 2 year decline in handle and field size and obviously wasnt much of a positive PR move especially since Drape and company ignored it for the most part.

I find it odd that someone who doesnt agree with banning lasix is aways accused of maintaining the status quo? Like i said before if you polled players and gave them 2 choices, big competitive fields and reasonable takeout or getting rid of lasix I'm pretty sure that the poll would render a 99-1% vote for option A.

So they are laughing at us but are also willing to make fools out of themselves as well.....at least according to you.

If it reads like BS it usually is BS.

What has been the benefit of banning steriods? Making unsound decisions that ultimately hurts the health of horses in favor of a hope that creating a false perception to the public helps the sport is not a fix. Is is creating an even bigger problem.

You say they train on lasix overseas. How often do horses in Europe get lasix?

The arguments that most of these trainers make are total BS. They want to try to pretend that banning lasix would be the end of racing as we know it. They make all these completely exaggerated claims that are complete nonsense. Are there some horses that are bad bleeders that would be hurt by a ban on lasix? Absolutely. I'm not denying that. But I think the overall positive effects of a lasix ban would far outweigh the negatives.

Why would Europeans want horses that have raced on Lasix that "masked drugs" which will be passed down to the foals? Why do many train their horses on it? They buy our horses because they know that Lasix does not hurt them or their bloodlines.

Those who think that they would be at a competitive disadvantage are simply ignorant and basing their conclusion on conjecture, not scientific evidence. I am sure that many of them say that, but use it because they know their horse is a bleeder and will race more competitively here with the use of a medication that eliminates the medical problem that causes them to come here in the first place.

Most South American countries run on lasix but you never hear about that. The idea that getting rid of lasix will make horses stop bleeding is absurd but it is almost exactly what is said. The qualifications to become prime breeding stock in this country are laughably low and anyone who thinks that eliminating raceday lasix is going to shift the breed positively has a complete misunderstanding of the game. It isnt as though horses can't get away with bleeding as to win enough (one graded race or stakes placing in a mares case) that they become part to the vaunted "gene pool". Bleeding while racing get worse over time in the vast majority of cases and breeders here have already shown they have no aversion to breeding to lightly raced horses.

Anyone who has an issue with the game and where it is headed should place the blame exactly where it belongs, the people who are so adamant about getting rid of medication because for the most part they have been steering us in the wrong direction ever since they decided that they didnt want NYC OTB because no one will ever want to place bets on horse racing without being there...

The bluebloods with the power in this sport have crashed the ship into the reef and are blaming the reef. Keep buying what they are selling and you might wind up holding onto some valuable breeding shares to Funny Cide.

So the "minor" bleeders wont become worse if not treated? The idea that getting rid of a medication will eliminate the problem that it treats is beyond stupid. What you don't understand is that taking away a tool to treat a malady in a horse costs our owners more money in a time when they can least afford to spend it. The idea that other forms of treatment for bleeders (more expensive and not made public) wont be used is stupid. It is just an L in the program that makes horses pee.

I certainly agree with you that most players would much rather have big fields and reasonable takeouts than a lasix ban. But I don't think those are the choices that we are facing.

I have yet for someone to show me how banning lasix will produce more business for the sport. It surely will cost the industry a lot of money, especially in the short term and I have yet to see a shred of evidence that it will bring a single dollar into the sport that wouldnt be there anyway.

Why not? Do you think that banning lasix is going to create larger fields? Smaller fields lead to smaller handle which leads to the possibility of more jurisdictions potentially looking to raise takeout (like in CA) in order to maintain the purse structure. Every action has a counter reaction. If you cant see that banning lasix will make it more expensive to own a horse and make it harder to keep them racing regularly (especially if Clembuterol which is a key component of cleaning up a horses lungs after a bleeding incident regardless of severity is banned as well) then you are kidding yourself.

As Dale Romans said today on ATR, 'Who cares what they do in Europe' -- or anywhere else?'. Should we adopt the Euro too? We have a different sport that generally races on a different surface. The stresses placed on horses here are different than those in the rest of the world. We don't have 6 month seasons where horses are off more than they race. We don't have private backstretches where track-run vets & dispensaries operate. Meanwhile, iinternational outfits train on Lasix readily and would use it on raceday happily.

Seriously still clinging to the 'lasix masks other drugs' nonsense? That crap is old enough to vote. File it with the other grand lie that 'bleeding is hereditary and we need to purge it from the gene pool'. It's amazing that someone who is 'in the business' is perpetuating the same misinformation being peddled by the uninformed on facebook and the like.

I never said that getting rid of lasix would eliminate bleeding.

One thing that many trainers won't tell you is the real reason that horses bleed. Sure some horses bleed simply because they are bleeders. But most horses bleed because there is something hurting them. Eliminating lasix would force trainers to treat the actual issue rather than just putting a band-aid on the symptom.

If I am not mistaken, didn't one of the vets that you respect most (Steve Allday) say that we don't need lasix?

In the short run, it may decrease field size. But it could conceivably increase field size in the long run.

There are plenty of smart people in the industry that think lasix knocks horses out and it causes them to need more time between races. Horses don't run nearly as often now as they did back in the 1970s. Some smart people think the advent of lasix in this country could be one of the main reasons for that. Nobody knows for sure but it is certainly a possibility.

He says we can survive without Lasix and that's certainly true. But that's not what is really being discussed. The issue at hand is Lasix as a canard for a small minority of the sport trying to impose its' will and self interest on the rest of us. And destroying the business for the non-idle rich in the process.

But how do you propose that you treat bleeding?

So essentially what you are saying is that getting rid of lasix will make otherwise inattenative trainers and incompetent vets smarter?

An example of treating the issue as opposed to the symptm is working on a horses back end when weakness or injury there might be causing overloading on its front end leading to lameness there. Trying to tie bleeding to treating a horse for lameness if the human connections didnt know in the first place that the reason they were bleeding was lameness is an exercise in futility.

I think most people in the business completely underestimate the harm that drugs in racing has done to the integrity of the sport. I think all the drugs in racing has absolutely killed the business. I think it has driven tons of fans and bettors away.

Would eliminating lasix reverse this? Would it bring all the fans and bettors back? Of course not. I don't think anyone is claiming that. But I think it would be a good first step. I think racing has to move towards the elimination of most drugs.

What evidence do you have that it will increase field size? When you prune a shrub properly at least you know it is going to grow back. When you cut too much off, part of the shrub dies. When you shed owners like this sport is doing, adding more economic hardship and given the beating racing takes and will continue to in the mainstream-(you dont think PETA is going to forget all the ammo you people are giving them do you?) what makes you believe that owners will come running back? Especially with a shaky economy, potential tax increases and a real chance at losing much of the gains in purse money made via the racinos? This sport should be circling the wagons, beating back anyone saying anything negative and working together to solve issues in-house in order to maintain the business we have as well as make things better instead of grandstanding to Congress and the NY Times, villifying trainers and vets and making outlandish claims that have no basis in fact making us all look bad.

One of the biggest reasons why the average starts per year stat has continued to decrease is the modern theory of starting 2 year olds later in the year and hardly racing at 2. It is pretty hard for older horses to counter a horse making 1 or 2 starts and having them count the same as a horse that perhaps ran all year. But why waste time on facts?

The integrity issue has been mangled by the industry with help from our friends at the various state racing commissions for years. People only know what we tell them and for years all they ever heard about was positive tests with no explanation of what the meds were, that most had zero effect on the raceday performance of the horse in question and no one explaining the penalty structure or even that we operate with virtually no steadfast rules, just "suggestions" that often are plain old guesses.

Because the industry (and most of the ivory tower crowd behind the medication bs) refused to understand its customers and refused to understand that we were a gambling venture first and foremost and a sport second they tried to hide everything medicationwise. Naturally that backfired and tracks are still slow to understand that the Ness and Guerrero's of the world are bad for business at their tracks and cast a poor light on everything. THAT is the drug problem that we have which has nothing to do with lasix or any other type of legal medication!

You see the thing is that virtually no one has any idea what is being given to various horses (legally!) and the idea that eliminating something that no one knows about anyway on "our word" when we just spent the last few months telling everyone Lasix is a performance enhancing drug and most of the results of the last 30 years are tainted isnt myopic, it is sheer stupidity.

Again the idea that modern medicine is bad for thoroughbred racehorses only and is causing people not to bet is beyond dumb.

Only horseracing can spend virtually nothing on surveillence and enforcement and be surprised that people might be doing illegal things and react by banning a legal medication.

That is a completely false paragraph. Let's keep an eye on the truth here: bleeding is a physiologic process with multiple causes, but none are thought to be pathology or other pre-existing problems.

Bleeding into the lungs is a proven side effect of horses (and some dogs, and some humans) running hard on firmer surfaces under great cardio-pulmonary stress and recruitment during maximal effort.

By the way, the use of Flair nasal strips (you know, that patch some horses wear on their nose) has about equal scientifically measurable effect on halting grade 3 and 4 bleeding as Lasix.

Where is the cry to ban these patches that ease the pressure differences between upper and lower airways, easing damage to lower lungs by EIPH?

The point isn't to halt bleeding that is Grade 3 & 4, it's to halt the unseen bleeding doing damage at the alevoli, the actual interface between blood capillary and air source (oxygenation) in the lung. Every time an alveoli is scarred by bleeding at a microscopic level, even if you can't see it on a bronchoscope, the horse is harmed.

Cannon, Kasept and Pointman have made very accurate points here about lasix. There's alot of completely inaccurate baloney out there about lasix, much being unfortunately pushed by industry leaders. What they have said here is the truth of it.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) both fully and unquestionably support the use of lasix as raceday medication for the welfare of the horse, based upon all scientific evidence. Using lasix is good for the welfare of the race horse. Here's the statement: http://www.avma.org/issues/policy/an...racehorses.asp

And if you want some good, "lay person" explanations of EIPH (bleeding) and lasix, The Horse has them here: http://www.thehorse.com/TopicSearch/...&nID=32&ID=296

I just got off the phone with one of my trainers. He says that there is almost always an underlying reason as to why a horse is bleeding. He said if you dig deep enough, you will almost always find that something is bothering the horse that is stressing him and causing him to bleed. This trainer doesn't care either way as to whether they ban lasix. He said that as long as they allow it, he will use it. He thinks there is no doubt that it is a performance enhancing drug. He says that if you follow sheet numbers, most horses move way up on lasix.

This trainer tells me that in his 20 years in the business, he can think of only one horse that he couldn't stop from bleeding. This particular horse was the only horse that he's ever had that needed lasix for his workouts. Some trainers give lasix to a lot of their horses for workouts.

This trainer went on to say that if you have a horse that runs 5 times in a row without bleeding, and then in his 6th race he bleeds (let's say he bleeds a 3 on a 1-5 scale), then you better go over that horse with a fine-tooth comb because there is almost certainly something going on with the horse.

I strongly agree with you on one thing. I think you are absolutely right that horseracing should be spending a lot of money on surveillance and enforcement.

You don't think a horse is far more likely to bleed if something is hurting them?