Of course they are used in conjunction depending on the injury and severity of it. There are also alternate therapies that are used like ultrasound, ice, hosing, etc.

And chiropractice, and sports-specific muscle therapy :tro:

Racing's got 99 problems, but lasix ain't one.

While a break can be helpful some horses do terrible when turned out. Is it better to give a horse a break from training occasionally? Sure. But not all horses that are at the track are in fulltime training.

I dont think it is possible to have 2 sets of horses alternate down time because it is hard to determine the timing of when a horse is going to improve or go off form. While some stakes horses might get mandatory rest because of the design of their future schedule I dont know anyone who would take a regular horse out of training that was thriving and doing well.

But doesn't lasix have other systemic effects besides reducing the severity of bleeding that may improve performance? At the same time, does lung bleeding necessarily preclude a horse from performing competitively?

It can cause a small weight loss via diuresis (causing peeing), but research doesn't seem to support that the weight loss is contributory to any improved performance (there was a study that repeated everything with and without lasix with also replacing the weight lost by the horse due to lasix).

Lasix is the same "water pill" people take who have cardiac problems. Used in a one-time prerace injection, it won't cause a massive weight loss, it doesn't cause massive dehydration, it doesn't cause massive electrolyte problems (unless a trainer is really screwing with stuff by also spiking electrolytes in an excessive manner, or withholding water from the horse for 24 hours, etc)

Its funny - watching Australian racing, the temps there have been hot lately, and horses are literally wringing water off their bodies by the time they get to the post. We don't see that on horses using lasix to that extent (sweating is cooling) - but I'll bet those horses lose 20-30 pounds in water weight, too, before a race.

If your lungs are filled with mucus from a cold, can you breath? Can you do your 2-3 miles of daily roadwork? Can you inhale deeply and oxygenate yourself successfully under maximal physical effort?

Depends upon the amount of stuff down in your smallest airways and alveolar sacs, right?

Horses get hurt because they are big, strong animals who are fed high test diets and honed to stay on edge. They have skinny legs and big bodies and most of the time those legs arent exactly perfectly conformed. They may have club or flat feet, be back or over at the knee, may be cow or sickle hocked. When thier foot strikes the ground the concussion isnt sent exactly up the leg through the foot in a straight line but correspondnt to the physical makeup of the feet and legs. This leads to certain area's getting more stress. A horse who is back at the knee is much more likely to sustain a knee chip than one who isnt. A horse who has flat feet is much more likely to get sore feet than one who doesn't. Horses with long pasterns are much more likely to run down/have suspensory issues than one who isn't. The surfaces that we train on in the best of times are hardly uniform from day to day, and from hour to hour, depending on the weather or even the amount of traffic on the track.

That doesnt even take into consideration internal issues like stomach issues, colic, tying up, etc.

I cant speak for these 2 incidences specifically but as I said before often you believe that you are playing within the rules and dont find out that they changed the speed limit on you till you get the notice that you aren't.

What the public doesnt understand is that most horses have similar issues that are treated close to the same way. Sure a valuable horse may get to have expensive therapies in conjunction with a medicine regimine that a cheaper, less valauble horse doesnt get but it isnt that different than people who have bad backs. The treatments are pretty similar.

I think the stomach issue is something that can be easily explained as people can relate.

It wasnt that long ago that we didnt have any idea to what extent ulcers played in the health of horses. It seems amazing now but 20 years ago very few people made much of it. When a stomach scope was developed we found that a huge majority of horses had stomach ulcers, even seemingly healthy, in-form ones might have some degree of ulcers.

Before we recognized ulcers was a problem that was causing horses to be less healthy, their coats would go bad, they would act colicky, they would get sour, form would go off. Trainers would turn those horses out (good ones at least) and let the issue sort itself out (even if they didnt know the root cause). Being turned out on a grass paddock can reduce stomach ulcers either completely or to a managable level so after a few months the horse could return to training.

Now that we understand the role ulcers play we not only can manage them with medicine (expensive medicine I might add) but take other steps to try to reduce the development of them. Instead of having to give horse 3 months off and spend 3 months bringing them back we can treat them and keep them healthier. While i'm sure that some will believe that the rest isnt so bad try owning a horse that cant race for 1/2 the year. The other issue is that just because you healed the ulcers in this instance the factors that caused them in the first place are still there. So eventually the same cycle will play over again.

It's hard to believe that a horse suffering a bleeding episode during a race will run to its maximum effort, but that doesn't mean that it can't race competitively all the same, does it? Certainly there have been winners of races found to have bled post-race.

Horses are still bleeding despite the use of lasix, so it's not necessarily a forgone conclusion that lasix is the definitive treatment for bleeding. In fact, in the AVMA link you provided, the organization supported the use of lasix only in the "absence of a more effective treatment...". Hardly a ringing endorsment.

Don't many believe that horses are able to continue to perform even with minor injuries of all types? In fact, what percentage of racehorses, or any type of athlete, are considered to be completely "sound"?

As to the protection of the betting public, does lasix administration guarantee that a horse is being given ample opportunity to run to its best? Don't most jurisdictions allow for a variable dose lasix to be administered on raceday. Who's to stop the connections of a known bleeder (but probably unknown to the public), controlled normally with the maximum allowable amount of lasix, to suddenly drop the dose to the minimum? Would it be simpler and beneficial for the betting public's interest (and not necessarily the horse's health) to prevent this from the outset, by not allowing a licensed veterinarian in the stall on raceday with a needle and syringe and perhaps by banning horses from racing that bleed visibily from the nose?

Absolutely. We've raced horses since the dawn of time and we see the 1 in 20 that bleed out through their nose, but not the rest.

But now we have more advanced medicine, and we know what bleeding out the nose can mean, and we have a drug that helps the majority of horses not do that and thus not scar their lungs, get infections, suffocate.

You've certainly misread that ;)

As I've pointed out here, the causes of EIPH are thought to be multifactorial, and we know that lasix doesn't work on some horses. That, and FLAIR strips, are the best, and have shown to be most efficacious. Nobody, especially the veterinary world, has declared lasix a "definitive treatment" in the least. Yes, we are always looking to improve upon that. There are multiple other drugs attempted to help EIPH. They don't work. Yes, the AVMA and AAEP is indeed a "ringing endorsement", calling specifically for the use of this one drug on race day against all others, against the current racing establishment. Why? Because it's use protects horse lungs. It protects horses lives, use, and ability to be a racehorse. In spite of every other jurisdiction in the world, including American non-racing equine sports, forbidding lasix use, the AVMA and AAEP are fighting and recommending that lasix only continue to be an allowed race day medication.

http://www.avma.org/issues/policy/an...racehorses.asp

And it's not "to make vets money". That's absurd beyond belief. It's because it works and helps horses.

BTW: where is the betting public's outrage against the use of FLAIR nasal strips, which have the same efficacy in decreasing bleeding as lasix?

Why shouldn't we help horses if they are hurting? Why should we not help keep horses from bleeding into their lungs? Getting harmed? That's inhumane.

We domesticated them, we breed them for a single purpose, and we use them for our pleasure, entertainment and income.

The least we can do, if we want horses to be elite athletes, is treat them with the respect and humane care they deserve, and give them the best veterinary care possible.

The stewards via current racing rules.

Do you know the influence of giving 6cc versus 10cc of lasix to a 1200-lb racehorse?

What are you afraid lasix will do to a horse that's unfair to the betting public or horse?

Humm ... horse health versus betting public. I'll take horses health, the well-being of these beautiful athletes, every. single. time.

Without the horse, the betting public has nothing. And if the betting public (or an owner or trainer) puts their money against the welfare of the horse, they deserve to get absolutely nothing.

The "vet in the stall with a needle" has been easily remedied by state vets only giving lasix shots pre-race.

After a race, trainers will often times have their vet scope the horse to see if the horse bled. If the horse did bleed, the vet will usually rate the severity of the bleeding on a scale of 1-5. If they tell you that the horse bled and the severity was a "3", you can assume that the bleeding probably affected the horse's performance negatively. But if the vet tells you that the horse barely bled (just a drop) and the severity wasn't even a "1", the vet will usually tell you that the bleeding had no effect on the horse's performance.

As Riot said, it is normal for racehorses to bleed. I think she said that 93% of horses will show trace amounts of blood if you scope them. A trace amount of blood is not going to affect their performance. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't take it seriously or that you shouldn't stay on top of it. If it starts to get worse, it could become a problem.

I don't know if that's true about horses starting only 3 or 4 times a year in Ireland and France. That sounds a little low to me. I'd like to see the source on that.

As you have pointed out, horses used to be much sturdier and used to race much more often before we started using lasix and all these other drugs. I'm not claiming that that proves that lasix and all these drugs are the reason why horses are so much more fragile now, but I certainly think that it is a possibility. I think it is a reasonable hypothesis. There are some smart people in this industry that believe it. I don't know if it is true or not but I don't know how anyone could say with certainty that it's not true.

No doubt that conformation is an important component of racehorse injury. But isn't even the most ideally conformed racehorse susceptible to injury if overworked/overraced?

Does treating minor issues with legal therapeutics, specifically for racing purposes(versus for training or recovery), enable potential overload, and potentially cause some minor injuries to become "major" ones? If that scenario is commonplace, would a ban of therapeutics (to threshold levels) from, say, 7-days out (after most horses have had their final breeze for an upcoming start) be a logical approach to controlling medication use?

Little correction just so we stay accurate ;) Scopes only show bleeding roughly 60-70% of the time (the vet sees gross evidence of blood in the trachea)

Transtracheal washes and bronchoalveolar lavage will find more horses that have bled: 93% with evidence of bleeding upon microscopic examination of what's down there.

Horses that grossly bleed out the nostrils: about 5%

From news reports, the regulators seem to claim that they make an effort to notify horsemen of changes in testing standards. I don't know how strong an effort is made or whether or not a horseman can reasonably be expected to juggle all the rules, changes, withdrawals, etc., especially if he's operating in more than one jurisdiction.

However, back to the pre-race regimens, how likely is it that these are typically "cookbooked", in the sense that every horse from the same barn gets the same treatment? Does this seem apporpriate form a "horsemanship" standpoint? Furthermore, what is the dominant thought process behind the administration of pre-race treamtents? What the horse actually needs? What the horse received when he (or a stablemate) was last successful? What the rules/withdrawal times allow? What "levels the playing field"?

Speaking of pollution that the horses are breathing, I know that it would be expensive but wouldn't it be much better for the horses' lungs if the barn areas were re-done at all the tracks. At most tracks, the whole barn area is dirt. Why not put grass down everywhere and then pave the paths with that rubber brick stuff. Inside the barns, they could put down that rubber brick surface too.

I would have to think the horses would be less likely to bleed if their lungs weren't filled with all the dust that they breathe in all day in the barn area.

At Oaklawn Park they have a lot of grass in the barn areas. I would have to think that is much better than all that dirt and dust.

Any lack of durability can be traced directly to the late 70's/early 80's when the number of horses in the US exploded. Horses who werent considered worthy of being breeding stock in prior years were suddenly being bred each and every year. The stallion ranks grew and likewise many of those who would have been considered inferior just a few years before were suddenly breeding full books of mares. When the foal crop goes from 25000 (1970) to 50000 (1985) it is logical that there will be a dilution of quality right? The shrinking of foal crops will make it tough on the racing side but should take some of the lesser breeding stock out of comission though the exodus to statebred programs may temper this. Of course there is no real way to measure this as it is a nebulous topic. If you believe the sheets horses have never been faster and yet beyer figures are lacking in comparison to 20 years ago in general. I still dont understand why medication gets so much blame from people who are perfectly willing to breed unraced mares to lightly raced stallions...

You know that answer -- it's easy to blame something else when you're making money on the questionable. Tesio be damned.

Horse airways are designed to work with the horse's head down in the clean, green grass, grazing.

Most non-racing barns feed hay on the ground for that reason. Tracks determine if a trainer can use straw (can have alot of molds) or shavings to bed. Off track some people use newspaper or simply rubber mats for bedding allergic horses.

Yeah, horses inhaling all that dust from gravel drives and dirt on the track isn't as good as not doing it.

Those pavers are high dollar items.

Hey - for a mere less than 2 million, you can purchase this place next to the TB Training Center in Lexington, and have all your horses out getting grass time daily!

http://www.biedermanbrokerage.com/ (third property down on Paris Pike)

Of course any horse is more likely to be injured if overworked/overraced. But that is a trainer issue not a medication issue. While I hate to break off into another tangent IMO the standards for getting a trainers license is far too low.

It isnt an exact science and never will be. Are trainers/vets using meds to keep their horses running? Yes but in many cases they arent causing the horse any real harm though like most things in this debate it is hard to quantify. Abuse and abusive practices have no place in the business but there is very little research/investigation/surveillence done to counter this. IMO it would be far more practical and productive to focus our energy towards eliminating the bad apples and people who push the envelope rather than debate something stupid like lasix.

As for the 7 day withdrawl I support it to a degree. Joint injections should not be allowed inside of 7 days in my view. That is the rule in PA and it is something that they get right. But there are many other meds that shouldnt be cut off that early plus I believe that it can be hard to set testing levels for some meds that far out accurately. Something like adequan which is given IM is best used at 48 hours prior to race to be effective. It isnt much more than a joint supplement (of sorts-laymans terms) and isnt a performance enhancer but does help keep joints healthy. Same with ulcer meds and some other things.

There is a misconception that bute or banamine is masking pain and allowing injured horses to race and breakdown. That isnt true in virtually every case especially so with banamine which used to be allowed at 4 hours out in KY. These meds have been around for a long time and they just didnt recently start causing issues. In fact the best way to get a sore horse sound enough to pass the vet is to simply not train them at all, just walk them while maintaining the same feed schedule. They will start to feel better without the work and the energy that they arent burning off will make them look like they are aggressive and feeling good like a healthy horse. Of course once they break from the gate and start pounding on those injured legs the problems begin.

They dont tell us squat for the most part. Racing labs/commissions for the most part treat horsemen as potential criminals that they are looking to get. Labs use positive tests as resume builders.

As for the other questions I'm too tired to answer properly but there is a pretty wide range of opinions (among vets and trainers) as to what should be given, when and even the effectiveness of any of it.

You can believe what you want, but since I do this for a living, I can tell with certainty that the numbers I provided for maidens almost guarantee the maidens without lasix are at a disadvantage. The betting public isn't dumb. They know the good trainers, and which horses are working good, and which are bred to win early. In a sample as large as I'm talking, all those things even out between the Lasix and non-Lasix horses. The difference is return is staggering. Remember, I'm not talking win percentage, I'm talking how the horses perform in relation to how they were bet.

With the Euro horses, we do have a baseline, and the results are strikingly similar. I also mentioned the book "Champions" where you can find plenty of examples. I've looked it up in the past, and I'm not going to do it again to try to prove a point. It is there for anyone bothering to look. You just have to do it with the blinkers off.

I honestly don't care one way or the other about Lasix. There are way bigger problems in the game. However, in my opinion, denying it is a performance enhancer is about as silly as you make all the arguments for banning it appear to be, and probably rightfully so. Why is it banned for human competitors, by the way? I'm curious of your take on that.

I have to ask, do you still think Shane Battier is a better player than Rudy Gay? (You don't have to answer, we all know that was ridiculous, and it is off topic)

Of course the term performance enhancer in terms of drugs in racing has always referred to illegal drugs that gave the horse using it an unfair edge over the other competitors, not something that is reported to the public and regulated but you knew that. Declaring lasix a performance enhancer is simply an attempt to attach a morality issue to its use.

I dont recall saying that Battier was better but that his loss might be bigger to the team than when they lost Gay last year and did better without him.

As for lasix being banned in human competition what sport are you referring to? It isnt banned in boxing.

I didn't mean performance enhancer in that respect. I'm not sure why you think I did, but apparently I do. To me a performance enhancer is something that helps a horse run faster than he would without it EVEN if they don't need it. I think it does this for horses. It is tough to prove these days since nearly all horses get it, but there was a time when this could be tested and I did plenty of studies on it. Every one pointed to it being exactly what I describe. The way we are going, horses will start getting Lasix right after they are weaned. The fact it is now legal doesn't change anything in my opinion. If milkshaking or cobra venom or batteries were suddenly made legal, I'd still consider them performance enhancers too.

It is most definitely banned in Olympic sports, and I'm pretty sure that includes boxing. I don't know about pro boxing, but is that even a sport any longer?

Again, I think banning it will make it a harder game for bettors so I'm not all that anxious to see it happen, but I am as certain as can be that it is a performance enhancer.

I would buy that if it wasn't used so liberally. I'll just never believe that every horse in North America needs it, yet they get it anyway. Since it isn't free, it seems a lot of trainers feel they need it to level the playing field, i.e. it enhances performance.

Many of the European horses that don't need it ship for the BC and they get it anyway. Why is that? European trainers seem to think it is a performance enhancer. Are they just uneducated? The ones that don't get it rarely run to their odds. Just coincidence?

Anyone can poke around at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Use EIPH and race horse as your search terms

I found these with EIPH furosemide speed as the search terms

but aren't many using it because of what it prevents? horses can have an episode without having given a previous warning. i know some horses have had a significant amount of bleeding and have never bled before.

And isn't it the crux of the issue? Was Lasix originally legalized as a preventative measure for non-bleeders? Of course not, it was used to try to cure those that had bled.

Dont take offense but you are just guessing here. How can anyone determine what horses need or dont need lasix unless you can accurately pinpoint when a horse may have a bleeding episode? Trainers use it because it is a cheap, easy way to help your horse NOT bleed and with those who have bled before to try to prevent another episode. I'm sure you will counter with they can still bleed through lasix or it isnt proven to prevent bleeding (though I dont know how you could prove that given you rarely have any clue when your horse may bleed) but it is still a pretty effective, easy to use medication with few side effects. It isn't unlike wearing a seatbelt. A seatbelt might not save your life in a car wreck everytime but you sure do increase your chances with one.

And if they had known then that it would be a preventative for the issue that they were trying to cure what makes you think that they wouldn't have allowed it?

it's to prevent bleeding as well. if you don't know when it'll strike, it seems treating after is not nearly as good an outcome as prevention would be. if you can keep a horse from bleeding, for some severely, why wouldn't you? other countries don't allow horses who have had bleeding episodes to breed-so they send any who end up bleeding out of country to race before they get too many episodes. the fact they still have bleeders with those rules points to the fact that it may not be just genetic, if they're trying to weed them out, yet still get them.
i know if i could take medications that would prevent illness and damage, i would. i wouldn't wait til i had an episode-a bit late then, isn't it?

Except, of course, that it is still a drug. You can't convince me that every horse needs a drug to run. The reason every horse gets is because trainers also believe it is a performance enhancer. I've heard many say as much.

It would probably be in your best interest to find some different trainers to associate with. I suggest looking for a few that actually know what they are talking about.

This is interesting info published last year.

They took 37 baby 2-year-old thoroughbreds, and exercised them at the track for 5 months. Then they breezed them over 2-3 furlongs, and looked to see if they had evidence of bleeding in their lungs. No lasix or history of racing, no training on lasix.

(sounds like the 2-year-old in training sales, doesn't it?)

24 hours after their breezes, 23 had evidence of microscopic bleeding down in the lung. 14 did not.

Now, they also found that the horses that bled? Had increased inflammation in the lung, and decreased immune response capability against bacteria and other particles that can get down in the lung. All at the microscopic level.

That's a respiratory infection waiting to happen.

That is a good reason why lasix should be permitted as a race day therapeutic medication.

I listened to Dale Roman's eloquent defense of race day use of Lasix. I also heard Shug question why an entire 2 year old race at Keeland the other day all horses were administered Lasix and adjunct. Has the breed dropped to the level now that all horses bleed in workouts? It doesn't make sense. What has the lifting of the race day drug ban done for NY racing? We raced for over 100 years with no drugs now in NY after 15 years of usage...we can't live without it. As far as I can see only the casino has improved racing in NY not drugs.

It's not a breed specific problem, it's a horse specific problem. You'll see the use of Flair strips in other equestrian events.

http://www.flairstrips.com/wp-conten...-Camp-2011.pdf

A good presentation on how the lungs work in a horse.

I doubt it, because the incidence of bleeding overtly through the nose hasn't changed over the years, either here before lasix or in other jurisdictions without lasix.

I think it's just our diagnostic methods and knowledge have vastly improved. Now we see how much EIPH there actually is in horses.

We used to diagnose only via seeing nosebleeds. About 30 years ago we started using regular bronchoscopy stallside to look down in the trachea. Now we can do well-funded scientific research on high-speed treadmills and alveolar lavage of the lungs themselves.

What a great little reference booklet re: this subject. Thanks.

Every speed sport comes down to this:

"He whose cellular ATP lasts the longest, wins"

apparently what i posted about this going on for centuries went unnoticed the other day by some.

i guess some have just decided no matter what is said, or written, lasix is bad, mmmmkay. :rolleyes: