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Graham Motion on Lasix (note what he says about Britain)
Team Valor’s Barry Irwin has said he can’t convince you that you don’t need Lasix on raceday. Why is that? My problem with doing away with Lasix is that we’re going to go back to how it was before in New York (the last state to permit the drug), where everybody is trying to use things under the table that nobody knows about. I honestly don’t believe that in some of these other countries people don’t use alternative medications to Lasix. It’s better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know. Most horses bleed to a degree. Lasix is one medication that we know helps horses that have this hemorrhaging. My feeling is let’s control the administration like they do in Canada. 5 cc’s are to be given by a state veterinarian. If we do away with Lasix, we’d better step up security big time. No one’s going to like that. You cannot tell me that people are not going to use other things. Are you suggesting the rest of the world should adopt our rules? That’s a tough point. No, I’m not. In England, everyone gives Lasix up to the race, then they take it away. A lot of it comes to the horsemanship side. We are so much more proactive over here in scoping our horses. I want to be on top of our horses. When we consider a horse to bleed, it might just have a spot in his lungs. In many places bleeding is only identified if it’s external. http://www.paulickreport.com/feature...graham-motion/ |
i don't buy the assertion from some that it's performance enhancing. to me that's akin to people still saying the turns are tighter at pimlico. it's not true, but people believe it. those who've done studies say it is not, that's enough for me.
horses who 'move up' do so because they aren't suffering eiph, not because lasix gave them talent they didn't have before. and yes, there are other articles and studies that say euros train on lasix-as did the second article i posted...then there's the study done by the irish that said the same thing. go google it, that's what i did. it's all there. also, in the irish study, one of their points was to 'send bleeders to the u.s.'. obviously they get that lasix prevents bleeding, why else send them here? |
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Regarding the weight loss. No, it usually is not upwards of 30 pounds, and please, don't hesitate to quote the specific two studies that examined this very question: does weight loss contribute to increased performance with lasix? Because I guarantee you probably won't like the results. No, lasix does NOT change the acid-base balance of the blood. Anybody who knows how this loop diuretic works knows that. If that were true, every horse given lasix would have a TCO2 positive. Stick to being opinionated about racing, Rollo, but as an expert on lasix you're passing on half-baked information that has already, repeatedly, been "debunked". I'm not talking about you specifically here, Rollo, but I'm tired of the outright medical lies being promulgated over the years by proponents of banning lasix. These lies and their position regarding what lasix does to the horse are at 100% odds with the veterinary and scientific community regarding what lasix does, and it sure as hell is not because they are better educated in veterinary medicine and science. They are ignorant old men, too foolish and set in their ways to leave their "knowledge" from the 1970's behind them. They are a danger to the health and welfare of the race horse. |
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With your reappearance, I guess the couple of pages of civilized discourse have abruptly come to an end. Get ready for hyperlinks, misinformation, half-truths, and psychobabble to the VO2 max. |
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Lasix is "peformance enhancing" in the same way that an athlete with asthma takes a hit off their inhaler before running outdoors. If you don't prevent a problem (bronchiole constriction in human, EIPH in horse) you won't perform to your ability. Lasix is given to multiple seniors with congestive heart failure. It's your grandma's "water pill". At the very same dose given to race horses via injection. Yes - grandma is using "horse drugs" at the same dose for her lungs because her heart doesn't work well! And it's only performance-enhancing if you consider grandma not drowning in excessive lung secretions from pulmonary edema "performance enhancing". Of course, we can let human runners, kids that play soccer, grandma and horses stop in their runs because they can't breath, but why in the heck would we with hold valuable therapeutic medication from them? Lasix doesn't make a horse faster (like an amphetamine would). It enables a horse simply to run to their genetic and conditioned ability without bleeding into their lungs and suffocating. |
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You think mentioning VO2max is "psychobabble"? Shows your complete ignorance of the subject at hand. You don't have a clue what first year veterinary students know about the subject: when you can discourse on acid base balances, the Loop of Henle, electrolyte gradients, metabolic acidosis and respiratory alkalosis, call me. Because that's exactly what this conversation regarding lasix and milkshakes is about. You are making assertions, Rollo. Yes - you want to talk like you know medicine, you're going to have to step up your game and walk the walk. Half-baked, taken-out-of context assertions. I don't blame you, you're just copying what someone has told you. It's what has been passed on by some in this sport. Not the veterinary world in this sport, of course. Not the scientific community regarding lasix, of course. But lay people with an agenda. Old men who breed horses and run horses and don't want their world to be taken over by politicians they own. The veterinary world disagrees completely with their half-baked assertions. You side with the old men versus the veterinary and scientific world, about matters veterinary and scientific. Strange. That's to the detriment of the horse, however. I don't care to see people and their half-assed ideas and google drug knowledge harm race horses. Old rich businessmen who own race horses sure as hell are not qualified to treat my child's meningitis, and they sure as hell are not qualified to pontificate on veterinary medicine. |
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Because of the large study population and resulting statistical power,...we believe our results present clear and unequivocal evidence of an association between use of furosemide and superior performance in Thoroughbred racehorses. Possible explanations for the association between use of furosemide and superior performance include reduction in severity of EIPH, reduction in body weight, induction of metabolic alkalosis, bronchiodilation, and other mechanisms. Quote:
Same study: Another explanation for a performance-enhancing of furosemide is the acute reduction in body weight that occurs after furosemide administration. Intravenous administration of furosemide has been shown to induce a 2% to 4% in body weight within 4 hours. (4 citations noted) Quote:
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It still doesn't answer the question though. Why aren't our horses getting more competitive since they aren't suffering this permanent damage instead of getting less competitive? There is only one real answer. This alleged damage caused by EIPH doesn't affect horses' future performances. |
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Didn't someone try and call it a "performance enabler" as an alternative? Good stuff. The real issue is whether or not its justifiable to allow racehorses predisposed to severe bleeding to benefit competively by the administration of lasix. Why is simple barring/retirement from racing off the table? Probably because we have extremists clouding the issue by noting that you can find minute evidence of bleeding in over 90% of racehorses, attempting to equate insignificant (from a performance standpoint) levels of bleeding with the more severe ones. In one dubious swoop, you go from having a problem affecting ~2-5% of the population to one that affects nearly 100%. |
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So, instead of getting rid of the small percentage of the horse population that have severe EIPH, it was easier apparently to just give every horse the drug, including those with tiny amounts of bleeding that doesn't change performance. As far as that goes, if there is one thing of which I am certain, it is that none of these studies can actually measure performance. You can only do that in actual races. |
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You have every right to have a position on drugs in racing. Stand up and say you don't want any drugs whatsoever on race day. Nothing wrong with that. However, you should probably come up with a reason why you oppose the direct and specific medical advice of the veterinary profession, who says that doing what you want is not best for the health and welfare of the horse. We say these lay person interpretations (such as published by some of the anti-lasix folks) of the scientific information surrounding lasix use is wrong and off base. We advise the very opposite of what some lay people in racing are proposing. Why are 60,000 medical professionals wrong, but lay people with no scientific education, correct? The concepts being parroted about lasix by the anti-lasix crowd is like calling "creation science" science. It's sad, like watching Jenny McCarthy continue to contend that autuism is caused by vaccination, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Quote:
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Grandma takes horse lasix, at the same dose as race horses, for her congestive failure. That's how terrible this very predictable, very low incidence of side effects loop diuretic is :zz: |
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You're the guy at the corner bar, nursing a beer and pontificating on how to do open heart surgery. Quote:
Go google and find some words by someone who knows what they are talking about, that says alveolar bleeding, the rupture of the capillary-oxygenation interface - which means it doesn't work, big guy - is "insignificant from a performance standpoint". How about the words "oxygen dissociation curve" "VO2max" "Arterial O2 saturation". Ring a bell, doc? |
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as for everything in your post from 'for the record' on, do you have stats to show all this, or is it your perception from events? also, i guess you didn't notice the stat about new york racers and bleeding from the nostrils dropping by 80%? at any rate, we will have to just agree to disagree. no point in continuing, the 'zealots' ( :rolleyes:) on either side won't change their minds i'm sure. |
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ok, from everything i've read here and the other thread, as well as in other discussions, let me see if i have this right:
pro's of removing lasix on race day: no longer have horses on drugs on race day. are there any others? facts on lasix: not harmful not proven to enhance performance (note, i said proven-opnion/belief isn't proof) prevents bleeding and any accompanying lung damage not a masking agent. (as the study i linked said, with plasma testing, better testing(for what they know what to test for!), lasix can't be considered as a masking agent used either in training and/or race day in practically every racing jurisdiction on the planet cons of removing lasix on race day: bleeders with a history have lost their bleeding prevention, prone to worsening episodes as well as more and more damage. no way of knowing what horse will have a bleeding episode, or when, or how severe. that in turn means no prevention of lung damage, which can be permanent an alternative to lasix is removal of water and food for 24-48 hours before racing. (that's some alternative) or you can force people who currently have something they can use to prevent bleeding to retire a horse instead. wow. can you imagine? dip deep in your pockets, buy a horse. pay for all the training and what comes with it...the horse runs, bleeds, and you have no way to recoup that money. that sounds like a great plan. and as for the comment about 'since the 70's' this or that has changed... isn't that about the same time that commercial breeding took off? |
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If the majority of horses take it then vets should be held accountable and face license suspension if they can't prove the horse has a heart condition. It's not a good look for the sport when mostly old humans are taking furosemide and it translates to young horses taking it. Doesn't make your side seem to0 genuine. Side note: It's clear to me Black Caviar needs it. That poor horse!! |
but like i said, come up with a way to detect who will bleed and the problem is solved.
if it's not harmful, what's the problem? if there's an alternative to lasix to prevent bleeding, present it. otherwise right now it appears people want to ban it just to say it's been banned. what about the horse who needs it, or may need it? are we to just cross our fingers and hope horses don't bleed? and some will, what then? people want horses to race longer, constantly decrying early retirements. but older horses become more prone to episodes, what then? to say just get rid of it is not enough. it's not a solution, other than to say 'ta da, we don't have race day meds'. is that more important than making sure there aren't medical issues? i think this 'cure' is worse than the 'disease'. if it doesn't cause harm, doesn't enhance performance, and doesn't mask drugs, what's the problem? what potentially costs more, using it, or not using it and having to deal with eiph? what's best for the horses? |
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Furosemide works by attenuating the exercise-induced rise in pulmonary intracapillary pressure on the capillary walls at the alveolar interface, and decreasing plasma volume; and FLAIR strips lower the tearing effect of negative pulmonary airway pressures during inspiration. |
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You did forget one con, however: the increase in the American racing public starting to see horses bleeding out their nose and in respiratory distress as they come back to be unsaddled. |
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The study you are referring to (there are several, by the way, more than one) wasn't about "should one or both be used", and neither did it say "only one should be used" as you are falsely implying. They do not have the same "effect". They have a similar therapeutic efficacy. They have different "effects". As I said: the two different therapies complement each other, not duplicate each other. FLAIR also has other measured benefits that furosemide does not have regarding - GASP! - straight old "performance enhancing" !!! Why are you not mounting an effort to get FLAIR strips outlawed? |
It has never been shown that using both together helps more.
In any case, of all the things I said, you ignore the rest and try to nitpick that? Very telling... Time to go bet. |
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The answer is: 93% of horses experience EIPH when racing. Furosemide decreases that number. That is why the veterinary and scientific world overwhelmingly and without reservation advises furosemides' continued use as a therapeutic race day drug. |
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Bob Baffert on Twitter - @Midnightlute If they take race day lasix away I will recommend to all my clients to sell their broodmares asap. Racing will not survive.
So you'll help it along by telling your clients to sell their broodmares? :zz: |
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No. The facts don't lie. People who are non-scientifically oriented mistakenly think that simply saying something with conviction, and repeating it ever more loudly, makes something true. They are wrong. And it needs to stop. |
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if there is potential harm if you don't use it, and no harm if you use it, why wait? and 'everybody knows'? makes you wonder why then that some choose not to use it. or maybe that's because everyone doesn't know that. perhaps they paid attention to all the studies linked in the last week or so that said there is no advantage. but then, even tho there is proof there can be permanent lung damage from a severe enough bleeding episode, you're still insisting otherwise. |
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By damage, I'm saying it doesn't cause a decrease in performance. If it did, we would see it on the track from all those Euro horses that aren't "entitled" to Lasix. Doesn't seem to phase them one bit. |
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did i'll have another run on lasix? |
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