Kentucky's ongoing attempt to end racing in state proceeds..
 

Kentucky committee votes to phase out Lasix
By Matt Hegarty

A committee of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission voted Monday in support of a regulation to phase out the raceday use of the anti-bleeding medication furosemide starting with 2-year-olds in 2013. The new rule, which passed 4-1, will go to the full racing commission, which was scheduled to start a meeting at 1:30.

Under the rule, 2-year-olds will be banned from receiving raceday administrations of furosemide - known by the trade names Lasix or Salix - in 2013. The ban will be extended to 3-year-olds and all stakes races in 2014, and apply to all races in 2015.

The rule also includes a provision allowing the commission to reconsider the rule as of Sept. 1, 2013. Supporters of the new rule said that the provision would allow the committee to support a rollback of the ban if other states do not pass similar rules and the prohibition leads to weaker racing on the Kentucky circuit.

The rule passed despite heavy opposition from trainers. Dale Romans, a longtime Kentucky trainer, was denied permission to speak by the committee's chairman, Tracy Farmer. From a chair in the audience, Romans called the ban "the final nail in the coffin of Kentucky racing."

Follow KHRC meeting with twitter feeds..

MATT HEGARTY

JENNIE REES

GREG HALL

Welcome to Belmont Park, the future home of the Triple Crown series.........................

Well, that will cut the Derby field down to six in a couple years.

Unbelievably dumb. You have elite athletes you want to perform at the highest levels, and you don't want to help enable their lungs to stay healthy?

Ridiculous. Every trainer in KY will go elsewhere.

Funny, I recall when New York was the only jurisdiction that didn't allow lasix!

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief at the ignorance of those running this sport ... out of all the medication problems in racing, they want to outlaw the one that helps protect horses from bleeding disasters?

i don't expect the rule (if passed by the full committee) to stay in place any longer than the synthetic mandate lasted in cali. especially considering the third paragraph above!

So they are trying to phase out lasix, but mention nothing about adjunct medications?

Adjunct meds not proven to work to contain EIPH anyway. About equal result with placebo.

Yay! Per Matt Hegarty on Twitter: Vote tied 7-7 thus motion to ban lasix does not pass

Good news for race horses.

So you know who's on the wrong side of the argument, here's who voted FOR the ban:

Robert M. Beck Jr.
Tracy Farmer
Ned Bonnie
Allan Wade Houston Sr.
Elizabeth S. Lavin
Alan J. Leavitt
Jerry Yon, M.D.

is that the tracy farmer that zito trained for?

So you know who's on the right side of the argument, those voting AGAINST:

Thomas Conway
Foster Northrop, D.V.M.
Frank Jones Jr.
Franklin S. Kling Jr.
Tom Ludt
Michael A. Pitino
Burr Travis Jr.

Yes. He was a big owner once.. Now he's just big.

I love how these guys like Seth Hancock show up for a meeting like this and stump for "hay, oats and water" (the misnomer that it is). Last time I checked, he was using Pletcher as his trainer. So let me see, he's opposed to giving a horse a $20 Lasix shot on race day, but he has no problem having his horses with a trainer whose horses average four figure vet bills on a monthly basis. Can you say hypocrite?

!!!!! :D



he ought to know better.






maybe this is a ploy to get his vet bills down??

seriously, he ought to know better too.

No it won't.

In all fairness, the vast majority of his horses are with Al Stall.

True, but Claiborne has had, and currently does have, horses with Pletcher.

The list of TOBA/Jockey Club/Breeders Cup members that have horses with guys like Pletcher and Asmussen, whose monthly vet bills dwarf those of smaller stables, is pretty long.

When Turfway Park decided to install a synthetic surface I thought it was a great idea for many reasons...and I liked the idea of a third racing surface because it would help bettors who weren't mindless find edge in some situations.

When I started watching Turfway's poly races ... I thought it would be a travesty if top class horse racing is ever conducted on a surface like that.

You don't have to go back very far to find a time when lasix wasn't allowed on a major circuit...New York in the early-to-mid 90's.

The issue of the day in horse racing always seems to be a completely worthless issue and much ado about nothing. I don't care either way about lasix. It's basically vets and horse trainers VS dopey handwringers and do-gooders from within the industry.

The idea that we should get rid of lasix for PR is a laughably amatuerish move. The idea that there will be some big reaction to us removing the letter L in the program/pp's is based on delusional reasoning partly because many of the backers of the anti-medication movement have no understanding of how the "drug problem" in our game is formulated by horseplayers. I haven't met or heard of anyone in more than 20 years complaining about lasix as an issue (of course until recently when our own people stained the sport by taking their opinions based on bs public) but go to any racetrack in America and you will hear all kinds of theories (right or wrong) after a 47% trainer wins a race (or runs poorly at 2-5) or there is some dramatic form reversal. Asking people if they are for or against drugs in racing in a internet poll with no context and trumpeting those results is asinine but this is the "evidence" that they use. Saying that "we are known as a chemical sport so lets get rid of lasix" is insane not only because it will cause all kinds of unintended consequences but because it isnt attacking the real drug issue or any of the other problems of the sport. When breeders cry about lasix or other legal medications "affect" on the breed yet have no trouble with the manipulation of a foals legs (ie their god given genetic makeup) how can you take them seriously? In order to "fix the game" you must first understand what the hell is going on and it is painfully obvious that so many of the people in charge simply don't. This is the only billion dollar business in existence that relies on the opinions of mostly uneducated on the topic people to make major business decisions without doing an economic impact study on the likely effects of the potential decisions.

i remember when ny was lasix-free. kept some nice horses from running there.

ky is probably hoping to be the industry leader, and see other groups follow their lead. they'll probably be very lonely on their pedestal, which they'll ditch in a hurry when their cunning plan falls apart. ky has bigger issues, they obviously don't have their priorities in order.

on the other hand...is this a move that began behind the scenes-are they hoping for some sort of state help with this vote???

If there was any doubt which was the right way to view the scenario, just view Jerry Bossert's last tweet:

Jerry Bossert ‏ (@holybull71) @ShuveeIL @raypaulick this sport needs the Fed to step in

Is Bossert the guy who freaked out because they wouldn't show the Bengals in the press box?

Could have been, I just know he's a serial NYRA hater whose opinion stinks.

that's the last thing this sport needs!!

:tro:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ky-pane...4495--rah.html


according to this article, the ban attempt has failed.

In a hypothetical defense of "Seth Hancock", the only logical support of race day medication reform is from the breeding side of things. Perhaps its just laziness, but having the racing side weed out stallion prospects that are entirely med dependent could make sense to a guy invested in such horses. Banning lasix however probably does not qualify under those criteria.

I know of no horses who are "med dependent". It is completely made up bs. There are no medications that alter the genetic makeup of a stallion or mare or thier progeny. Perhaps if these people weren't in such a big hurry to get the horses off the track to breed (and protect their investment) perhaps they could sort themselves out a little better on the racetrack.

Nice. So you are on a board of an organization that is banning Lasix in its championship series over the next two years, yet as a business man votes it down.

http://www.drf.com/news/lasix-ban-fa...cky-commission

Here is a good article about the subject. Although I disagree with the author's conclusion, I think it is a fair article that gives both sides of the argument.

http://businessofracing.blogspot.com...o-be-done.html

That sounds like a contradiction. You say that no horses are "med dependent". If the horses don't need meds, then why give them meds?

With regards to genetics, there is strong evidence that bleeding is genetic.

"According to data presented at the Summit, bleeding is to some degree an inherited trait, and the more horses whose bleeding was controlled by Lasix go to the breeding shed, the more that trait will tend to appear in subsequent generation."
http://businessofracing.blogspot.com...o-be-done.html

from the drf article:

In large part, those studies have concluded that horses suffer from bleeding as a result of genetic conditions that evolved in the species millions of years ago and because of the vast volumes of blood pumped at high pressure through a horse's lungs during exercise. Other studies have concluded that furosemide has been proven to mitigate those effects and prevent long-term damage to lung tissue.


as for your query-horses given lasix don't have to have it to run, it's something they can run without. in that regard, they aren't dependent. however, the issue is bleeding, in some horses it can be significant. lasix prevents that. and as romans pointed out, they would have allowed it throughout training, just not on race days which is when he said 'they would need it most'. and as was pointed out, lasix can prevent long-term lung damage.

if ky wants to lead the way on meds, perhaps they should do more to go after the ones that enhance performance, rather than worrying about a drug that prevents bleeding and tissue damage?

I love this sport, but why are so many idiots in charge of it? We're always getting bad news. It's depressing.

Seriously? Horses are treated for issues just like any other flesh and blood being. That doesnt mean they are dependent on meds, just that they arent beyond the scope of illness or malady. Just as people who take a daily dose of aspirin as a preventative measure aren't dependent on aspirin, horses arent dependent on lasix or just about any other med.

The "evidence" that bleeding is to some degree an inherited trait is flimsy considering that pretty much all horses are known to bleed from time to time. What people just dont seem to understand is that often bleeding doesn't just happen out of thin air, there are a whole laundry list of things that can help cause a horse to bleed and none of them involve the horses sire or dam. Ignoring it wont make it better and if you or any other person thinks that lasix or any medication is the biggest mistake being made in the thoroughbred horse breeding arena then you have fallen for the bait, hook line and sinker.

I support this if they ban all diabetes medicine for humans.

Obviously Cannon Shell has the most insightfull and logical thoughts on the subject. Why can't the people in charge be so thoughtful on the subject also?

Bad choice of words on my part. Perhaps "enhanced"?

He does such a good job at it on Gotham Day, on which 2 BC winners were racing on the inner, a thing unheard of, he didn't write a single word in his column about the card. The guy is worse than useless.

The logic of the supporters of the ban is twisted and warped, essentially they argue that a drug that helps the health of horses with no evidence that it masks other drugs, enhances performance or has negative genetic effects should be banned so that the sport does not have the appearance to the ignorant that horses performances are enhanced by drugs. Incredible.

Maybe the supporters should lobby the NFL to ban all painkillers. After all, the sons of many NFL players become NFL players themselves, despite no medical evidence we don't want to create genetically inferior football players who are dependent on pain medication or create the appearance that the outcome of football games are altered by drugs. :rolleyes: