REES: Emulate Europe... Why?
 

So why would we want to emulate European racing?
Posted on July 19, 2011 by Jennie Rees

Why does anyone think America needs to emulate Europe and other racing countries?

Do American breeders really want to emulate a sport where average, middle-class citizens can’t participate as owners?

Does Europe really want America to outlaw Lasix?

Simply brilliant 'plain speaking' commentary by Jennie Rees that sums up the folly of the anti-Lasix "groundswell"...

The Paulick comments are great - Jennie discusses a couple of them in a subsequent blog post from earlier today.

It is amazing to me that
A. Anyone cares what people in Europe think about our racing?
They ignore the World Series so should we not hold it anymore?

B. That people think so little of horseman and vets that they won't even consider that even the dumbest among us knows considerably more about racehorses and the issue of EIPH than they do. Most are educated by reading cliff notes versions of "studies" that they don't even understand. Yet vets who have treated thousands of horses with varying degrees of EIPH are ignored.

C. That somehow banning Lasix will "improve the breed". How so? Mares are bred primarily based on pedigree and at least 90% of stallions fail and don't have much lasting impact. So eliminating "bleeders" is going to happen how exactly?

D. The lessons of the steroid ban have obviously not been learned. Handle is now declining when we were promised increases. Field size is not different. For the most part the same guys are winning and the same guys arent. Obvious illegal steroid guys like Guerrero have emerged. The vaunted general public still doesn't give a damn.

E. Completely underestimating the negative impact on owners

F. That the racing will somehow be better despite more erratic form due to various factors contributing to horses bleeding more severely. The thought that horses won't bleed more often or more severely when you take away the primary medication that controls it is beyond idiotic. Hell lets ban cancer drugs and maybe we will find the cure after all. Or at the very least let all the weak people die so they dont pass their cancer genes along. Let's further expand that to include blood pressure and hypertension meds. Just think of how much our health costs will decrease! The human race will be stronger!

If they ban Lasix, will many of the horses that "bleed" have to be retired? If so, won't there be a mad scramble to find retirement homes for these horses?

My dogs arent picky

Call me cynical but my sense is that the "perception is reality" refrain among supporters of the Lasix ban has nothing to do with gamblers' perception of the impact of therapeutic medications upon our racing product. The anti-Lasix brigade hide behind such arguments, but if they were really concerned about integrity in the racing industry, why do the same people resist disclosure of so-called "dual agency" (known as conflict of interest in all other industries) or disclosure of corrective surgeries on foals?

This current push to ban Lasix has far more to do with a two decades long decline in foreign spending at the prominent American yearling sales. In the current economic climate, there has been a huge effort to recruit foreign buyers to the sales to prop up a weaker domestic bloodstock market (caused by a dearth of owners). Notwithstanding these efforts, foreign spending at the major sales has continued to decline. Rather than admitting that this decline is largely attributable to the fact that over the past few decades they have increasingly produced horses with dirt-oriented and distance-challenged pedigrees that are less appealing to foreign buyers, the arrogant Kentucky commercial breeders who run the alphabet soup organizations (and the Breeders Cup) pushing the Lasix ban seek to place blame elsewhere by asserting that foreign buyers are less inclined to purchase American-bred horses because the use of Lasix has "tainted" our gene pool. A few weeks ago, the DRF weekend edition had an interview with British trainer Mark Johnston that essentially debunked this notion, but why let facts get in the way.

She's pretty effin awesome. A state treasure.

The lasix issue aside, seems to me that most of her points "against" foreign racing were essentially variations on the theme that there is "too little" racing going on in those countries.

I'm not sure that's really a negative.

Aren't some of the main problems in this country that there is too much racing overall (eg, too many stakes, too many bottom-level claiming races with slot-infused purses) and too many people with "horseman" licenses that don't deserve them?

The illusion that horses are less medicated in Europe is IMO complete BS. The only time horses in Europe are less medicated is on race day.

:tro:

While they're at it, might as well copy the British bookmaker system instead of parimutuels, where it is possible to lose money on a successful winning selection. :rolleyes:

Agreed it is a made up argument. If foreign interests were holding our horses in such low regard then why have exports risen since 2003? In 2003, 2397 registered TB's were exported. Last year 3263 were exported. The last 2 years the Europeans were the only group that saw declines. The pacific rim, Australia/New Zealand, South and central America and other (russia) have all increased their import of US horses though the numbers vary from year to year.

Why do we shuttle so many stallions to S. America and Australia? Why do the Koreans and Russians come and buy tons of horses here as opposed to other places?

At Blood Horse on the 7/20 video with Haskin and Shulman, they interviewed Ken McPeek. He has interesting opinions about medications.

He speaks with forked tongue