Oaklawn to give bonuses for winning without Lasix
 

Horses who win races without competing on Lasix during the upcoming meet at Oaklawn Park will receive a purse bonus, Charles Cella, president of the Hot Springs, Ark., track, announced Thursday. The program awards horses a 10 percent supplement to the winner’s share of the purse, with bonuses to range in value from $1,080 to as high as $60,000 for the richest race of the meet, the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby.

http://www.drf.com/news/oaklawn-give...-without-lasix

Nice to see the industry continuing to chase a canard instead of focusing on real medication issues.

Oh good God, what is it to you if they want to do this? See they don't think they're chasing jack. They see it as rewarding something they believe is good. If you don't, fine. Going all Lasix or no Lasix right now seems to be inviting a pretty epic chasm in this sport so finding some sort of middle ground that you can take or leave isn't killing anybody. You consider this not as big a fish to fry as other things. Well others consider it a pretty big deal. You're not gonna talk'em off the ledge there plus let's just acknowledge that we as a sport don't have to tangle issues one at a time. You can deal with medication policy as well, but Oaklawn doing this doesn't have to involve multi-state jurisdictions and anti-trust considerations. It doesn't right now involve something they're foisting on the Breeders' Cup program. It's kinda easier for them to do this relatively small thing.

People can continue to use Lasix and unless the non-Lasix horse wins, things continue on as they always have. Given the various rules about going on or off Lasix out there, it's not like there's gonna be a huge rush. If you expect the anti-Lasix folks out there to 'put their money where their mouth is' that includes giving them opportunities to breed to horses with a record of running without Lasix. If incentives help with that, fine. If the horse needs Lasix to run comfortably, they'll get it and they'll get exactly as much money as they'd have expected to get from the purse previously.

Are you seriously suggesting that it's a bad idea to try to give horses that don't need Lasix to succeed an incentive that could then lead to highlighting them as a breeding option for those owners to then breed a horse less likely to bleed? At the very least, you'd be breeding a better horse, one with a greater heart-lung efficiency. Even if you still had concerns about bleeding and want to continue to use Lasix, that horse would be less likely to bleed through it right?

The problem is not that they are giving more money to those racing without it, the problem is that it is promoting that Lasix is somehow bad for the sport or for the horses. I have a problem with promoting myths without evidence, you know, like the one that Lasix weakens the breed.

Are horses tested before or after a race? I know they are tested for illegal medications. And is this testing done just randomly, or are all tested? Also, Lasix is a legal medication so why would horses be tested for that? In the PP's, when it says that a horse is running with Lasix, is this just the trainer telling someone in charge? sorry for all the questions, this area of horse racing has always been a little fuzzy to me.

If I was driving intoxicated on drugs or booze and taken to the hospital by police for testing, would they test me for Advil also?

They do test for Lasix and more specifically what levels. Just ask P. Noel Hickey ;)

thanks D.....So I gather that its a legal medication only at certain levels. But is illegal at a higher level. Is that correct?

Yes

Not too long ago we had the famous case of an absent minded, politically left-leaning (actually falling), KY vet who was dismissed for double dosing horses the morning of a race. :)