[Merlinsky]

Originally Posted by Mumtaz

Well, he's on a bit of a bandbox, beating his chest for rightousness, no?

It's been found that anywhere from 55% to 80% of horses bleed after a race - worldwide. All countries. Even the ones that don't race on lasix.

It's known that those with more severe bleeding don't place as highly (win) as those with less severe bleeding.

Horses that bleed can easily have permanent damage to their lungs (related to severity and frequency).

If a horse bleeds, it can't race in other parts of the world (= wastage). If it bleeds in the US, it can very often continue to race.

Lasix doesn't mask anything, really, regarding other drugs. Detection nowadays is far to sophisticated to be influenced by a little dilution in the urine.

Exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrage (EIPH) is thought nowadays to have multiple contributory factors, high intrapulmonary pressure being only one (lasix is supposed to attenuate the exercise-induced rise in pulmonary capillary pressures that contribute to bleeding into the lungs).

You might google "EIPH" and "Lasix", and read stuff from the AVMA, AAEP, on The Horse website, etc.

I don't think the use of lasix, or not, is a simple black and white issue.

There's a shock, vets are pro-medication. Gee they're not remotely benefiting financially from the Lasix,etc. that they put in the horses. The AVMA is also pro-slaughter. They might call what they're peddling here pro-horse. I don't believe that's the case myself. Even if you think the horses shouldn't be neglected and are convinced that that'll happen, you can be pro-euthanasia. I don't see them out there pushing people with lousy colts to geld them. The more horses with Lasix that run and go on to breed, the worse the bleeding situation gets in future generations. It should be a negative when you go to a stallion that he was a known bleeder. Not unlike a really weak hind end or pencil thin pasterns. Not 'oh nevermind, he'll just take Lasix.' It's a defect plain and simple. The heart-lung mechanism is one of if not the most important things on a horse. As wonderfully conformed as Secretariat was, he did what he did thanks to heart-lung efficiency. Need to see that in action? Watch the gusts in the Canadian International. As for the masking of other drugs, yeah I guess the World Anti-Doping Agency has it on the banned list because it masks other drugs based on no evidence whatsoever.