[Riot]

Excerpts from Matt Hegarty DRF column on todays meeting.

Can't wait to go to the "town hall" meeting Already being talked about, the veterinary community is going to turn out in force to support the health and welfare of the horse in the face of this threat.

05/16/2012 4:21PM
Kentucky commission to hold ‘town hall’ on Lasix
By Matt Hegarty

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission plans to press ahead with a discussion over the possible phase-out of the raceday use of the anti-bleeding medication furosemide in stakes races with a town-hall style meeting in early June.

John Ward, the executive director of the commission, said at a commission meeting on Wednesday that the hearing would take place on June 4, 5, or 6. The hearing will be designed to take input on a proposed rule the commission unveiled on Wednesday that would ban the use of furosemide, commonly known as Lasix, before juvenile stakes races held in ....

“We are very willing to listen to anyone,” Ward said.

The introduction of the proposed rule banning raceday use of furosemide before stakes races followed by one month the rejection of a proposal that would have begun phasing out the raceday use of the drug in all races in 2013. That vote, which was hastily arranged, ended in a 7-7 tie.

Just before the Wednesday meeting, the Kentucky Equine Drug Research Council, an advisory committee to the commission, voted 5-4 to reject a recommendation that the commission approve the phase-out in stakes races, according to officials.

The drug council’s rejection of the motion and the earlier failure of the wider phase-out of furosemide use led several opponents to criticize the commission for continuing to pursue a ban on the drug, which is used to treat bleeding in the lungs and is legal to administer on race day in every racing jurisdiction in North America.

“I don’t understand how this thing keeps coming up,” said Burr Travis, a northern Kentucky lawyer and horse owner who voted against the wider ban last month.

As a result of that criticism, Jack Conway, a horse owner and breeder, offered a motion that would have prohibited the commission from discussing a furosemide ban for one year. It was seconded by Dr. Foster Northrup, a practicing veterinarian, but it failed by a vote of 7-4 after the commission’s chairman, Robert Beck, said that approval of the motion “would send the wrong message.”