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Originally Posted by King Glorious
Except cmorioles hasn't said that he'd rather see it not given. Not from what I've been reading anyway. He said he would just rather there be a penalty given to those that use it. The horse that just came to my mind is Smarty Jones. If memory serves me right, John Servis did exactly as cmorioles is talking about here. He felt forced to take it to make sure his horse was competing on an even playing field even though his horse wasn't a bleeder. If there was a weight penalty in place instead, perhaps Servis doesn't add the drug because the penalty would have the effect of leveling the playing field.
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Trainers aren't veterinarians. Their job is to give the horse what they feel is the best opportunity to win a race, and they aren't necessarily going to do everything based on evidence. There have been plenty of trends that turn out to not be supported by science later, but that in the meantime people practice. Trainers used to tie copper around their horses' tails in an attempt to minimize EIPH? Wut? But they did it. Hell, millions of people use glucosamine even though there actually isn't any solid evidence that it works. Doctors will even recommend it (and they should know better).
So I get why Servis, on the eve of the biggest race in the country, thought, "well, just in case." But it doesn't mean it actually was performance-enhancing, or that Smarty would have lost the race had he not been on it.