Kentucky's ongoing attempt to end racing in state proceeds..

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

no, they use it because they can here. if everyone truly thought it was performance enhancing, than why do i see horses racing here without an 'L' next to their name???

I don't know if every trainer thinks lasix is performance enhancing.

I personally think it is a big mistake to use lasix on a first-time starter. The reason is because there is a small percentage of horses that will actually run worse on lasix. I have no idea what that percentage is. It is probably somewhere between 1-5%. If possible, I would like to run a horse at least once or twice without lasix. That way you can at least see how they run without it as compared to how they run with it.

One of my trainers (a different trainer than the one I was on the phone with) had a horse that had run 3 times without lasix. He had run great every time. He had two wins and then ran 2nd in a stakes race. He then decided to put the horse on lasix for his next race. He figured that lasix helps most horses and it would probably help this horse (even though the horse had never bled). The horse ended up running poorly in his first race with lasix. The trainer never even thought of the possibility that lasix might have been the cause of the dull effort. He was dumbfounded as to why the horse ran so bad. The horse had been training great. He ran him again with lasix and he ran bad again. They went over the horse with a fine-tooth comb and couldn't find anything wrong with him. He came out of the race great and he was training great.

At this point, the trainer started thinking about the possibility that the lasix was the cause of the two bad races. The horse had run great three times in a row without lasix. Then the horse ran poorly two races in a row with lasix. The trainer couldn't come up with any explanation for the horse's two bad races. So he thought there was a small possibility that this horse was one of the few that runs worse with lasix. He took the horse off lasix for his next race and the horse won (it was a stakes race) by 8 lengths.

This is not something that is common. As I said, I don't think anyone knows what percentage of horses that run worse with lasix. It could be as low as 1%. But this trainer is lucky that he ran that horse without lasix those first few races. Otherwise he would have never known that the horse was much better without lasix. That horse ended up being a multiple graded stakes winner. I'll bet you that horse would have never won a stakes race on lasix. That is why I think it is a good idea to run a horse a couple of times without it.