We tried the commissioner thing once before and it was a miserable failure and waste of money. Ideally this would be a great idea if you could find the right person for the job and the states and tracks would cede power but they wont so I don't even want to bother with the subject any more.
As for the "no drugs for 2 year olds" matter, what is declared a drug? Lasix? Bute? everything? I understand the idea in theory but it seems silly that a 2 year old horse is treated differently then an older one. Getting rid of medications is an idealistic way of thinking. Instead we should highly monitor and regulate all medications. I would have no problem turning over my medication records to the proper authorities and subject my horses to out of competition testing. Many would resist but the reality of horses having many minor physical issues and reality of needing to treat them medically is real.
Lasix is not some great evil drug that it is made out to be. It helps bleeders to some degree and is easily tested for and reglated. The physical side effects, mostly dehydration, are easily taken care of. The "masking" abilities are no longer valid with the types of testing now done. We spend far too much time worrying about Lasix, Bute, Banamine, etc. What we should be focusing on are the presently undetectables and future technology such as gene manipulation.
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12-29-2006, 09:36 AM
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