Current state of Thoroughbred Racing....

[capbettr]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

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.

I own a horse in Maryland and had a conversation with my trainer the other day about what you mention above, Cannon Shell. With the focus being on trying to find a way to take the accidents out of medication overages, I suggested that all meds be made accountable for. Could all meds in a vets box be controlled by the state and made so that a vet could only have in his box what he had been issued by a state vet, for example?

Part of our conversation was on Pletcher's Mepivacaine (sp?) pos that he's serving now. My trainer couldn't think of a good reason that the Mep should have even been in a vet's box, much less administered. If that truely is the case, then why not make it so a vet can only have state issued drugs, with those drugs and their administration fully traceable through records that show which horse received what and how much, and then have the vet's box checked each day on the way in and out of each stable area?

I'm sure there's lots of pro's and con's to what I've suggested but, geez, we have to start somewhere.....

Thoughts?