NYT Series: "Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys"

[Cannon Shell]

http://www.drf.com/news/jockey-club-...-raceday-lasix

"Jockey Club officials explained on Friday that the rules would seek to change a "culture" on the backstretch that they said encouraged trainers to turn to medications in order to address minor ailments and niggling aches and pains"


So I suppose the new strategy is to simply ignore those issues? Or race horses less....

[Heels1989]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

http://www.drf.com/news/jockey-club-...-raceday-lasix

"Jockey Club officials explained on Friday that the rules would seek to change a "culture" on the backstretch that they said encouraged trainers to turn to medications in order to address minor ailments and niggling aches and pains"


So I suppose the new strategy is to simply ignore those issues? Or race horses less....

Come on Chuck. It's all about the Ice Machines now.

[parsixfarms]

The Jockey Club's approach here is typical of why so many things don't get done in the industry. Rather than embrace the large number of reforms on which there seems to be general consensus and get them enacted (see steroids and milkshakes, for recent examples), they badly overreach. The likely result is that, without broad industry support (and there is certainly not broad industry support for the elimination of raceday Lasix), little, if anything, will be accomplished at the various state levels where any such reforms would need to be enacted. Someone needs to tell them the inconvenient truth that they can't do things the way Roger Goodell does.

[pointman]

What I don't get is the call for the ban on a lasix. As I understand it, there is no scientific evidence that it enhances performance. It does allow horses that bleed to race. If you take that away, it seems to me that you either get horses who are raced that bleed which is ultimately ignoring the horses medical needs and possibly cruel or less horses in competition which creates more unwanted horses which enhances another problem and makes ownership less attractive if horses are not racing as often.

How is it that a drug that helps the medical needs of a horse is such a bad thing that it needs to be banned?

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by pointman

What I don't get is the call for the ban on a lasix. As I understand it, there is no scientific evidence that it enhances performance. It does allow horses that bleed to race. If you take that away, it seems to me that you either get horses who are raced that bleed which is ultimately ignoring the horses medical needs and possibly cruel or less horses in competition which creates more unwanted horses which enhances another problem and makes ownership less attractive if horses are not racing as often.

How is it that a drug that helps the medical needs of a horse is such a bad thing that it needs to be banned?

They needed to re-classify Lasix as a performance enhancer (25 years after it was legalized in most places) because calling it what it actually is makes it far more difficult to demonize. By calling it a performance enhancing drug they can do exactly what they have done, attracting attention from PETA and nitwits like Jerry Bossert and Joe Drape who are more than happy to drag the sport through the mud, promoting the agenda to the uneducated general public who buys it.

Of course by making these assertions they have in effect rendered the last 25 years worth of results as tainted and made those cynical about the sport even more so.

Naturally no one ever talks about the negative impact financially that a ban on lasix will have on owners and racing cards if some percentage of horses are completely not able to compete or are severely negatively impacted. I have a small operation relatively speaking and I have at least 3 horses that will struggle without lasix and possibly others as well. That it actually works and is available to everyone therefore leveling the playing field seems to be lost on them...