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#5
12-10-2013, 05:47 PM
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Quote:
The essential issue here is that very few people have any clue as to what health issues are for racehorses or what options exist for their treatment. How people can come to conclusions about what should be done without any real understanding of the issue at hand, just the preception of the issue, seems to be a recipe for disaster. Ok Baffert was giving his horses thyroid powder and he stopped and they stopped croaking. Must be indiscriminate use of thyroid powder right? Well why don't any other trainers horses die form this? I have used thyroid powder on hundreds of horses and none died. I don't know another trainer or vet who has ever had horse die due to thyroid powder. I do know that if I was using something that I believed potentially was causing my horses to die I'd much rather have something relatively innocuous like thyrol-L take the blame rather than the real culprit. The conclusion drawn is that he was giving thyroid powder to all his horses and it caused 7 to die because Rick Arthur mentioned it as unusual but he did so in releasing a report stating that there was no smoking gun. The "17 shots" the Pletcher horse got over the period of time are also hardly something that a vet wouldn't prescribe or directly caused any issues. -1 of the shots was for Adequan which is preventative medicine -3 of the shots were for Hylauronic acid in the stifles. This is a single procedure done 5-7 days before the race and three shots are required because the joint is large and splitting the does into three areas works better so that the entire joint is lubricated. Horses dont die from broken stifles. -2 of the shots were sedatives used to calm the horse to allow the vet to do the procedure on the stifles safely. -2 of the shots were for banamine which is an anti-inflammatory medications. -1 of these banamine shots would be given when doing the procedure on the stifles to lessen the potential of inflammation in the area where the needle goes into the joint. The other was given 48 hours before. -2 of the shots given were lasix and based on another medication given prerace it appears that the horse had a history of bleeding as 1 was given a week out when the horse presumably had his last work before the race. -1 was dexamethasone/cortisone also an anti-inflammatory given when work was done on the stifles. -1 was Estrone which is a hormone given 48 hours before race to help prevent bleeding. -2 the last 2 shots were for vitamin B-1 and for Calcium which help calm a horse before the race. So I'm sure that some will be aghast at all those shots being given but they all have a viable reason for being used and the vast majority of them were given during one procedure. The horse appeared to have stifle issues and bled. Often stifle issues are due to conformation issues and dont just go away with rest. The idea that a vet was somehow forced into doing these treatments is simply not reality. There is this misconception that horses are either sound or unsound like a black and white deal. Truth is that they all deal with unsoundness of some degree at some point. It may be as simple as a grabbed quarter but when they arent sound they need treatment. Horses with not so great conformation will need more help as the concussion absorbed by their legs is distributed through the leg in a less than ideal manner. 
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