NYT: Drugs & I Want Revenge

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by gamblin4ever

No lasix,Bute or anything. No drugs at all. Like in my 1st post i dont know if these are truly needed,how do they help a horse or anything the like. But it seems to me that a horse that bleeds should not run until the problem is fixed instead of given Lasix as example. Couldn't we have rules like Europe no drugs in system on race day. I admit i don't know much about that stuff but horses racing w/o drugs seems best to me. Thanks for your input Chuck as you know a heck of alot more than me on the subject.

The problem is that you need to have some baselines, guidelines, etc. The tests now are sophisticated enough to pick up minute doses of just about anything if they are looking for it. The problem with the rules is that in many cases finding something in a horses system and its ability to actual affect performance are totally different animals. What we are doing now is simply detecting the presence of a substance with no regard to its effectiveness. Which is not only a huge waste of time and resources but gives off the false impression that every horse is pumped full of drugs every time there is a positive. I am NOT saying that some arent or that certain trainers and/or vets arent going over the line. But all this nonsense about eliminating Lasix is so far off base that I cant believe we continue to even debate it. Lasix is an effective treatment for the deficiency of bleeding in horses. There is no one reason why horses bleed. There really is no prevention. And to want to ban its use, especially when it finally has a university test that proves what we already knew, it works, is spiteful and damaging for the horses. The idea that bleeding is some how bred into or can be bred out of horses is stupid.

I also dont believe that European racing and especially Australian racing is all that clean either. The majority of "hops" that have been used over the years were developed and first used outside of the US. The only place that probably has as close to totally clean racing (in terms of medication) as any place is Hong Kong. And there is virtually no way to duplicate their set up.