pre-race medication

[diane]

www.thoroughbredtimes.com/national-news/2011/04/22/internationa-medication-reaction.aspx

[flingndirt035]

I disagree with this!! I have been around racing and there are reasons why a horse is on certain medications. There are two types of drugs you can administer. Lasiks, or Furomeside (the drug that keeps them from bleeding), which should be administered to every horse. And phenylbutazone, or known as PBZ or BUTE.


First lets discuss LASIKS.....Horses running are putting a tremendous ammount of stress on their bodies by running. When a horse bleeds it is usually because of two reasons. The first is a exercised induced pulmonary hemmorahge (EIPH). This is when the small vessels in the horses lungs rupture from being under so much stress. EIPH heals naturally over a course of a week or so. EIPH is natural because of the way a horse gallops. When the front feet hit the ground

Patent pulmoary hemmoraghe(PPH) is when the horse reacts to hypertension, infection or some type of allergen. When PPH and EIPH are combined we call it "Composite" bleeding. When a horse has experiences composite bleeding, you are almost

EIPH is usually caused from over exertion while PPH is more stress related. Bleeding is caused simply by the way a horses organs are set up and by the way they move. When running at fast speeds, the movement of the intestines can get out of phase with the movement of the diaphragm causing the intestinal mass to swing forward while the horse is trying to exhale. This causes the diaphragm to be slammed forward and slightly upward. The diaphragm, in turn, squeezes part of the lungs against the chest wall. In the lungs are small air sacs and cappillaries in the lungs. These rupture when the horses body is under a large ammount of stress causing the horses air passage to be blocked with blood, making it nearly impossible for a horse to run like he should.

If a trainer believes that his horse is a bleeder a vet can "scope" him. Lasiks simply expels all the extra fluids in the body that is not neccessary for the horse which lowers his blood pressure, causing the capillaries to return to a normal size. PLEASE keep in mind that if a horse bleeds multiple times and is NOT placed on lasiks it can cause a build up of scar tissue on the lungs.

Human athletes take precautionary drugs to help them while they are competing so why not do the same for these performance animals? I know firsthand that when a horse bleeds for the first time it is very painful and they may not run the same after they bleed once.



BUTE is the only other drug that is legal. Bute is simply a drug that is used for fever, inflammation and can help with pain. Its like ibuprofen for horses... Bute is commonly used in horses that are coming back from an injury or older horses with more wear and tear on the bones. We commonly use bute to help keep inflammation in the legs down for our horses that run more often. It losens a horse up so they can have a larger stride and also helps with general soreness and stiffness. A horse that has a large ammount of pain is typically placed on a stronger pain medication.

[ZenRider]

Actually, human athletes are not allowed to use performance enhancing drugs for competitions. Even using aspirin has to be approved in Olympic competitions and such.

It may be a pain in the ass for those that have gotten used to medication over selective breeding and good old fashioned training In the long run it won't only be good for racing, but the breed itself.

[laughalittle1]

Zen.... I dont think I would consider lasix a performance enhancing drug. Its not like it takes pain away. Just makes it so they dont "drown" in their blood, basically.

Also if we took lasix out of the race industry..... you probably would only have a handful of horses racing at best. There are alot of Standardbreds on it and the other day 6 of our 14 races had full rooster of horses on Lasix.

[ZenRider]

It wasn't that long ago when Lasix was first allowed in some states. New York being the last to allow it in 1995. So, I don't think it will be so hard to adjust. The hard part is the generations of bleeders bred in those few years, and what to do with those that bleed, especially those that do so severely and will no longer be able to race.

I remember when Lasix was first allowed in Illinois, I noticed a pattern right off the bat. The first time Lasix user was usually fantastic for it's first two starts, particularly the first start on Lasix, then dropped back to where they were after that, sometimes worst. So perhaps it's only a limited performance enhancer. Less noticeable now, as everyone is on Lasix, but was very noticeable in the first year or so when allowed in Illinois. The horses that ran without Lasix were much more consistent, but had a harder time winning against the first time Lasix user, however often finished better then the ones that had run with Lasix a couple of times or more. That was my observation anyway, but a long time ago and I never did formulate any stats. It did help my betting back then. Bet on the first time user, but if no first time users bet on the horse not running on Lasix, which became fewer and fewer as time went on, so became easier to pick. Wasn't a perfect system, but back then I rarely did worst then break at the track for that short transition time.
Sadly a turkey baster of water in each nostril will get them to scope for bleeding (got that gem from an ex-trainer and likely not giving away any secrets with that little gem, he was pretty matter-of-fact that was common knowledge), but it does explain more why damn near every horse in the USA is running on Lasix more then anything else. Don't know about you, but it is hard to believe so many horses actually need to run on Lasix. The good thing is, hopefully, that means there will be horses that will be able to make the adjustment to running without Lasix and the gene pool may not be as bad as some would have us think?

Only time would tell.

Found this article from 2005 sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/columns/story?columnist=finley_bill&id=2150040 Has some interesting points.

Of course trying to be balanced.
www.oddsonracing.com/about_racing_vets_lasix.cfm

And perhaps the reality? They misspell Lasix through the article for some reason. OK, lots of misspelling, seems to be a problem throughout internet news stories.
www.horseraceinsider.com/John-Pricci/comments/06212011-raceday-lasix-ban-a-question-of-when-not-if/

[laughalittle1]

Very interesting points there, Zen. Much to think about.

I know if we suspect bleeding after a race, we take our standardbreds right to the track vet to be scoped. Not all come up as "bleeders". Out of our barn of 25, we have 6 on Lasix.

If I understand you comment correctly... some people will purposely make it look like their horse is a "bleeder" and may not actually be???

[ZenRider]

That was the impression I got and with how matter of fact the guy was, hard not to believe he was telling the truth. He gained nothing telling me that, though I always thought it was a good thing that he got out of training race horses. Anyway, what led to that revelation, if I remember right, I made a comment as to how amazed I was that in such a short time of Lasix being legal for racing in Illinois that so many horses needed it. That's when he dropped that bombshell on me. Since water won't show up in a test and no way to tell if the bleeding is from water (that would be dispelled when the horse exercised) or if the horse just bled naturally. Certainly made more sense then anything else as to why so many horses suddenly needed the drug in order to race.
I certainly don't imply everyone does it, but I do think the temptation is there and have no doubt there are trainers that do it.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend it, as even if Lasix can help a horses performance, causing damage to their lungs on purpose can not be a good thing to the horse in the long run. Which I would think would be why there would be many trainers that wouldn't dream of trying something like that on their horses. Particularly their best horses, but let's face it, it's hard to find horses not running on Lasix and still hard to believe so many need to.

I'd be interested to know if there are more Thoroughbreds running on Lasix then Standardbreds or if it's about the same?

Finding more old articles. This debate has been a long one. I think the only thing that is bringing about the ban is the though of losing international interest in American horses.

www.nytimes.com/1990/05/08/sports/on-horse-racing-lasix-opposing-sides-consult-the-evidence.html Interesting the study did find it improved the horses ability more then it reduced their bleeding. Over 60% of the horses continued to bleed even with the medication.

espn.go.com/horse/columns/misc/1417524.html

[flingndirt035]

What needs to happen is we need to have different types of races(Such as Lasiks and non lasiks). This way all of your animals are on an equal playing feild. It would take centurys to eliminate bleeding from the racing industry, particularly the Thoroughbred industry.

There are other ways to stop bleeding. My uncle wrote an article for Louisiana Downs or Hot Springs over bleeding. I couldnt find it on either website but I will try to scan it and post a copy. Its titled life on a shoestring and gyp tricks. In this article he explains HOW lasiks works. WHY bleeding occurs in the horse. and HOW to stop it WITHOUT lasiks. In this article he talks about using sand for bedding over traditional shavings, feeding alfalfa to the bleeder and applying a zip tie to a certain vertebrate on the tail. I know for a fact the zip tie works as one of our mares that made over $200,000 was a bad bleeder and would go nuts on lasiks...

Also dropped in mid conversation on the topic of a new drug in the making that would stop bleeding but wouldnt hide as many performance enhancing drugs...