Nose strips

[TJ]

I do like that concept of what it does in helping with opening the nasal passage and allowing more air in.....not so much to aid in bleeding as much as aid in getting oxygen to the heart and lungs.

Hello Oleos,
The issue that you are forgetting is that the reason why there is a burst capillaries in the lung. The strip isn't to help the blood flow going around the lungs, and you are right about getting more oxygen but wrong about it helping the capilaries not to break. The excercise causes the heart to beat fast thus creating more, harder blood flow and since the walls of the capillaries can break because they are thin, the blood pressure in the capillaries cause the breakage.
The capillaries in the brain does the same thing if the blood pressure rise.

Hi Karen,
You are so right about why they bleed.....one other contributing factor is that the red corpuscles in the blood of the horse are much smaller than that of a human.....so they can really get rolling in there:>) This is part of the reasoning for giving lasix and taking the water away....it thickens the blood in hopes it will slow the speed of the blood, creating less pressure and hopefully may be able to sustain the exertion without bleeding. TJ

[Lei Owen]

TJ....what I have been hearing is pretty much dead on to what you just said....however I hear barrel folks have all good things to say about the strip and I don't believe they are big Lasix users anyway.

Your right about barrel racer's aren't big user's of Lasix. Why? They just won't buy one that has to be run on Lasix. Just a for instance, we have a mare who is a g-daughter of Flit Bar Bagger. We found that she bled two year's ago and retired her. Just not gonna mess with it. We bought her when she was a 2 year old, she was 13 when she bled.

I watched dang near every run made at the Better Barrel Races final's in Oklahoma City a few week's ago. 1450 entries who ran twice to make the Short Go and big buck's. (Talk about overload! ) There were maybe 2-3 that ran in nasal strips. It was all the talk on barrel racing forum's about I'll Take Another and his nose patch! Everyone wondering just how do they help.

And here's another tidbit we recently learned. All quarter horse race horses, run on Lasix! As a preventive! And when they do, their paper's are stamped bleeder. Regardless if they bled or not! That's crazy! We really like to buy Off The Track horses who haven't made the grade and turn them into barrel horses. We don't have to teach them to run and were already used to crowd's and noise.

We have three thoroughbred mare's in our broodmare band. All three were money earner's on the track. Their paper's are stamped "Bleeder" and are dated. Sooooo, was it common pratice year's ago to run thoroughbred on Lasix, just in case? Is that still a common pratice?

We did learn that O'Neil run's all of his horses with nasal strips. He also braid's their manes for a couple of day's before a race...hence wavy mane's. Including Lava Man. I wonder if he also uses magnetic sheet's on them too?

[karenkarenn]

Their paper's are stamped "Bleeder" and are dated. Sooooo, was it common pratice year's ago to run thoroughbred on Lasix, just in case? Is that still a common pratice?

Yes It still is.