What if we cut off drugs?

[Sam]

You can continue to believe that breeding is the reason for the decline in averge starts per horse, breakdowns and unsoundness and I can continue to believe that training methods and drugs are the main reasons.

The truth is most likely somewhere in the middle. There are horses being bred who shouldn't (Buddha) but there is no such thing as a perfect horse. Those imperfections are compounded and eventually lead to disaster with the training methods, over-abundance of drugs and crappy track conditions. Polytrack is NOT the answer, neither is a complete ban on drugs. More sensible training regimes and a stricter, NATIONAL drug policy would be a better step in a positive direction. Properly used, steroids have their place. That place is NOT in yearlings. If a horse isn't in training, it shouldn't be on medication of any kind. And 'training' doesn't include sales preps for these idiotic 2yo-I-T sales.

[soundfast]

DDT you think A. P. Indy is so great as a sire of sires he cannot beat Slew City Slew. Sons of A P Indy at stud 64% starters 37% winners 3% stakes winners average earnings per runner $39,265. Sons of Slew City Slew 66% starters 43% winners 5% stakes winners $39,273 average earnings per runner.

[DDT]

Soundfast

I never said I thought A.P. Indy was great, or a sire of sires, what I said was he is a much better sire than Slew City Slew using any meaningful statistic. As far as I know Evansville Slew is the only son of Slew City Slew at stud in N.A., and I would think that Pulpit would take care of him. You obviously have your opinion and you are more than entitled to it.

DDT

[Denise]

But how do Quarter horses survive racing a quarter of a mile? They must be worked in sprints a lot by their trainers, aren't they?. And most of them have a lot of Thoroughbred blood in their veins.

Yes, but they only ever run 2 furlongs. It's pretty easy to sustain silly fractions for a quarter of mile. Plus, QHs are stout, smaller, shorter coupled, with big rear engines. Maybe a QH is a Chevy truck, but thoroughbreds are Ferraris.
You simply can't have the same performance expectations from two completely different frames and engines.

[soundfast]

A. P. Indy (according to Thoroughbred Times Stallion Register for 2008 the Active sons Index) has 55 active sons at stud and Slew City Slew has 12.

[louis finochio]

If all the drugs were banned for a period of time, we would then know what stallions are producing sound individuals without med. Only the sound & strong will survive.

[teb]

Funny how this forum about stopping drugs has turned into a thread on breeding unsoundness.

Do away with the medication period! And not just race day. So you can drug them up to the race but then consider yourself doing right by the horse by not drugging him on raceday.

Sam, you mentioned surfaces. Most horses in Europe gallop on a variety of surfaces, not all turf, and always run on different tracks which have different angles and varying degrees of hardness or softness. Turf tracks here in the summer can be like the road. Having a horse going to the left all the time and actually trying to have the surface as perfect as you can, doesn't allow a horse any scope for coping with the unexpected.

But this is supposed to be a thread about drugs. Never mind breeding and never mind surfaces, the drugs have to go, but obviously nobody seems to think they're a problem we'd rather blame it on the breeders.

Terri

[louis finochio]

The way we train in the US is far different from the Euro way. I have asked many vets if the med was banned in the US how would it effect our racing. Most of the vets said there would be no racing, because the Tb would become sore & would be not able to train or race as frequently with med.

Thirty years ago in Europe they didnt know what a fashion bred was, as there was no fashion breds. Today in Europe there is a high % of fashion breds that are only average 6-10 lifetime starts. Has the new generation of Euro trainers changed their training routine? No, I wouldnt think so, have their tracks become harder & faster than in the past? No, they are mostly the same type of tracks, as those short meetings are rotated to different race tracks thru the racing season.

The re-shaping of the breed has changed, as these fashion breds cant even take those Euro training methods to keep them sounder longer, as their ancestors of the past achieved many more lifetime starts as non-fashion breds. If med was allowed in Euro racing would these fashion breds average more lifetime starts? I dont think so, as you must build the foundation before you build the house.

[DDT]

Soundfast

The Thoroughbredtimes listing is out of date, Evansville Slew is the only son of Slew City Slew listed as an active N.A. sire. My Imperial Slew, Raging Slew and Slew The Deputy are shown as not covering any mares in 2007. Be that as it may, TEB is correct, this thread is about drugs, and the sooner we do away with all race day medication the better. If your horse cannot train or race without medication then he/she should be doing something else.

DDT

[spex4me]

If your horse cannot train or race without medication then he/she should be doing something else.

Amen.

[Gallop58]

I had an exchange with a racing secretary where I was told that essentially racing would halt immediately if a Lasix ban was put in. "Couldn't fill a card, maybe not even a race"
The one time economic disruption of an immediate ban would bring the industry to its knees. The problem I have is that I think this might be the shock that's needed. We seem to be going in that direction anyway, just with a softer landing. Why not get it over with? Does anyone actually think we'll be racing with drugs in 50 years? That this will all blow over? No way. It's self evident. Time to cut bait and get on with life.

Unfortunately, to the original point of this thread, the process is painful. As any withdrawl is to an addiction.

[DDT]

I was waiting for this side of the argument to come up. So what if tracks cannot fill a card, except for seasonal short meetings such as Saratoga and DelMar all tracks are having problems filling cards with legal race day medications. We have to start somewhere, and I would say that having a reasonable cut-off date, say 90 days, would give owners and trainers sufficient time to prepare for no race day medications. I believe that once the playing field was level, the increase in handle would more than make up for lost days. Management either wants to clean up racing and strive for safety or they do not. Trainers and owners that oppose drug free racing oppose it because they could not survive without it regardless of what it is doing to their horses. I say who needs them. The next issue would be uniform enforcement for violators. The punishment should be swift and meaningful. You will always have cheats, but if cheating means being banned from the sport the cheaters will think long and hard before trying to steal a $20,000.00 purse or cash a bet.

DDT

[soundfast]

If it was up to me there would be a ban on all race day drugs but I do not think that breakdowns would end without them. If all race day drugs were banned everywhere at the same time where would they race? They would run their horses without the drugs. The vets would be very unhappy though since so much of their income these days comes from filling and emptying a syinge numerous times per day. It is obvious when some U S horses race in foreign countries that do not allow drugs that those horses never needed them. Curlin did not need Lasix or any other drugs. He won in Dubai where they do not allow them. No lasix would probably not affect the outcome of a race. The real bleeders are usually on 2 medications not just lasix. Bute might keep a horse from feeling an injury until it was too late. I am much more against that than Lasix. My ex back when insisted we buy a horse(which was put in my name) and he would train him and race him in MA. The horse had a bone chip that he insisted would not bother the horse. He ran the horse on Bute. The bone chip moved during the race and the horse fractured his ankle after the race in his stall after the bute wore off according to what my ex told me. I was not there I was at my job in NJ. The horse was euthanized and I have been sorry I listened to him ever since. I wanted him to either get the horse I liked or get surgery on that one to remove the chip but he was certain it would never be a problem and he had been rubbing horses for many years and claimed to know what he was doing. My ex also rubbed a filly back when we were together whose name was Exerene and she was a SW. I got the chance to meet her one time. She broke down and was euthanized during the running of the Little Silver H. at Monmouth Park. As far as I know she was not given any race day drugs. I do not know what happened to cause that injury and I was not there.

[newyorkmary]

I don't remember there being any problems filling race cards in NY before Lasix was allowed - when was that, in the mid 1990s?

[Dave C]

Alberta was the last or second last jurisdiction in NA to allow lasix, and about half the TB's still run without it. On the Standardbred side lasix is still not allowed and many StB's are brought in from other tracks and taken off lasix. My impression of those StB's is that they run faster after coming off lasix.

If someone really wants to answer the question about whether drugs are needed to keep horses in NA sound the place to look is Hong Kong and Macau. They import all their horses and have the money, and do, buy the top breeding from all over the world. They also run drug free. If NA horses need the drugs then you would expect them to account for a disproportionate percentage of the breakdowns in Hong Kong and Macau. My guess is that their is no difference between the rate of breakdowns for NA horses running in HK compared to horses from Aus, Ire, GB, or Fr, indicating that NA horses can compete just fine at the highest levels without drugs: right Curlin.