Drugs: What we've lost...

[dray33]

I was watching the horses today on TVG, and it dawned on me. It's true, drug usage has robbed us of a level playing field... but we have lost something beyond the integrity of the sport. When we took it upon ourselves to medicate these animals, we sacrificed their innate beauty.

I watched about 5-6 races, and it became clear. Many horses had problems loading. A poor horse at Belmont nearly flipped, twice. He got all banged up. The jossling and banging in the gate was bad, but I noticed too that even the horses, as they were being led to the gate, were fired up, foaming at the mouth, kicking, biting the pony, fighting mad. After the race, the lucky ones got into the winners circle. There, they tossed their heads, pulled at the handler, fought and kicked. To me, they just seemed so angry and fired up. At all the tracks. Is that their nature? You would know better than I.

I watched a replay of Henrythenavigator in the 2008 Boylesports Irish 2000 Guineas ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NMbQfHwqkI ). I know it's one race, but it displays the majesty, the brilliance, the intelligence, and even the kindness of these animals. At 3:30 into the video,, Henry is slapped, photo'd, jostled, pushed, cajoled, bumped and crowded. He handles himself better than many of the people around him! Is it me? Am i missing something? Maybe I am off here, and maybe my lack of knowledge/experience is leading me to believe something that is really not there. Is there such a dramatic behavioral difference between the two continents, and is race day medication the cause??

[ageecee]

I would say its the nature of the business Drew.

You have some crazy horses i mean some lunatics out there. Then you have bad gate horses who for some reason dont feel like being in that small area in the gate. Then you probably have some sore horses who arent getting any pain medication who are fearful of running and they start throwin there head because they dont even want to be on the track. It happens at every track.

[dray33]

Good points, just wondering. The horses seem so well behaved over there, even in the non race or post race situations. Calm. Poised, thats the word. Ours are on fire. Just thought it's odd.

[ageecee]

I would say horses that are lunatics might be getting steroids on a regular basis. But ive seen some horses that dont get it that are just as crazy.

[tbrace]

I believe Dray is right. Let me tell a story.

I had a horse with a trainer that I didn't know, recommended by a partner on a particular horse. They were at a second level track, the horse just starting out.

Every time that I talked to the trainer, who was the leading trainer of the meet, by the way, he complained about how mean and agressive my horse was.

This surprised me, because he hadn't been overly agressive up to that point.

He had one race, was an idiot in the gate, and ran all over the track like he was crazy. We finally pulled the horse and sent him elsewhere.

So, here's the rest of the story. A few weeks later, I got a vet bill for 10 steroid shots! He was there eight weeks!

The idiot trainer is lucky the horse didn't eat him.

The horse took a long time to come down off all those drugs, and finally did better.

After a while, with a trainer that used no drugs, he became elegent, poised, and a gentleman. I wonder why?

[Barbaro06]

'Roid rage plain and simple. Tamper with nature and you get ugly results. Of course you do get horses that just have nasty personalities, kinda like people.

And notice there are no asst. starters in the gate in Europe...and the horses aren't ponied to the gate either (I may be mistaken there).

[aardvark]

I still see some impressive beasts out there. The heat, humidity, the blood, the sweat, and the beer are all contributing factors. You are seeing steroids everywhere you look I guess.

Steroids havent cheated us out of anything, it is the people in the industry. Focus your malcontent at them.

No more steroids, those same people will find another way to gain an advantage at your expense.

[dray33]

Well, that's enough to make me hurl! Unacceptable.

Other countries don't allow these drugs, and certainly not all these race day meds that are common place in the US. All that time locked in stalls is a good point, as is some of the other reasons our horses seem "hot". But I can't help but think we, as a racing society, are a bit speed obsessed. So many sprint races, the horses need to be on edge, or "sharp" to be a sprinter. Having a high strung horse, or one a bit over the edge might not be seen as a bad thing. So all the meds can really rile them up. Besides running mostly on grass, these other countries, seem to have horses with more calmness, more "mind". It's only one film, but it is a startling comparison, watching Henrythenavigator. He is absolutely fantastic before, during and after the race. Like either ours, or theirs, are a different breed.

[dray33]

Steroids havent cheated us out of anything, it is the people in the industry. Focus your malcontent at them.

Absolutely. The horses are beyond reproach, paying for our inhumanity.

No more steroids, those same people will find another way to gain an advantage at your expense.

Unfortunately, true. Dutrow might have said it best. Ban the Vets. Or maybe we spend big money on testing labs and really NAIL the cheats. I would like that.

[Tucumcari]

Different handling makes all of the difference. Watch a race from a place like Hastings and every hore has to be pushed in and flippers are fairly common. The head down the coast. Yes Sc Cal has bad gate horses, but few have to be pushed. They are schooled. Even individual trainers horses act differently. Depends on who you watch. Watch the difference between Miyadi and Dorf up north or a few people with very different training/schoolong results. Everyone's programs are individual. Some horses are cranked up to "tilt" on race day and some train into a race. Some medicate to calm, some medicate to stimulate... it's a HUGE ball park

[ZZTOPPERS]

Over in the UK, the horses are not led by ponies through the post parade or to the gate, and they load fairly well for a couple of reasons: 1) the horsemanship practiced over there during training, and 2) the starters don't put up with fractious horsesd very long before scratching them on the spot. The horses are trained so much differently--they are ridden back and forth from the yards to the gallops ALONG BUSY CITY STREETS WHERE THE SIDEWALKS ARE ACTUALLY HORESE PATHS and they learn to behave. You still see a fractiopus horse every now and then, but it's not that prevalent. Hoinestly, over here it's also about the training as well--a good trainer will gate train and school as much as is necessary to ensure a safe and willing racehorse.

[Tucumcari]

As someone who has been on the recieving end of euro and SA imports they are not especially better schooled than domestics. especially the french. Most horses don't need a pony to the post, but it helps to prevent problems like loose horses.

[Roger]

Lets look at the perfect hay oats and water. No one will be able to race a horse past 5 years old because as a horse or old man ages his muscles take longer to repair without help. Joints will stay inflamed , muscles will stay sore and horses will be able to run at about 75%. We will see short fields and a long line of young horses loaded in the kill trailer to Mexico. Talk about cruel, have you ever worked out really with out asprin when you are only in good shape. Wait until you are old and try chopping wood without it even when you are in great shape. People it is more humane to properly use meds and they do add to useful life of a race horse. Some of you get upset about people eating horse flesh, and with all your complaining, we now have a more serious problem. I'll take mine out back and feed them to buzzards before I will let them be sent to Mexico. This is a lot deeper than you all seem to think.

[gotpaints]

Lets look at the perfect hay oats and water. No one will be able to race a horse past 5 years old because as a horse or old man ages his muscles take longer to repair without help.

I have to disagree with this part of the quote. I feed my 17-year-old only whole oats and flax seed, she also gets all the grass/grass hay she wants and 4 flakes of alfalfa a day. She was raced at 2 (albit on the stock racing circuit since she's a paint) and we haul to barrel races at least 48 weekends a year, making anywhere from 1-5 runs a weekend (roughly 250 yds per run depending on the pattern) with only one day off a week. She actually runs better now than she did when I had her on supplements. She's never been injected (even on the track) or had any maintenance done except for teeth and regular trims or shoes (depending on where we are going) all her life. While she isn't in a stall 24/7 like racehorses, I don't believe that her just walking around the paddock helps repair the muscles.

I think a lot of supplements out there (not all) have people tricked into thinking that they can't feed their horses just oats or whatever, they make people think that they HAVE to buy their expensive supplement in order for their horse to do well. If I had to put my horse on a supplement there are only a few out there that I believe do anything for the horse. My horse looks and feels better now than she ever has. But that is JMO. [/u]

[KamiBrooks]

[quote="gotpaints]
I think a lot of supplements out there (not all) have people tricked into thinking that they can't feed their horses just oats or whatever, they make people think that they HAVE to buy their expensive supplement in order for their horse to do well. [/quote]

I think the supplement problem is that it gets their total nutritional profile all whacked up. I've seen some of the stacks of tubs some trainers use. I went through and calculated the total nutrional profile on some of them. Basically, of the horses I saw they are getting WAY TOO MUCH of key minerals and vitamines and those are known to interfer with absorbtion of other minerals and vitamines. An example is iron... many track horses are getting so much iron that I keep joking that its amazing that they're not rusting from the inside out.

So, I can totally see a horse improving by taking them OFF supplements.

As for pain meds, giving them AFTER a work to prevent excessive pain is totally different than HAVING to give them BEFORE work. If you need to give pain meds before work, then the something isn't right. There's a reason the horse has pain and that needs to be resolved first.

If I have an inflamed tendon and take pain meds so I can go out and chop wood, you can bet that tendon is going to keep getting worse. If I keep doing it, the tendon is eventually going to be permanently damaged. So wouldn't it make more sense to avoid chopping wood for the 2-3 weeks it would take to allow the tendon to heal then start back slowly instead of keep pushing it? If you've ever had a damaged tendon, then you'd understand why you don't want to push it into a permanent injury.