Interesting article on Racing, Vets, Drugs, etc.

[griff]

I would not follow the French to the holy grail.

griff

[valjoe]

Jeff, never made it to Boston but did run and finish the San Antonio marathon, but never again.

I fund that aspirin did not do much for me but ibuprofen got me up ever morning ready to go again.

You can run through the wall with Ibuprofen, and keep going until your knees buckle. Thats why I now have two titanium knees

griff

Unfortunately horses don't have the luxury to get titanium knees and therefore shouldn't race or train when drugged, pain and inflammation besides being a sign of an injury also signal the body to repair and get stronger in that particular area, by taking a pain or inflammatory medicine you rob it from that ability.
unfortunately racing here just mirrors our society where virtually everyone is hooked up on some kind of drug. People seem to think that the drug companies are their best friend.
Personally I would like to see a drug free racing, it would benefit everybody.

[karenkarenn]

I don't know if I would agree with drug free racing. I like Lasix, keeps the horses from popping a blood vessel and scaring people who don't know what is going on with the horse quiet. If we took Lasix away - we would have more people screaming animal cruelty and then the meds to keep the horse from bleeding from what I was told are worse, owners would be losing money for waiting for their horses to heal, then we REALLY would be in a hole.
I don't think we will live in a " Drug Free World" esp in horse racing. If my horse needs Butte to relieve to pain of a pulled muslce, then so be it. However, I don't think that the threshhold of certain Micrograms should be exceeded when the horse is running. There is a pain difference between a sore muscle and masking a fracture. Or if you will 1 to 2 grams of Butte Vs 4 to 5 grams a butte per dose.
People who don't understand the difference between the doses and the causes for those doses/meds shouldn't be screaming for a " Drug Free " Racing. IMO

[valjoe]

I don't know if I would agree with drug free racing. I like Lasix, keeps the horses from popping a blood vessel and scaring people who don't know what is going on with the horse quiet. If we took Lasix away - we would have more people screaming animal cruelty and then the meds to keep the horse from bleeding from what I was told are worse, owners would be losing money for waiting for their horses to heal, then we REALLY would be in a hole.

Running sore horses is a major cause for bleeding, and sure is the number 1 cause for breakdowns. Is that what you are suggesting? And how is that going to improve the image of horse-racing?
Please elaborate

[karenkarenn]

Running with or training with a sore shoulder/ back/ hand end muscle doesn't make a horse bleed through the nose. Too Much Pressure in the blood vessels make the vessels break. Causing the horse to bleed through the nose, not a sore back, shoulder or hind end.

Valijoe Said" Running sore horses is a major cause for bleeding, and sure is the number 1 cause for breakdowns." -- I don't know where you got that... I wasn't talking about a fracture I was talking about muscle strain.

[karenkarenn]

Now, back to the article. Princess Haya owners and Ms. Kayne both stated that they didn't know why their horse was on a broncial dilator. So why didn't they ask?
I have a horse that went to a vet for an injury that she didn't have, right then and there, red flag. I asked someone here on this forum who had a horse with the same trainer and she confirmed that something wasn't right with what the Vet said. She was sound. I got her out of the trainers stable with the help of that individual. Got her home, had other vets run some tests, turns out the racing vet was wrong.
What the article didn't say was the dose, how much was given and why? Did the press interview the vets that gave the meds?
No, this article only gave one side from two owners that didn't question the bill when the horse was racing. Period. And maybe this article was written to inflam people that think that Horse racing is chalked full of drugs. IMO, I wouldn't give this one sided article another look.

[valjoe]

Running with or training with a sore shoulder/ back/ hand end muscle doesn't make a horse bleed through the nose. Too Much Pressure in the blood vessels make the vessels break.

that's a very simplistic approach

[valjoe]

I wasn't talking about a fracture I was talking about muscle strain

whatever the reason for the soreness if you keep running the horse it will break down, that's a common knowledge, it's also a common knowledge that sore horses are more likely to bleed true the lungs

[winds]

I wasn't talking about a fracture I was talking about muscle strain

whatever the reason for the soreness if you keep running the horse it will break down, that's a common knowledge, it's also a common knowledge that sore horses are more likely to bleed true the lungs

Even sound horses bleed and believe it or not breakdown. All it takes is a bad step. I know, I've watched it happen in my 30+ years in the industry.

winds

[valjoe]

I know, that's why we should't run sore and medicated horses

[BenB]

I race a horse in partnership, I have trained them. I really do not see the problem for racing without any medications, just what I have written before:
it,s only the greed from owners trainers and tracks for racing unsound horses.

Bleeders out of the nose are especial unsound horses by inheritance. When horses can not stand the stress etc they should not race, period.

http://www.drf.com/news/nyra-and-state- ... uct-deaths

[winds]

I worked for a man years ago that had a nice horse named Majesty's World. I helped break him, rode him as a 2 yr old and groomed him on the farm. He ran several times in MD winning nice races, without lasix. Then was stabled at the Meadowlands which sits on a land fill, with those pipes sticking out getting rid of the methane gas from underground. Guess what? He started to bleed. It had nothing to do with him, it was his enviorment.

Our enviorment which is pollution extroidenaire also is a factor in horses bleeding. Should we punish them for that by not giving them lasix? NO! Horses should be allowed to run on lasix.

Check out Majesty's World's race record.

winds

[ratherrapid]

i consider the post typical Joe Drape negative sensationalism as horse racing continues to be diverted onto the drug Q when so many other things are much more important to the sport.

Drug use, such as it is, is correctly slanted as part of horse racing's trainer problem. There are always a percentage of these that are medicine men (and women) instead of athletic conditioners. They believe, wrongly, they can win races out of the medicine chest. "Wrongly" because 1. these folks primarily would be unable to train a dog to bark, and 2. how many of them ever win a race? Most of them are short timers in the sport. These facts will, of course, never prevent the paranoids among the gambling population to swear every trainer uses these drugs.

As to overuse of therapeutics, it's a many sided issue. You have a trainer that fails to know how to train a horse to prevent injury. Relies on drugs to keep it going. Keeps the horse racing, and off the meat wagon. To me--until our owners start insisting on using trainers that know what they're doing--and this is changing for the better imo--nothing Joe Drape will write is going to change things. The head int he sand owners he quotes in the post are e.g.s. of the real problem.

[griff]

I believe it would be interesting to find out how many of the absolutely no medication people have ever raced a TB; as I suspect most have absolutely no clue about what it takes to train and race a TB and can only cry for the poor horsie

what about the poor owner that supports the poor g horsie?

griff

[BenB]

And this is it where it end,s when lasix does not help:

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/ ... n-kentucky

Just greed, and protection from an investment, this has nothing to do with the health from an horse.

Stop with racing and giving the horse away as a pet would be benificial for the horse.

I raced some six without any medications.