Teresa Genaro (Brooklyn Backstretch) offers a synopsis and sampling of comments from trainers who participated in a panel discussion at the Race Day Med Summit on managing EIPH. John Kimmel moderated; participants: Motion, Clement, R. Mandella, John Size. Plans to play pre-recorded comments by Gosden went awry.
Well worth reading.
http://www.brooklynbackstretch.com/2...s-perspective/
First rule: Try always to do what's right for the horse. The people part will work out. -- Josh Pons, Merryland, 2007
I saw this in TDN. When I saw who was on the panel, I thought they stacked the deck. Mandella and two European turf oriented trainers. (Where's the real world claiming trainer?)
But the responses weren't quite what I expected and I give them credit for keeping it real.
While there were many interesting comments there, this one interested me most:
Long ago, we had a few low-key individuals who we would let pick at hay so they wouldn't get too wound up, but we always took it from the high-strung, the heavy doers, and the ones with any history or family history at all of colic. Our primary concern was less race performance than how likely they were to colic post race, if they had hay in their gut when they ran.Mandella said that he watched marathoners drink water during a race, which made him think about horses. “I don’t usually take water away,” he said, “I don’t draw hay, either. I learned that from being stabled near John Henry who had hay and water until he went to race.”
Seems like those trainers would be in the minority with their opinions on the TBC forum. However....they do actually make their living training racehorses so maybe that really does mean something.
Brilliant!
This is ABSOLUTELY wrong. Unlike you, their livelihood depends directly on the long-term best interest of the sport and breed. But you have stumbled onto a great idea for a fund-raiser: I am sure I am not the only one who would pay good money for a ticket to be in the room when you tell Dick Mandella, Graham Motion, and Christophe Clement that they lack your credibility when it comes to the long-term best interest of the sport and the breed. That would be an event.Originally Posted by Song of Solomon
If you want a good look at the damage being done, take a good look at Stewart's presentation--it's pretty eye-opening for the reality that contradicts this frequent assertion of yours.Also, who do you believe when not all trainers agree on the matter? Some highly-respected trainers are fine with a ban, and others are not.
Then there's the fact that there ARE horses and jurisdictions today racing without Lasix and appear none the worse for it. We also at one time raced without Lasix, with the last holdout NYRA caving in the mid-eighties, I think.
Unless I am mistaken, ALL the trainers on this panel have actually raced horses without Lasix; now--like Jerkens--they use Lasix. I would certainly have welcomed his presence on the panel, as well, but as Pronzini rightly observed at the outset, NOBODY would have claimed that this line-up was stacked in favor of Lasix; and for you to claim that now is not only disingenuous, but frankly incredible.Perhaps a more compelling panel would include people like Allen Jerkens who actually raced horses without Lasix.
What I found most disturbing in this symposium were the number of people--thankfully, mostly outside the US--who were quite brazen about acknowledging that the fact that lasix was actually in the best interest of equine welfare simply was not enough of a motivation to change their policies to protect the horse.
To seize on one spectacular paragraph among many, nothing in this one is correct. You obviously paid no attention to the information presented at the symposium; or, and I consider this more likely, decided simply not to review the power points, but to carry on your tired old misinformation arguments. One of the reasons these arguments in here are pointless is because you have a committed belief that will not alter when confronted with evidence that contradicts your belief. There is strong, clear, indisputed evidence that Lasix administration is in the best interest of the horse; even those at this symposium did not dispute that, and in fact, at times, presented evidence that supports that. They simply put other priorities ahead of that one.
Mandella is five years older than I, and began training while I was still rubbing. At that time, almost no one was using lasix. And that's because ALL of us thought that bleeding was nothing more than an occasional nosebleed, probably caused by humidity and/or dust and dirt that affected only one or two horses in every thousand. It was considered a random inconvenience to racing that you concealed from authorities and treated with altered workload, diet, and asthmador--smoking your horse's head periodically. EVERYONE from those days agrees with the trainers on this panel that Lasix does a far better job of treating bleeding than those old protocols did. Allen Jerkens would agree with that, I have no doubt.
Almost everyone would also agree that you could go back to not using lasix and racing would continue, and many horses would not see their effectiveness significantly altered. The only difference would be that some horses would suffer and die needlessly. And we would be just like the rest of the world.
If you are successful in your campaign to see beneficial treatment denied to horses, I only hope that you get to encounter more than your fair share of racing-induced anemia and bronchial infection brought on by lungs filled with blood. Those of us who have first-hand experience of pre-lasix racing are less inclined to see horses sent back to a time like that.
But one thing I will guarantee you about returning to those old days: you will see a lot more 4f and 5f racing, and a lot of very clever people, dropping those old class bleeders, cutting corners, and getting what you can. It will create a whole new market at the bottom, so cowboy up and watch 'em go.
I'm sorry, but I do think it's cruel to have a horse suffocating on it's own blood. It happens and horses collapse due to it.
Bleeding is a safety issue that is why horses who are observed to have bled after a race while on lasix get consecutively longer times on the vets list until they are given lifetime bans.
It's not just a public perception issue, it's a safety issue and it can be controlled with lasix.
If bleeding can be controlled and prevented by some other means then I'm all for that, but to just look the other way and pretend it doesn't happen is not what is best for the horse.
Motion was assistant to Jonathan Sheppard, who did/does race some of his chasers sans Lasix.
He also worked for Jonathan Pease in France.
Last edited by Miss Woodford; 06-17-2011 at 10:05 AM.
{The idea that the allowance of Lasix is in the best interest of the horse is arguable, as you well know. There is nothing cruel about a horse losing its breath and slowing its running -- this is something we can all attest to personally -}
V,that statement^^^ is ridiculous.So you've been on a horse going 35 MPH surrounded
by other horses where your horse can't breath because of blood in it's airway?
The fact is people think before lasix was legal trainers used other drugs to combat the effects of bleeding.Years ago these drugs weren't tested for.....so going back to the 'drug free' days of years ago is a bunch of bullsh!t...
I would go into this more but I have a 3pm tee time....later..
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on
the support of Paul.
~George Bernard Shaw
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."
~Cicero - 55 BC
Lasix is used to prevent bleeding not to cure it. That is why the trainers on the panel said they use it in the mornings for breezes....not to gain some imaginary competitive edge.
Unfortunately, there are enough crappy trainers that will end up breaking down horses with or without lasix. Bone needs to be stressed to be stronger, but it also needs time to recover. Without proper recovery time it gets weaker until one day it just fractures without warning. I don't think that taking lasix away will make bad trainers into better ones.
Without lasix to use as a diuretic, people will just remove the water the night before the race. The horses will be dehydrated.....and it will be legal, but I doubt it will be more pleasant for them.
With all due respect for your trainer friend, I'm gonna go with the opinions expressed by the panel.
Lasix is given for a competitive advantage and to mask other drugs. I know this for a fact after having numerous trainers and racing in numerous states throughout the years.
Why is it that European horses run lasix free and come here for the Breeders Cup and "suddenly" require lasix? It is because they know their horse will be at a competitive disadvantage.
We always start out running drug free but cave to the pressure from the trainers saying our horses are at a disadvantage. But, our horses have always, always scoped clean running w/o lasix. And, they do move up in form with the drug as it makes them lighter. Like most owners, we are toeing the line financially and sometimes you just need to survive. I am not happy about it but that's just the plain truth.
But, this year....we are sticking to our guns and racing drug free. We decided that we are not caving in this time. If we go down, we will go down swinging on our terms. Our msw filly was the only one entered on the whole card running dug free. We have another to be entered in an allowance on wednesday that will also be drug free.
I feel strongly that there is no need for lasix or any drugs in this sport. If they can run clean in Japan, Germany, etc than they can do it here. Human athletes are not allowed these drugs so why horses?
Maybe if we had better horsemen, better training methods; and better training facilities with turnout we would not have to drug our horses so much... I think a lot of bleeding is environmental from breathing fumes while standing in a stall almost 24 hours a day. or, what about running horses who aren't fit because all they do is gallop a mile to a mile and a half in the mornings and only work up to 5 furlongs for long races. I would argue that our horses here are rarely truly fit. People think trainers do things differently but they all go about training the exact same way.
So, you have a horse standing in a stall for almost 24 hours breathing toxic fumes; racing when they are not truly fit; given bute and whatever else to hide any stiffness or discomfort they made feel; given lasix to drop a big percentage of weight (weight that has been proven to be statistically significant in determining race outcomes) and possibly to mask other drugs; racing when the horse should be given time off to rest or heal; racing so infrequently that the horses cannot get truly fit or get their bodies use to racing and poof...you have a bleeder.
I forgot to add for people who just don't know what the deal is with lasix...vets administer the drug only to horses who have actually bled. This requirement is a total, piece of crap joke. Trainers lie and vets just sign off on form and make up a date that the horse supposedly bled. I know this personally and it's not a secret. Then, the horse is not given food or water. I repeat..no water. They pee out tons and tons which drops their weight. In the process, they lose all their electrolytes, vitamins, and minerals. Which is why there will be a vet bill on your owner bill showing a "vitamin jug" after the race to give your horse back all the good stuff they lost by forcing them to pee it all out. Horses given lasix can have heart failure in heat as well. So, it does a number on a horse's body and if the horse is racing every two weeks...they must really be managed. I am just posting this for people who truly might not know exactly what the process is not to offend anyone or anything.
Another thing that bugs me is that I can't get my horses turnout. Our track does not even allow any roundpens- not even small ones. It's just not right. You can't keep an athlete in a cell for 23 hours a day and except them to perform at the top of their game. It truly breaks my heart.
Last edited by pokeyman; 06-17-2011 at 01:43 PM.
Interesting blog post that V quoted part of on this topic, particularly training methods: http://thoroedge.wordpress.com/2011/...in-racehorses/
Kudos to you for trying to race horses who don't need drugs without them. I don't doubt there are horses who benefit from Lasix and are being given it for the supreme best interest of the horse. But when most cards are completely void of a horse running WITHOUT Lasix...come on. That's getting ridiculous, no matter what the drug does. When there is any chance for dubious side effects - which lowered bone density and potential dehydration *certainly* are - then what amounts to indiscriminate prescription to every single horse of a drug should be called into question in some manner.
Not sure where I stand entirely on this issue, as I don't think it's 100% clear cut, but like a lot of things today, Lasix is being used "because it works" and, in turn, not for the right reasons for every horse. It should certainly be scrutinized and maybe we should look at perhaps solving the cause instead of just treating symptoms...oh, who am I kidding? This is horse racing.
And listening to some big out a' town jasper, hearing him tell about horse-race gamblin'.
Not a wholesome trottin' race, no, but a race where they sit down right on a horse!
Like to see some stuck-up jockey boy sittin' on Dan Patch?
Make your blood boil? Well, I should say!
I have personally seen a "well respected" track vet take a syringe of blood from a horse's neck, then inject it up the nose with a long catheter. The groom then walked the horse with blood dripping out of the nose to the state vet and got the horse put on the lasix list.
There is not only NO study showing any correlation whatsoever between therapeutic lasix administration and lowered bone density, there is no reason anywhere to even suspect such a correlation.
What there is--though it has no relevance to racing--is a well-documented correlation between sustained lasix administration in humans and lowered bone density.
But people are not horses (though some seem to be asses), and lasix administration in humans differs significantly from lasix administration in racehorses.
It is a remarkable fantasy that some people have that a horse can be administered lasix on Friday morning, race Friday afternoon, receive a jug of electrolytes on Saturday morning; and somehow between the lasix administration on Friday and the restoration of electrolyte levels on Saturday have his bones turn to jello. That's just not how it works. The problem with bone density in humans arises from the fact that lasix is used to artificially create sustained dehydration to offset congestive cardio-pulmonary disease. It's a very different situation.
Except that it's not a different situation. Lasix works as a diuretic in horses, just like it does in people. And obviously, that is why they use it to reduce fluid build up in congestive heart disease. So yes, that CONTEXT is different, but that is irrelevant to the point that lasix dehydrates horses just as it does to people. Lasix causes increased secretion of calcium via the urine. No one said the horses bones turn to jello from Friday to Saturday, they said it causes mineral leaching from the bones. One of, if not THE leading causes of colic in horses is impaction. This is brought about reduced water content in the stool. If I had a horse that I was inducing dehydration in, I wouldn't let it have hay either.
Ok, many people don't even seem to understand how bleeding works. I will just quote what I said in the other thread:
If a horse bleeds 100ml in each lung it impairs the performance by about 16%. Lasix or not, such a horse should not run. The way horses bleed doesn't affect their ability to breath, but rather that they reach fatigue faster, cause the air can't be transported as well by the blood. Now here's a crazy idea: how about not putting a horse on drugs so that it outperforms it's natural ability to run. Common sense should tell you that this isn't a good idea at all. If it's not the lungs that give away, something else will.
Sea The Stars - perfection in equine form, a horse of a lifetime!
You ought to credit your sources accurately. You are alluding to a study by Warwick Bayly nearly thirty years ago that was a valuable study then, and that has long been superseded by more relevant studies.
What Bayly did was subject three groups of horses to the same performance test under three conditions: in the first group, 100ml of blood was introduced artificially into the area of the lungs where EIPH usually begins; in the second group, 100ml of saline was introduced by the same mechanism; and in the third group as a control, the mechanism was employed but no fluid was introduced. The results showed that the introduction of saline made no difference in performance over the control group, but the introduction of blood impaired performance by 16%.
Bayly recognized the significant shortcomings of his research: the first was the arbitrary nature of the 100ml choice, with no measurement of at what level impairment begins, nor of how rapidly it accelerates. The second and more glaring limitation was that it is one thing to measure the impact of blood as an artificial substance being introduced from outside, and another thing entirely to measure the impact of blood being lost due to a growing bleeding lesion in the body. This would be like measuring the discomfort caused by slicing an artery in the foot by pouring blood into your boot.
In the 30 years since Bayly, there have been many more sophisticated studies that document much more precisely the impact of bleeding on performance. Most of these have been done by Hinchcliffe; and the most authoritative of them all is the South Africa study. You can find much of this information on the web and through references at the recently concluded symposium.
Of particular relevance are the comments by those representatives of regions that do not allow lasix on the impact eiph has on their racing population. When you talk about the absence of a "level playing field" you are talking about those jurisdictions.
Really???
Seriously???
Do you have an aversion to credible argument??
There is an international symposium held that brings together some of the most credentialed participants in the industry to discuss this issue frankly and bring forward dozens of informative presentations; and you just dismiss it and dig up some crank like Pressey who is serving up re-heated--no, check that--un-re-heated Tom Ivers leftovers?
You have no respect for the views of Dick Mandella, Christophe Clement, or Graham Motion, but you present in the thread the fluffball opinion of a guy who is neither a vet nor a trainer, but who is trying to sell people 25% of a 5yo Indiana-bred maiden filly who has earned $7,000 in 8 career starts--and he only wants $10,000 for that quarter share. That's your "credible authority" who is so significant to the discussion that you not only present in the thread, but put up on the front page of the forum as the public perception you want to create for racing discussion here? Why don't you just rename the forum "recycled crackpot ideas?"
After all, in the very item you link, Pressey is at least candid enough to admit that he is even dumber than Ivers, and that he is recommending nothing that hasn't been tried and showed to be dismally naive crackpot impracticalities fifteen years ago. He even has the candor to recommend some advice at the end of that post that speaks volumes:
Yes, he and Gandhi have me pegged: I am part of that laughing litany. When Pressey becomes as famous as Gandhi, I will be back here offering serious testimonials to his extraordinary vision. But I am confident right now that neither Pressey nor Ivers were anything like Gandhi--whatever they might think of themselves.I’m no pioneer, this stuff was detailed 15+ years ago by a fellow much smarter than myself and summarily ignored by everyone:
http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/hor...-bleeding.aspx
In anticipation of a litany of possibly derisive comments to this post, I leave you with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
I do, however, pride myself on my open mind as much as my derisive skepticism, so let's put it to the test folks: open your stable mail and put in a new entrant--A Special Delivery. She is that maiden mare Pressey is managing, so we will be able to track her progress as he revolutionizes this sport of ours. Indeed, if opening your stable mail isn't enough, you might want to open your wallets--Pressey will sell up to 25% of her for the right price. But you might want to hurry--I am not sure he would sell more even if the demand were high.
They just held a serious discussion of EIPH and lasix treatment. It lasted two days, attracted the widest array of internationally respected voices on the planet on both sides of the issue, and presented a great deal of serious and relevant information.
Your response is to blow off Dick Mandella, Graham Motion and Christophe Clement as unreliable voices on the topic of "Managing EiPH from [the] Trainer's Perspective," and instead substitute as though it were of greater credibility the unattributed bloggings of a guy who has never been licensed as a vet or a trainer. It's worse than taking Sarah Palin seriously as a credible voice on international affairs.
So, yeah, I think I do have a reason to disrespect such a view. But let's watch what happens with A Special Delivery. Maybe I am wrong.
only problem is that bute and furosemide are contraindicated together as prostoglandin mediators in the kidney ablates the diuresis
ALL Nsaids promote bleeding via inhibition of platelet adhesion so ONE creates the other INSANITY pharmacolgically wise
Last edited by zilzal; 06-18-2011 at 10:01 AM.
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