Lasix & the BC

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Evelyn
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Lasix & the BC Aug 22, 2013 22:23:49 GMT -5

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Post by Evelyn on Aug 22, 2013 22:23:49 GMT -5

This is ridiculous. Lasix was supposed to be banned. Period. Is this a spin by the new marketing company? Licensed by the CHRB? That's not very encouraging considering these are the vets who dope up CA horses year round and fight every attempt to lower the time before a race that meds are allowed.

Do you think the "results" they get from this will support their turnaround on the Lasix issue? I think so. Racing doesn't need their testing., The effects of Lasix have been well studied and monitored.

The BC becomes more of a bad joke every time they make an announcement.

Bet the "results" they get from this support their turnaround on the Lasix issue.

Breeders' Cup to Test Effects of Lasix Ban
Bloodhorse

By Debbie Arrington

Horses competing in the upcoming Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita Park will form a test sample of the potential effects of running without anti-bleeding medications, but it will be up to their owners whether to participate.

At its Aug. 22 meeting at the Del Mar satellite wagering facility, the California Horse Racing Board approved two conditions requested by the Breeders' Cup similar to the Lasix ban for juveniles instituted last year:

— No horse on the state's authorized bleeder medication list will be allowed to enter or start in the Breeders' Cup's five juvenile races.

— For older horses, only "third-party" veterinarians will be allowed to administer the medication. These vets must be licensed by the CHRB and approved by the Breeders' Cup but are otherwise not connected to or attending any other Breeders' Cup participants. Lasix, also known as Salix or furosemide, would be the only authorized anti-bleeding medication.

In addition, the CHRB added a check-off box to the entry form to allow owners to voluntarily allow their horses to be "scoped" after competing in any Breeders' Cup race. That could provide information on how withholding Lasix affects their health as well as what happens when a horse does receive such medication.

"At the entry box, there will be a voluntary check-off for every owner and trainer to offer their horse for scope examination," chairman David Israel said.

The board approved the voluntary program, 6-0; commissioner George Krikorian abstained.

For the second year in a row, Santa Anita will host the Breeders' Cup, to be held Nov. 1-2. Four Juvenile championship races will be run on Breeders' Cup Friday; although not a championship race, the Juvenile Turf Sprint will be run Breeders' Cup Saturday and subject to the same rules.

Although anti-bleeding medication was not allowed for 2-year-olds in the 2012 Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita, there was no uniform follow-up examination of those horses.

That represented a missed opportunity, said commissioners. But according to Dr. Rick Arthur, the board's equine medical director, the state could not mandate post-race scoping of horses.

"Under current rules, we can't force a horse to be scoped," Arthur said.

"We already pull blood and urine (samples)," noted Israel. "This actually is a more noble cause - how a drug helps or hurts the health of a horse."

"We need to know the effect on horses not running on Lasix," added Krikorian. "If they're forced to run without Lasix, they should be forced to be tested."

The Breeders' Cup actually would like all horses to be scoped regardless of age, said director Tom Ludt, the Cup's former chairman. "We're going to ask everyone entering the Breeders' Cup starting in 2013 to submit to post-race scoping."

The results could add to what's already known about Lasix and its effects, but the pool of horses involved is too small to draw many conclusions, Arthur said.

"It's not a perfect situation, but why not (scope)?" Arthur said. "It's a small sample in such unique circumstances, it's hard to translate to the general population. This is a more complex issue than people think."

But these are the horses that most likely will pass on their genes, Israel said. "These are the kind of horses used in breeding. They really are the future of horse racing."

To comply with the bleeders list mandate, owners will be allowed to request a horse be removed from that list prior to the Breeders' Cup, Arthur noted.

Last Edit: Aug 23, 2013 21:14:57 GMT -5 by Jon

Evelyn
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Lasix & the BC Aug 22, 2013 22:37:00 GMT -5

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Post by Evelyn on Aug 22, 2013 22:37:00 GMT -5

If the BC is not going to lead banning Lasix on race days, how can they deserve any respect? It's become a true CA Racing Day. Other states are making progress while CA owners and trainers fight for drugs, not against them. I'm a little confused why the BC is being governed by the CHRB? Because it's going to be held in CA? Well - that really points out a dire need for a National Racing Board since the CHRB is pitiful.

This is from the Paulick Report

Lasix Returns to 2014 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Races
by Ray Paulick

In other news, the CHRB approved a request from the Breeders’ Cup to have similar protocol on race-day administration of Lasix (also known as furosemide) as was in place at the 2012 championships. No Lasix will be permitted race-day in the four races for 2-year-olds, and the anti-bleeder diuretic will be administered by third-party veterinarians approved by Breeders’ Cup in the other championship races.

There was considerable discussion about conducting research on the effect the absence of Lasix might have on 2-year-olds, but CHRB equine medical director Rick Arthur said owner permission would be required to endoscopically examine every horse for exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage. There apparently will be a check-off on Breeders’ Cup entry forms giving permission to veterinarians to scope 2-years-old post-race to see if they bled without medication.

It was during this debate that Joe Morris, executive director of Thoroughbred Owners of California, confirmed that 2-year-olds participating in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup – also at Santa Anita – will be permitted to run with Lasix. That issue was raised by the Paulick Report earlier this year after TOC sent a letter to Breeders’ Cup saying “California is not interested in hosting the 2014 Breeders’ Cup if Lasix is not allowed for all races.” Horsemen’s groups in other states have sent similar messages to the Breeders’ Cup. With the exception of New York, horsemen’s consent is required for simulcast agreements.

Last Edit: Aug 23, 2013 21:15:30 GMT -5 by Jon

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Lasix & the BC Aug 23, 2013 17:38:34 GMT -5

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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2013 17:38:34 GMT -5

What's next, veterinarian administered milkshakes?

Lasix to be allowed in all 2014 Breeders' Cup races

By Matt Hegarty

All horses running in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita will be allowed to be administered the anti-bleeding medication furosemide on race day, Breeders’ Cup confirmed in a statement Friday, in a rollback of an experimental policy that had divided the racing industry.

Breeders’ Cup officials provided the statement a day after a discussion about the Breeders’ Cup’s furosemide policy at a meeting of the California Horse Racing Board. Following the meeting, it was briefly reported by Daily Racing Form and other publications that a policy currently in place banning the raceday administration of the drug in this year’s 2-year-old races would not be in place for the 2014 event, scheduled to be run at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif. This year’s event also is scheduled for Santa Anita.

In the statement, Breeders’ Cup Ltd. officials said that while evaluating host sites for the 2014 event “it became apparent that the raceday medication policy for 2014 would have to be consistent with rules in effect in any eligible host jurisdiction at the time of the event” and that horsemen in California and elsewhere had said they would withhold approval for the simulcasting of the event if Breeders’ Cup continued to restrict the raceday use of the drug.

“To date, no racing jurisdiction in the U.S. has established a policy eliminating the use of all raceday medications, and none of our potential future host sites has been able to offer assurances that such an eventuality is likely in the near term,” the Breeders’ Cup statement read.

Furosemide, which also is known by the trade name Lasix, is legal to be administered on race day in every racing jurisdiction in North America, including California.

Horsemen in the United States have rejected calls to ban the raceday use of the drug, despite aggressive lobbying by many national racing organizations, mostly those representing prominent breeders or owners with international racing operations. Horsemen have defended the raceday administration of the drug as an effective way to mitigate bleeding in the lungs, despite a ban on the raceday use of furosemide in most of the world’s other major racing jurisdictions.

Breeders’ Cup first passed a policy to restrict the raceday use of furosemide for 2-year-olds participating in the 2012 event. The policy was supposed to be extended to all of the races for the 2013 event, but, in a vote that upset several members of the board, the Breeders’ Cup earlier this year suspended the broadening of the policy, again limiting the restriction to 2-year-olds.

In the statement, Breeders’ Cup said it “remains committed” to working toward running its races with a prohibition on raceday medication.

During the 2012 event, field size in the five 2-year-old races dropped an average of 21.6 percent. Handle on the races plummeted 23 percent.

Though it is unclear how much of an impact the furosemide ban had on handle for the 2-year-old races, Breeders’ Cup officials had expressed concern that a wider ban on the raceday use of the drug could have serious financial impacts on the organization because of the possibility of significant declines in handle.

Evelyn
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Lasix & the BC Aug 26, 2013 17:56:33 GMT -5

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Post by Evelyn on Aug 26, 2013 17:56:33 GMT -5

From Across the Pond

On Target!

Breeders' Cup in spineless retreat by lifting ban on LasixDrug-free European racing receives body blow by Breeders' Cup decision to back down over raceday medication
By Greg Wood
The Guardian

There is no way to spin the decision by the Breeders' Cup organisation to abandon its limited ban on the use of raceday medication as anything other than a demoralising setback for those in Europe who admire and enjoy the event.

The news, though not entirely unexpected, also arrived at the worst possible moment, after a week at York when Declaration Of War and The Fugue emerged as serious contenders for the Classic and Turf respectively, the two most valuable events on the main Breeders' Cup card.

The Breeders' Cup's executives had already climbed down on an earlier commitment to stage the meeting with no medication from 2013, having introduced a ban for the two-year-old events in 2012. While the juvenile races will again be drug-free in 2013, even that small step towards weaning US racing off its drug addiction will be scrapped from next year.

From 2014 any owners with a horse stabled in Europe who want to compete on the closest thing there is to a global stage will face a difficult choice. Should they run their horse clean, as we do in Europe and just about every other major racing jurisdiction? Or should they run it on dope, like the locals?

They do not call it dope, of course. Lasix, the principal drug involved, is described as an anti-bleeding "medication" but any European trainers administering it to one of their horses on a race day in this country would expect to sacrifice their licence, and career, if caught.

Nor is there any real doubt that the effects of Lasix are performance-enhancing as well as palliative. The shrewdest American punters are always on the lookout for European horses whose finishing effort appears to need a little lift. The abrupt improvement of Sir Michael Stoute's Dank to win the Beverley D Stakes at Arlington on first-time Lasix earlier this month was just the latest example of significant improvement that must, at least in part, be drug-related.

The use of Lasix in particular is deeply ingrained in the culture of American racing but for much of the last decade there had been signs that the culture was slowly changing. Raceday medication is bound up with the United States' historic and very practical preference for racing on dirt, which can withstand the rigours of meetings that last for many weeks. Dirt is durable but also unforgiving and the steady spread of artificial surfaces to a number of American tracks – Santa Anita included – offered hope that raceday drugs might one day be removed from the sport too.

With no overall authority like our own British Horseracing Authority to keep the process moving, however, progress stalled. Trainers who were used to dirt and drugs were afraid of change and struggled to compete with the European challenge at two successive Breeders' Cups at Santa Anita.

First Santa Anita, which has both the facilities and climate to be a permanent home for the Breeders' Cup, backed down and reinstalled dirt. Now the Cup's own executives – many of whom appreciate the need to run "world championship" races drug-free – have collectively proved to have neither the confidence nor the guts to stick to their guns.

My own view is that increased internationalisation of racing is good not only for the sport in general but also for British racing in particular. Racing is a sport for the super-rich of every generation, wherever they happen to be, and the fact that the roots of the sport are in Britain will always help us to attract our fair share of multi-millionaire owners from around the globe.

An international "championship" meeting at the end of each year is thus a positive development, too, and California in early November is the right place and time to maximise its appeal. But it needs to be staged on a level field and, if the horses cannot run without drugs, they should not be running at all.

The return of Lasix to all events at the Breeders' Cup from 2014 is a huge setback. It is worse even than a return to square one because the Cup's executives have failed so miserably to back up their words with action. It is a failure that may have diverted the US's showpiece meeting on to a path of slow, inexorable decline.

Last Edit: Aug 26, 2013 17:58:48 GMT -5 by Evelyn