TBV total blood volume
 

Is this test of any significance when judging yearlings as a sale/purchase ?


http://www.betpro2test.biz/doc/bet_p...jou_articl.pdf

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/hor...uch-blood.aspx

The vet I contacted has never heard of this test. Anyone familiar with this test ?

I have heard of it but dont know anyone who knows what to do with it

Tx CS...Supposedly if the tbv is below average (about 20% of horses) = poor race performance.
avg or above avg = better race performance.

I wonder how many horses are getting erythropoiten.

That has been used in blood doping of human athletes. One has to wonder if it is use on horses. There seems to be a drug for every aspect of anatomy that makes up for a physioligically inferior mammal.

If it's been used on horses? If? EPO?

Total Blood Volume is a test for humans used to assess RBC mass from Serum
or put another way the number or mass of red cells relative to the fluid in the blood that is not Red Cell related.

It has recently been used for inpatients to make a noninvasive diagnosis (without floating a catheter in the blood vessel) of Congestive Heart Failure or when fluid is building up in the lungs. That is the simplistic answer as there is a ton of science here to assume with the measurement.

One way to use it with Epo would be looking at hemoglobin or Hematocrit measurements as a way of detecting excessive Red Cells that may be brought on by Epo use with Iron. Very Shaky science at best!!!

Opinion of mine in next sentence: After you reach a certain red cell number say a hemoglobin of 10 grams that more hemoglobin or a higher number does not translate into ability to run faster or longer.

the TBV test is to eliminate the lower 20 % of horses at sale. Those with below avg blood vol. But if meds are administered to raise the below avg to avg then the tbv test seems pointless.

horse racing is stuck in a serious drug problem, leading to fatalities. i believe all sports have vast amnt of cheaters, just my opinion.

regardless, my yearling will be drug free and healthy at the time I part company with him.

I would not be surprised if EPO is being used on thoroughbreds. Its not something that the "little guy" could afford but the people with loads of dough could probably afford it.

Do you think the two are related? And how do you define "healthy"? If he/she is sick, will you not medicate or are you referring only to "performance enhancing" drugs.

I would hope you aren't equating how you raise a yearly to those families that heal through prayer, refuse medication and their child dies.

Of course not. Medications for health are necessary. I personally believe in full disclosure prior to a sale, opening up all medical records for inspection.

EPO is not really that expensive. Supposedly they are putting markers in it that can be found if looked for by authorities but I believe that they "creative" guys have moved beyond mass produced EPO.

Chuck EPO is not the answer to cheating of consequence. It takes way too long to take effect to a level that would actually influence oxygen delivery leading to performance enhancement. While the effect is not titratable....The avoidance of anaerobic metabolism or threshold is how they do it with designer meds that have markers that are unique to them by testing methods.
All they would have to do is change the molecule with one different chemical moiety (eg an extra carbon or hydroxyl group) and the authorities couldn't test for the drug. These are old concepts and why we love ya cause you don't mess with this garbage for your horses.

Didn't the Ledford duo ( Meadowlands harness trainer/driver) get caught with E.P.O. and Morphine? They went away for a while. Maybe Eric is around a little bit now. I heard Vladimir Cerin (in an interview at Santa Anita) say he took blood out, and then put it back in (a few days before a horse raced.) That was like in the early or mid 90's.

Lukas was accused of blood doping in the late 80's, early 90's. The way it was explained to me( a long time ago), it would be a great deal of trouble to do it for a horse because of the volume needed to possibly make a difference

I can say some things from personal experience
but I dont know how it translates to horses.

People with good endurance can have an unexpected
low hematocrit. It happens because they have a high
blood volume specifically the serum, not RBC's which are also
high, but get diluted by the liquid. The high blood volume
is probably from extensive capillary volume associated with
a very good mechanism for getting blood to and from muscles.
In other words, your muscles are so loaded with capillaries, your
blood volume is high. There is more tubing to hold more blood.

I had this happen to me when I was in very good shape from
running. The doc's were scared at first, but I went to a Doc
who was a runner and he said he had seen it before. Then
I find out about half the people I run with that are really in shape
have got the same readings; Low hematocrit, because the liquid
portion of the blood is so high, even though they actually have
more RBC's than they would out of shape with a normal hematocrit.

So it MAY point to horses that have a more extensive circulatory
system. This is all conjucture.
I agree with the poster about EPO being a big unknown.
In fact I can see it being a hindrance(my opinion based
on a number of factors)

Cerin has a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. He is into the oxygen. So, it makes sense that he would have been taking blood out n' putting it back in. Like I said, he admitted to doing it. All they did is ask him what he does to get his horses to run their best. They didn't ask him if he "blood doped." For some reason, he just started talking about it. He hardly says anything now. He will just talk about their last race trouble, or maybe about some surgery etc.

Didn't Wygod secretly transport Sweetcatomine from the track in the middle of the night to some undisclosed location for this type of "treatment" ? She was retired soon after it became public knowledge as I recall.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniont...1s21horse.html

And remember Wild Desert and his unknown wherabouts for a couple of weeks ? I wonder what his connections were up to then ? Who was the trainer at the time ? It seems Richard Dutrow was, hmmmm.
http://www.racingandsports.com.au/ra....asp?NID=67018

Kinda makes you wonder what's goin on with Kip Deville with all that time off, somewhere, between races...hmmmm

It's o.k. to do the hyperbaric chamber, but the connections of "Sweet" didn't want it to be known that they were taking her from the track to that place (up by Santa Barbara.) That was a mess. Wygod said something about racing somewhere else, but he is still here.