No lasix needed here
 

After all the talk do you think they wouldn't use lasix if he raced over here again?

"Rich Tapestry finished last in the Xpressbet Breeders' Cup Sprint and was found to have substantial blood and dirt on his trachea when scoped by vets in a post-race examination."


http://racing.scmp.com/freeservice/n...s20141104b.asp

Oy. Glad he seems to be on the mend.

Demonstrating once again how great running without Lasix is for both the bettors and the horse!

He didn't use it because he wouldn't be able to race in Hong Kong again

Get rid of lasix so this can happen MORE and MORE

These arguments for lasix shown in this thread are ridiculously simplistic.

Let's just dismiss all the KNOWN problems with diuretics so we can beat our chests that in this one instance, we were right.

Cause, you know, if you are right once, you are right all the time.

Is it any more simplistic than when those supporting a Lasix ban cite a horse winning without Lasix as evidence that no horses need to be using it?

You should apply to be Obama's Press Secretary with such a simplistic, dismissive argument against a prime example that supports the arguments made by those who support the use of Lasix.

I suppose not, but the chest thumping righteousness is a bit much.

Prime example?

You don't even know if the horse wouldn't have bled with Lasix being used, which happens more than you seem to realize.

Prime example?

If that's one of the best examples you can come up with, the pro Lasix camp has already lost.

A favorite in one of the biggest, most heavily bet, races of the year coming off a monster run that inexplicably backs up to last when in good position to make a run seems to be a pretty prime example of why Lasix is both good for the horse and for the bettors.

i would direct you to the lasix study steve linked to on here a few weeks back.

Yeah cuz it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that Rich Tapestry sat on a slow pace in his last race and tried to keep up with a wicked pace in the BrCup Sprint...surely couldn't be that.:rolleyes:

You got me. It was the pace. The blood in his lungs had nothing to do with him finishing as he did. He could run at his highest level with blood in lungs as long as the pace cooperated.

That's the ticket.

Do we know if he has bled in the past?
He's never run on Lasix and has backed out of it more than a few times.
Admittedly, he hasn't completely caved in like he did in the BrCup, but if he has a history of these problems AND faced a pace that was out of his league the result isn't a total mystery.

I just cannot presume that Lasix would have put him in the picture down the lane...and this comes from a guy that bet him on a few of my tickets.:zz:

Looked like he could be a star after beating some top notch runners in his USA debut.

So you have a horse whose finishes have wildly fluctuated overseas without Lasix who is proven to have bled in the Breeders' Cup and your reaction is "well, do we know he's a bleeder?"

It continues to be very strange to me that people who supposedly care about horses and/or horseplayers would be OK with a situation like Rich Tapestry's, where the horse went through unnecessary suffering and unfairly burned people's money because of it.

This is a topic where pretty horsey people to hardcore gamblers and everyone in between should be united and yet, it continues to be incredibly contentious every time it's broached. I don't get it.

He has had a substantial bleeding history in Hong Kong, which is why this was an issue that was brought up in the first place. It has occurred four times, as per his vet records: http://www.hkjc.com/english/racing/o...p?HorseNo=N011 However, he has a win and a second in two of those four starts starts.

This is the modern day problem, especially here in the Western world. If there is a problem, whether human or animal, let's just fix it with medication. Instead of attempting to fix the problem with other means we will just taper it and mask it with drugs. Maybe if a horse has constant problems bleeding its body is saying that he shouldn't be racing in the first place.

And for those that are complaining about how cessation of Lasix would cause more instances such as this in the future, well that becomes part and parcel of the game. I don't see gamblers in other racing jurisdictions complaining when it happens, and in fact I'd actually be inclined to believe that it actually happens a lot less in those places. I see how fragile the modern day North American thoroughbred is and compare it to England, Australia, HK, etc. They seem to be much more durable there, so clearly they're doing something right.

Just because lasix is illegal overseas doesn't mean that they don't use other methods and other bleeder shots to try to control the problem. In NA when lasix was illegal every vet concucted his own bleeder shot and if he got a fav rep he had a long list of customers and made a fortune.
At least with lasix we know the playing field is almost level.

This is not a modern problem; this is the problem of the equine. Vigorous exercise is a high risk for bleeding in the lungs. It's why it's called EIPH. Exercise Induced. For whatever reason, evolution in all its messiness brought about an animal that often bleeds in the lungs during taxing exercise, and for some reason, mild dehydration reduces the chances that will happen. We could stop all horse racing for several dozen millennia while we attempt to selectively evolve the horse past this, because right now, the majority of them do bleed, or we can give them a diuretic before vigorous exercise. One of these two gives us a better chance of seeing a Triple Crown winner again in our lifetimes.

There may eventually come along something better than Lasix, but it's still going to have to be something that takes water away from the lungs. Ultimately, we are asking equine athletes to fight against their own evolution, which was to walk slowly with their heads down for very long periods of time.

(on a soapbox note- and the anti-carriage horse contingent claim carriage work, walking slowly with the head down for long stretches of time, is unnatural? Flying Spaghetti Monster save us.)

I don't see any statistical proof that European horses are more durable than American horses, nor that their top racers have any more starts than ours before being shuttled off to the breeding shed.

Wow, I finally read something that makes sense, I understand and agree with regarding Lasix and the real reason behind its necessary use. Great post, thank you . . . and unfortunately it's the horse not the Lasix. The Lasix or any medication would be easy to fix but the horse as you say would take as long to fix for the good as it took for the current state of turning into the bad.