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Originally Posted by Merlinsky
There's a shock, vets are pro-medication. Gee they're not remotely benefiting financially from the Lasix,etc. that they put in the horses. The AVMA is also pro-slaughter. They might call what they're peddling here pro-horse. I don't believe that's the case myself. Even if you think the horses shouldn't be neglected and are convinced that that'll happen, you can be pro-euthanasia. I don't see them out there pushing people with lousy colts to geld them. The more horses with Lasix that run and go on to breed, the worse the bleeding situation gets in future generations. It should be a negative when you go to a stallion that he was a known bleeder. Not unlike a really weak hind end or pencil thin pasterns. Not 'oh nevermind, he'll just take Lasix.' It's a defect plain and simple. The heart-lung mechanism is one of if not the most important things on a horse. As wonderfully conformed as Secretariat was, he did what he did thanks to heart-lung efficiency. Need to see that in action? Watch the gusts in the Canadian International. As for the masking of other drugs, yeah I guess the World Anti-Doping Agency has it on the banned list because it masks other drugs based on no evidence whatsoever.
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Vets would make far more money treating bleeders WITHOUT Lasix. A shot of Lasix is about $20. We used to spend hundreds in NY before they allowed Lasix treating horses for bleeding. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars in antibiotics following a post race bleeding episode. I have yet to see any studies that show that bleeding is an inheirited trait. I know of several mares that were confirmed bleeders that have been fantastic producers. Of course you have experise in all of these areas I'm sure. It is the same crap that gets spread in the business that sounds like it may have some merit and suddenly it is gospel. Naturally no one ever actually considers the horses that we have now, not some pie in the sky bullshit about how we need to weed out the bleeders to make the breed better. That assumes that #1 mares that bleed wont get bred, which is not going to happen and #2 that the elimination of it will benefit the racing public in some PR fashion, which it wont. Horses will still have the same issues that are here now and trainers still have to address them. By eliminating the LEGAL and economical means to deal with these issues you are basically forcing trainers to try other methods to treat issues, some of which may be much less effective and others which may be questionable legally. The rules are already tilted towards the cheaters simply by spending so much time and money on bs like Lasix and steroids and ignoring the real performance enhancers that currently go undetected and unresearched. The elimination of Lasix will cause more erratic performances especially as the chemists ahead of the curve develop a diueritic that will take the place of lasix while the guys who play by the rules get screwed again. Lasix works on the majority of bleeders better than anything else that we can use. It is cheap and it's side effects are not severe. All trainers have access to it and it is easily regulated. Suggesting that Vets are in favor of it because they profit from it is like saying Doctors root for their patients to get cancer so they can make more money treating them.