NY Task Force on Racehorse Health & Safety Report, Reccos

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

There are 6000+ licensed trainers and I dont know what everyone does but as I said the vast majority have their owners billed directly.

The entire welfare of the horse approach is skewed in these arguments. The vast majority of vet work is either done in response to a specific issue or is preventative medicine. Since most of the trainers are using vets that work for other trainers as well (very few if any private vets exist anymore) there of course is sharing of info. However for the most part trainers keep quiet about what they are doing though for the most part it isnt that much different than everyone else. There was a big advantage about 12-15 years ago for trainers that were treating horses for ulcers. Why give that advantage up? For the most part we all train on the same tracks, use the same facilities, use the same vets, have the same pool of workers to draw from, etc. However we don't have the same owners or access to horses. So when you think that you are doing something better than others are you tend to keep that to yourself. Truth is there have been so many advances in medicine and technology that trainers are far more aware of issues that used to be ignored. Ulcer treatment, EPM meds, wormers, etc are all pretty much standard fare yet 10 years ago only a few guys were using treatments for these effectively. Just imagine the advantage you would have if you could go back 40 years ago and use your speed figures? Would you be giving them out?

You tend to treat my responses as a cross examination. Very little data means that there is very little data that I have heard about. Mostly there is theories but in horseracing theories often pass for facts. I'm leaving open the possibily that there may be some data about the negative health issues that clenbuterol may create that I am not aware of but as far as I know there arent.

There are negatives to virtually every act known to man. Using clenbuterol on a daily basis was done to see of we can possible keep the horses from getting a lung infections which are a nagging issue in horses for a variety of reasons. It is debatable if it does this effectively enough to justify the expense. It is also debatable if the other supposed benefits are really there. Does it work to clear a horses lungs in the case of respiratory illness? Very well. Is it worth doing all the time? Not in my opinion. But doing so doesn't make it wrong either. I'm fine with a 21 day withdrawl period as the way I use it would rarely be an issue. But I dont think a 21 day withdrawl or a 30 day withdrawl period will have any effect on breakdown rates at all.

And despite all the advances, we can't get horses to race more than every 5 or 6 weeks, at most. Call me skeptical that all these drugs do more good than harm.