Drug Free Racing

[Cannon Shell]

Articles like the one where the bozo from NC state compares a horse racing on Bute to Micheal Jordan taking ibuprofen to play in the NBA finals just lack all creditability. First of all, every trainer uses bute, everywhere. It works and it is relatively side effect free. Sure it may not be great for a horses stomach but what anti-inflamatory is? Secondly if this idiot thinks that an NBA player would refuse to take ibuprofen to play he is an idiot. They take freaking cortisone shots in their joints but wouldn't "risk" an injury taking ibuprofen. That is the kind of guy you quote if you are trying to enflame the situation or you are just plain stupid.

Lets end this lunacy about Lasix being this great destroyer of the breed. It is a freaking diuretic and has ZERO effect on the genetic makeup of the offspring of users of it. Stop kidding yourself about culling the breed of weakness or bleeders. As long as a mare has a marginal pedigree there will be someone out there willing to take a shot of breeding her regardless of how cripple she was or how much she bled. I know for a fact that one of the best producers of modern times bled buckets on many occasions. The list of unraced mares (horses who were either too slow to run or too infirm) who have been great producers is a mile long. Stallions cull themselves out after a few years by either producing or not. The decline of the quality of horses bred in this country has almost nothing to do with these circumstantial factors and almost everything to do with the quantity and desire to produce strictly fast horses.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Lasix is just one drug. It just gets brought up because it's obviously over-used. It also makes a tremendous masking agent.

I'd prefer everyone run on hay, oats, and water....and if anything shows up on a test the punishments ought to be draconian.

But hey, good luck with that ever happening. Right?

The foal crops were much larger through the 80's than they are today. And in this modern enviornment, speed oriented horses often make better sires.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Lasix is just one drug. It just gets brought up because it's obviously over-used. It also makes a tremendous masking agent.
I'd prefer everyone run on hay, oats, and water....and if anything shows up on a test the punishments ought to be draconian.

But hey, good luck with that ever happening. Right?

The foal crops were much larger through the 80's than they are today. And in this modern enviornment, speed oriented horses often make better sires.

This is fiction with the new testing that has been in place for years

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

The foal crops were much larger through the 80's than they are today. And in this modern enviornment, speed oriented horses often make better sires.

The foal crop increase began the era of breed anything to anything which has led us to today.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

The foal crop increase began the era of breed anything to anything which has led us to today.

I guess we are just going to have to disagree....

I've looked at some pedigrees of good horses from the days when foal crops were very small, and some of them looked like breed anything to anything types.

Arguably the two most important broodmares in American racing history, La Trioenne and Frizette, were both very moderate race mares. I believe one a career maiden, and the other a claimer who died in slaughter.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

I guess we are just going to have to disagree....

I've looked at some pedigrees of good horses from the days when foal crops were very small, and some of them looked like breed anything to anything types.

Arguably the two most important broodmares in American racing history, La Trioenne and Frizette, were both very moderate race mares. I believe one a career maiden, and the other a claimer who died in slaughter.

You are making my point for me. That racing success of the sire and dam, drug induced or not, can have very little to do with the success or lack thereof of the foals

[The Indomitable DrugS]

I know that.

I think the drugs are the reason why their is an emphasis on speed in the pedigrees....that's my point.

And to further prove your point, the smallest crop ever foaled was the 1919 crop (two years after Man O' War) with just 1,665 horses. There are roughly seven times as many humans with trainers license now than horses than.

The star of that crop (11-for-11 at age two, and won his 3yo debut in the Kentucky Derby to go 12-for-12) was the very modestly bred Morvich. The first Cal Bred to ever win the Derby.

As I remember, his father was a very modest horse who couldn't stay, and his mother never won a race.

[Left Bank]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports...16delmeds.html The statistics mentioned are fascinating.