Horsemanship Bloodstock, Sid Gustafson DVM

Horsemanship Bloodstock

Sid Gustafson DVM

Equine Behaviorist

Racehorse Welfare

 

I secure yearlings sound of wind and limb, captivated with the behavioral essence to prevail.

 

I help develop the willing partnerships between horses and humans, keeping your horses sound, happy, and healthy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I offer purchasing and management services. Once your ideal horse is purchased, I guide your horse to the most appropriate farm, barn, or stable, one with knowing and sensitive human hands. Based on the horse's development and physical maturity, the most behaviorally positive training situations are found. Once placed, I monitor the stabling and training on your horse's behalf. 

I represent the health and welfare and drug-free training of your horse. In addition to monitoring the training, racing, and conditioning protocols, I monitor your horse's contentment, nutrition, socialization, daily locomotion, and happiness. My behavioral fulfillment strategies are designed and implemented to enhance your horse's potential to train and win. Nurturing a willing partnership between horse and trainer/rider is essential to racehorse success, soundness, safety, and longevity. I promote drug-free racing, and educate and guide trainers with strategies to prevent injuries and bleeding issues.

 

 

 

 

To blend with caretakers and riders as herd is key to horse happiness. Each horse must be stabled, trained, and managed in a fashion that fulfills both their individual and herd behavioral needs. Abundant daily locomotion is essential for soundness. Grazing and communing with other horses is essential for welfare. Miles and miles of daily walking and jogging together are essential for digestive, hoof, joint, bone, muscle, pulmonary, metabolic and mental health. 

I ensure that all horses under my management are stabled in a fashion that re-creates natural. Progressive racehorse management ensures behavioral health. Healthy horses become willing partners. Those who please racehorses, develop racehorses who please their owners, riders, and guardians.   

Natural behaviors must be re-created in the training and stable setting. Near-constant movement and foraging, along with abundant daily socialization with other horses creates winners. A naturally fulfilled and behaviorally enriched racehorse is a willing partner, happy to train and win. 

 

 

 

 

 

Utilizing sophisticated training-monitoring technology is now a premier strategy to ewin races. Additionally, monitoring assures owners that their racehorse is being trained properly. Welfare and health are easily tracked, reported, and monitored. Conditioning and stabling protocols are accurately adjusted. Problems are detected before they appear.

EKG, GPS, and stride length are monitored. Conditioning and distance preferences are determined for each horse. Soundness is maintained, both mental and physical, for each individual. This scientific monitoring enhances each trainer's ability to train, place, and condition horses to sustain a long and safe career. Breakdowns are prevented. Welfare is monitored, along with medication use. Dr Gustafson reviews all suggested medication protocols. Horses under Dr Gustafson's management are trained without medication, or with minimal medication. Never is medication allowed to facilitate training or racing by suppressing a problem or reducing pathological inflammation. Physical therapy, rubbing, swimming, walking, lounging, grazing, and socialization with other horses are the soundness-maintaining strategies that enhance endurance and longevity.

 

 

 

 

 

My experience as an attending veterinarian, regulatory veterinarian, and equine behaviorist supports my seasoned ability as a bloodstock agent and racehorse manager. I secure sound horses with animated movement. I find horses with the mental aptitude to readily blend with humans to condition, stable, and race successfully. 

Pedigree is but half the equation. Horses evolved as social grazers of the plains moving and grazing together nearly 2/3 of the time in natural settings. Abundant daily locomotion is essential to maintain soundness, pulmonary, digestive, metabolic, and behavioral health. Dental health in growing horses requires daily attention and care. 

 

 

 

  

The Language of Horsemanship.Racehorse Advocacy. 
Native Bloodstock. 
Racehorse selection, acquisition, and welfare management.
Securing yearlings sound of wind and limb with the behavioral essence to train up and prevail. 
Progressive racehorse monitoring utilizing sophisticated EKG and GPS motion monitoring technology. 
Enhancing welfare to maintain the soundness of wind and limb, while developing the will and stamina to prevail. Medication-free training and racing enhances welfare.

 

 

 

Dr Gustafson is a thoroughbred bloodstock agent and a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. The application of behavioral science to the development of racehorses enhances optimal health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity. Behavioral, social, locomotory, training, and nutritional strategies enhance the prosperity, vigor, and health of competition horses. Sid develops racehorses in deference to the horse's perspective, achieving willing and winning equine partnerships with humans. 

 

Competition Horse Medication Ethics

COMPETITION HORSE MEDICATION ETHICS

Gustafson S, DVM

Appreciation of the evolved nature and behavior of horses provides the foundation for the ethical veterinary care of equine athletes. The establishment of a veterinary patient client relationship (VCPR) is instrumental in providing ethical care for the competition horse. Ethical veterinary practice supports the horse’s long-term health and welfare interests while avoiding pharmaceutical intervention in the days and weeks before competition.

Horses evolved as social grazers of the plains, moving and grazing in a mutually connected and constantly communicative fashion on a near-constant basis. Contemproary equine health and prosperity remains dependent on providing an acceptable degree of this near-constant movement, foraging, and socialization. When horses are confined to fulfill convenience and performance interests, the horse’s natural preferences need be re-created to a suitable degree to avoid exceeding the adaptability of the horse. As the adaptability of the horse is exceeded, welfare is dimished and the need for medical intervention to remedy behavioral, health, and soundness deficiencies is intensified. Contemporary practices regularly exceed the competition horse’s adaptability, resulting in the need for extensive veterinary intervention to sustain health and remedy training and competition injuries.[1]

The more medical care and pharmaceutical intervention required to sustain any population of animals the lower the population’s welfare.[2] Ethical veterinary care supports the horse’s best welfare interests, as well as the safety of the horse’s riders and drivers. Medical intervention of the equine athlete should be avoided in the weeks, days, and hours before competition, as pre-competition medication is associated with increased catastrophic injury vulnerability as a result of the diminished welfare it perpetuates.[3] To properly support the health and welfare of equine athletes, the practitioner must be familiar with their patients both inherently and individually. Socialization, constant foraging, and abundant daily locomotion are the long-evolved requirements to promote and sustain optimal soundness, behavioural health, performance, and healing in competition horses. 

Healthy horses function and perform more consistently and predicatbly in an unmedicated state. Contemporary pre-competition medication practices remove the horse’s ability to protect their health and sustain soundness by masking pain and suppressing symptomology. Horses who require medication to alleviate medical conditions in order to compete are rendered vulnerable to injury and physical and behavioural dysfunction imperiling the safety of both horse and horseperson. Horses requiring medication to compete are not fit to compete safely. Horses and horsefolk are best served to compete free of short-term pre-competition pharmaceutical influence. Infirmities require appropriate medical care and rehabilition before competition is considered and resumed, rather than pre-competition medication to allay active medical problems. The equine practitioner should focus on post-performance evaluations and necessary therapies to sustain horse health on a enduring basis. An emphasis on fulfilling the medical, physical, and behavioural needs of the horse to prepare for the future competitions is the essence of ethical veterinary care of the competition horse. Pre-competition medication practices that replace or supplant appropriate health care are not in accord AVMA Principles of Veterinary Ethics.[4]

For human entertainment, convenience, and revenue, horses are bred, isolated, stabled, conditioned and medicated to perform competitively. Comtemporary pre-competition medication practices are often at the expense of the horse’s health, safety, and welfare. Many current medication practices violate the AVMA Principles of Veterinary Ethics, specifically the clause that states a veterinarian shall provide veterinary medical care under the terms of a veterinarian-client-patient relationship (VCPR).

The AVMA Principles of Veterinary Ethics state that it is unethical for veterinarians to medicate horses without a VCPR. Pre-competition pharmaceutical interventions to remedy insufficient attention and preparation for the horse’s long-evolved health requirements are seldom in the best interest of the horse. The medical and pharmaceutical practices which support equine competitive pursuits should be designed to enhance the health and soundness of the horse on a long term basis and should not be intended to enhance performance or permit training on infirm legs. 

Pre-competition pharmaceutical intervention has been demonstrated to have an overall negative affect on the health and welfare of competitive horse populations. Where horses are allowed to be permissevely medicated with and without a VCPR, injuries and catastrophic injuries are more prevalent, as are jockey injuries. Horses are best served to be properly prepared to compete in a natural non-medicated state. Pharmaceutical intervention of the equine athlete should be avoided during training and in the weeks before competition, as pharmaceutical intervention impairs the innate pain barrier while increasing musculoskeletal fragility. Intense and widespread pre-competition medication practices correlate with catstrophic injury vulnerability and diminished welfare.[5]

Equine athletic pursuits have historicaly been designed to measure the natural abililty of horses and the trainer’s ability to bring out the horses’ natural ability. Performance enhancing drugs devalue and debase competetive achievements. Equine competition was designed to measure the natural abilities of horses, with trainers and riders honing those natural abilitities. Hoseracing was never intended to measure medicated ability, thus maintaining genetic integrity of the breed.[6] Pharmaceutical scrims can impair horses for generations. To suppress a condition that is induced by low welfare is unacceptable. It is imperative in animal sensitive societies that the welfare and veterinary care of the horse take precedence over economic human interests. Horses are born to socialize, communicate, locomote, move about, graze and masticate on a near-constant basis. For behavioral and physical integrity, these preferences need to be re-created to an acceptable degree in the competition stable. The ethical practice of veterinary medicine includes providing clients with the guidance to provide appropriate husbandry, nutrition, conditioning, medical management, and behavioural fulfillment of their equine athletes. Medicating and suppressing injuries with the intent to continue training to later prevail in racing constitutes the unethical and illegal practice of veterinary medicine. Furosemide is a performance enhancing drug, masking agent, and metabolic alkalinizer, and as such is forbidden in racing jurisdictions worldwide, where racing is consequently safer for horses and jockeys.

Equine welfare is best supported when horses are properly prepared, physically and mentally sound, and fit to perform in an unmedicated state. Physically or behaviourally impaired horses who require medication to compete should not compete until they are able to compete without pre-competition pharmaceutical intervention. All sensation, behaviour, and proprioception should remain physiologically normal. Sensation and cognitive awareness should not be suppressed with pre-competiton medication. This inludes the use of sedatives, stimulants, and pain relievers of all sorts. Treatments should not interefere with functional physiology.

Sound horses properly prepared for competition have little need for pre-competition medication. Unsound or behaviorally dysfunctional horses should be medically and behaviorally rehabilitated in a fashion that restores soundness before training and competition are resumed. Medication is for infirm horses, and infirm horses should not compete. Horses who require medication to compete become increasingly unfit to compete safely. Rather than therapeutic intent, many pre-competition medication practices have become performance enhancing at the expense health and welfare of horse and rider. 

It has been demonstrated through time that horses and their riders are best served to compete medication free. As a result, anti-doping laws have been established by all agencies that regualte equine competition. Veterinarians are required by both ethics and law to follow these regulations. Horseracing statisitcs support that the less medication horses receive the more favorably and safely horses compete.[7]

The safety of the competition horse is dependent on unimpaired neurological functioning. Unimpaired sensation and cognitive ability are necessary for a horse to compete safely and fairly. Any medications or procedures which negate or diminish sensation and awareness in the horse impair the ability of the horse to compete safely.[8]

The safety, longevity, and durability of the equine patient should considered before short term pre-competition medical solutions are implemented. Familiarity of the patient includes familiarity with stabling, genetics, behavior, and husbandry of the patient. Many if not most medical conditions are a result of human mismanagement of equine stabling and conditioning. When the adaptability is exceeded, horses become unsound. Assessment of stabling conditions and athletic preparation practices are essential components of ethical equine care. Healing must be allowed to progress before competition and training are resumed. Client education is essential to create a husbandry situation conducive to equine healing. Restoration strategies that recreate the horse's social grazing and locomotion preferences facilitate and potentiate horse healing. Appropriate healing of many equine maladies is encouraged when the veterinarian provides appropriate medical care and carefully facilitates a scenario to provide the horse with appropriate physical rehabilitation and behavioural fulfillment. 

Despite domestication and selective breeding for docility and captivity, horse health remains dependent on locomotion. Locomotion is inherent to digestion, to respiration, to metabolism, to hoof health and function, to joint health, to bone health and durability, to resistance to limb failure, and to behavioral fulfillment. An interdependence exists between horse health and locomotion. Horses evolved to be near-constant walkers and grazers, depending on perpetual motion to sustain health of all systems. Horses did not evolve to be confined in stalls and stables, but to move on a continuous basis. Pulmonary health is dependent on abundant daily locomotion. Deprivation of adequate locomotion results pulmonary deterioration, resulting in an abnormal incidence of EIPH. By suppressing EIPH, Lasix perpetuates the substandard American training horsemanship that causes EIPH. 

When horses are deprived of adequate and abundant locomotion, they develop strategies and unwelcome behaviors to keep themselves and their jaws in motion, as is their essential nature. Horses deprived of friends, forage, and locomotion are at risk to develop stereotypies to provide themselves with the movement they need to survive. The more stereotypies present in a population of equine athletes, the lower their welfare.

No longer is intense medical intervention prior to competetion a viable, ethical, or legal approach. It has been demonstrated that the more intensely horses are medicated to compete, the lower their welfare. The more medications required to sustain any population of animals, the further the deviation from their physical and behavioural needs. Rather than pre-race treatments, the ethical approach includes  performance of exensive post-competition examinations to address any weaknesses or unsoundness as a result of the performance. 

Alternatives to precompetition medication with non steroidal anti-inflammatory medication and steroids include fulfillment of the horse’s long-evolved nature. Musculoskeletal soundness is attained by proper breeding, development, husbandry, and conditioning practices. Management of exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage is achieved by specific lifetime daily development of the horse’s pulmonary and cardiac function. As well, unwelcome and unsafe competition behaviors are best managed by fulfillment of the horse’s inherent behavioral needs, which include abundant daily socialization, locomotion, and grazing.[9]

Recommended reading

Chyoke A, Olsen S & Grant S 2006 Horses and Humans, The Evolution of Human-Equine Relationships,  BAR International Series 1560, Archeopress, England, ISBN 1 84171 990 0

Magner D 2004 Magner’s Classic Encyclopedia of the Horse Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books

McGreevy P 2004 Equine Behavior: A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine Scientists Philadelphia: Elsevier Limited. ISBN 0 7020 2634 4

Waran N, McGreevy P & Casey RA 2002 Training Methods and Horse Welfare in Waran N, ed The Welfare of Horses, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, p151-180

Paul McGreevy BVSc, PhD, MRCVS. Equine Behavior, 2004, A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine Scientists. Second Edition, Elsevier; 2012, Chapter 13 Equitation Science

Budiansky, S. (1997). The nature of horses: Exploring equine evolution, intelligence, and behavior. New York: The Free Press.

Hausberger M, Roche H, Henry S, and Visser E.K. “A review of the human-horse relationship” Appl Anim Behav Sci 109, 1-24. 2008

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[1] Zambruno, Teresita (2017) Epidemiological investigations of equine welfare at OSAF jurisdiction racecourses. Thesis

[2] Appleby M, Mench J, Olsson I, Hughes B (2011). Animal Welfare. CABI, Second edition; 2011.  

Fraser D (2008). Understanding Animal Welfare: The Science in its Cultural Context. Wiley-Blackwell; 2008.

[3] Slifer, Paige BMS 599 Dr. Alan Robertson 2017 A Review of Therapeutic Drugs Used for Doping of Race Horses: NSAIDs, Acepromazine, and Furosemide. Thesis

[4] The AVMA Principles of Veterinary Ethics, https://www.avma.org/About/Governance/Documents/2014S_Resolution8_Attch1.pdf

[5] Kentucky Horseracing Commission Raceday Medication Transcript, NOVEMBER 14, 2011 

 http://www.khrc.ky.gov/Documents/RaceDayMedicationTranscript.pdf

[6] Magner D 2004 Magner’s Classic Encyclopedia of the Horse Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books

[7] Kentucky Horseracing Commission Raceday Medication Transcript, NOVEMBER 14, 2011 

 http://www.khrc.ky.gov/Documents/RaceDayMedicationTranscript.pdf

[8] Furr M, Reed S editors (2007). Equine Neurology; Wiley-Blackwell

[9] Waran N, McGreevy P & Casey RA 2002 Training Methods and Horse Welfare in Waran N, ed The Welfare of Horses, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, p151-180

Dr Gustafson graduated from Washington State University as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine in 1979. He is a practicing veterinarian, animal welfare journalist, equine behavior educator, and novelist. The application of behavioral science to the husbandry of horses enhances optimal health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity. Behavioral, social, locomotory, and nutritional strategies enhance the prosperity, vigor, and health of stabled horses. Sid offers veterinary care, training, husbandry, and conditioning from the horse's perspective to achieve willing and winning equine partnerships with humans.

May 25, 2012, 10:09 PM

Alkalinization, Lasix and Milkshaking: A Veterinarian’s View

By SID GUSTAFSON

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission’s hearing on race-day medication last November revealed that Lasix alkalinizes horses, elevating their racing TCO2 values.

The more Lasix, and the closer it is administered to the race, the more intense the alkalinization effect of Lasix, according to the science presented at the K.H.R.C. race-day medication hearing. Lasix alkalinizes horses, creating a competitive metabolic advantage similar to milkshaking, rendering the drug Lasix a clear and present doping agent. Human athletic regulators have deemed Lasix a doping agent, and horseracing regulators will eventually have to come to that appropriate conclusion. Lasix has significant potential to alter and enhance racehorse performance.

As well, in my experience as both an attending veterinarian and a regulatory veterinarian, the attending veterinarians administering Lasix are often requested (as long as they are in the stall with the horse before the race to give the Lasix) to administer intravenous sodium bicarbonate, calcium and wide variety of other substances, including adjunct bleeder medications and undetectable performance-enhancers to stimulate or calm horses while sustaining added endurance. By pharmaceutically altering and manipulating a variety of physiological and neurological parameters for competitive advantage, medicating veterinarians influence the outcome of horse races and racehorse performance. In addition, these race-day medicators put horses at increased risk to break down. The statistics presented at the hearing clearly show horses medicated on race day break down more often than clean racing runners. The connection is indisputable.

There are a wide variety of pharmaceutical and nutritional manipulations veterinarians and trainers apply to gain competitive advantages, especially when veterinarians are allowed to medicate horses on race day, and the day before. Intubation (passing a tube up the nose and down the esophagus to administer a gallon or so of a sodium bicarbonate, crystalline sugar, and whatever else doesn’t test but may help move a horse up) is one method to milkshake a horse. Intravenous, intramuscular, sublingual, and oral administration of drugs are other racing-vet approaches to alkalinize racehorses to buffer the metabolic acidosis they experience as they enter the anaerobic acidotic state in the later stages of the horse race.

The historical method to curb veterinary doping has always been to bar veterinarians with needles from being around horses on raceday. When I started collecting racehorse urine in the ’60s, veterinarians were not allowed to be around horses with their needles and drugs on raceday in America. Initially, racing regulators barred trainers from possessing drugs and needles. Next thing they knew, veterinarians were slinking around from stall to stall before the races injecting horses as if they were sick. When I practiced on standardbreds in New York in the late ’70s and early ’80s, racing veterinarians were not allowed to be on the grounds hours before the races at Batavia Downs and Buffalo Raceway.

Horses are notoriously vulnerable to pharmaceutical manipulation, and these days with all the permissive medication policies, trainers and their veterinarians remain notoriously tempted to pursue every pharmaceutical ploy they can devise to move a horse up. Alkalinization comes in a variety of bottles and can be achieved by utilizing a variety of methods. It is the nature of many trainers to take whatever pharmaceutical measures they feel they can get away with to get their horse across the finish line first.

To allow racing veterinarians in a stall with a horse before a race is to permit doping, as it has turned out in America. I have witnessed veterinary doping first hand from California to New York. The solution to prevent doping and render an even field is to keep medicating veterinarians away from horses in the days before they race, as is the policy in Europe and Asia, where racing is approximately four times safer than in America. There, veterinarians can attend horses, but they are forbidden to medicate them, as is the appropriate ethical standard. Horses are never denied appropriate veterinary care, but when horses do require medication, they are declared unfit to race, as should be the policy in America.

Certain bodywork, massages, and physical therapies are appropriate as the race approaches, but doping is not. Drugs and medications are to treat ailing and lame horses, and ailing or lame horses are not permitted to race in ethical racing jurisdictions. Horses deemed to require medication are horses unfit to race by current international ethical standards. The universal standard through horse racing time has been to bar administration of any and all medications before a horse competes. Racehorses and riders are best served to run with no drugs in their systems. The clean racing standard is the standard that has effectively and appropriately protected the health and welfare of horses through time.

There are a variety of conditioning, husbandry and nutritional strategies that can be used that do not include or involve drugs and medications to prepare horses to withstand the rigors of a race. Tapering down the digestive tract, appropriate nutritional supplementation, appropriate exercise routines, appropriate hydration and metabolic preparations, and an endless variety of other holistic and physiologic preparatory approaches are more wholesome medication-free approaches for horse, rider and horseplayer.

It should be noted here, as well, that California allows trainers to take horses on and off Lasix without public knowledge. The attending veterinarians are allowed to use the steroidal estrogen hormone Premarin instead of Lasix. The California attending veterinarians are at liberty to switch out established race-day Lasix administration for race-day Premarin without the public disclosure of the change. All the while the horse is listed on the program as a Lasix horse race after race, despite differing medication regimens from race to race. This can result in significant variations in the type and dosage of administered medications from race to race, with associated alterations in performance. A horse listed as a Lasix horse may legally receive Premarin instead of Lasix. Next race the horse may receive Lasix, or Lasix plus Premarin, or only Premarin. The betting public is not made aware of these medication switches. Potential performance variations because of medication changes are hidden from the public by the C.H.R.B. Their regulatory veterinarians are forbidden to disclose the information to anyone but the testing laboratory, so the lab knows why certain Lasix horses do not have Lasix in their urine. The race-to-race medication choices are orchestrated and controlled by the racing veterinarians administering the race-day medications.

The Breeders’ Cup is in California this fall. Oversight by the Breeders’ Cup or reconsideration of the medication rules is in order there to protect the health and welfare of those champion runners and to assure medication consistency from race to race and horse to horse. The betting public deserves to be accurately informed about which horses are receiving what drugs, and for which race, and what changes to the medication routine occur from race to race.

The journey to establish clean horse racing continues. Soon, the horses shall prevail as horses have prevailed through time. Trainers will soon be required to utilize horsemanship rather than drugs to chalk up a win.

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Sid Gustafson, D.V.M., is a novelist and equine veterinarian specializing in thoroughbred sports medicine and equine behavior. He currently practices regulatory veterinary medicine, representing the safety and welfare of thoroughbred racehorses.

http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/alkalinization-lasix-and-milkshaking-a-veterinarians-view/

April 29, 2012, 9:58 AM

New Model Needed for Race-Day Treatments

By SID GUSTAFSON

The white horse emerged late last year representing promise to restore a limping game; a new age of clean racing, race-day-medication-free racing; but the white horse hung coming down the lane. Too much Lasix, it seems; resulting in an inability to hold sway.

American trainers and their attending veterinarians remain unwilling to sacrifice their race-day needles just yet. They are reluctant to give up medicating racehorses before the runners head over to the paddock. Rather than educating trainers how to appropriately care for racehorse lungs and limbs as attending veterinarians should, the race-day vets continue to inject drugs, and more drugs. The more drugs attending veterinarians administer, the more they are paid. The only fees attending veterinarians generate are fees for administering medication. Attending veterinarians are paid in direct proportion to the drugs they administer.

One can easily see how that may sway their opinion regarding drugs, and their decisions to administer drugs to racehorses. There are no veterinary fees for consults or advice on the backside. Herein lies a significant part of the medication problem. Attending veterinarians have failed to learn how to charge for medical consults. To give the advice to let a horse run clean is to not be paid for anything, although it is often the best advice a veterinarian could give to a trainer regarding a champion runner. To be able to deliver sound horsemanship advice and be eligible to be willingly paid for his knowledge and professional acumen, an attending vet needs to appreciate the true nature of horses and learn how to manage bleeding and unsoundness in more appropriate, less pharmaceutical, fashions. When attending veterinarians come to understand as much about equine behavior and welfare as they know about manipulating horses with drugs, life will begin to improve for horses.

It is simply not good form to go after horses with needles and drugs before they race. It is not fair. It is not right. It is not medically or morally appropriate. It has been demonstrated to be a practice that is harmful to horses, a practice that when allowed is applied to virtually all horses rather than horses in need, regardless of their limb and lung health. To medicate nearly every horse who races in America with bute and Lasix is not the practice of veterinary medicine, but rather some sort of medication sham. Veterinarians should know better. As has long been suspected in ethical racing jurisdictions around the world, medicating racehorses on race day has proved to be an inappropriate and unethical practice, not to be allowed, much less tolerated. The regulators of racing in the 1960s had it right. No drugs allowed, no doping whatsoever permitted, regardless of the dope or the doper. The results of race-day medication will always be the same: rogue winners, rogue losers, more medical issues incited than resolved, more deterioration of the horses and the sport, shorter careers, more fragility, and more breakdowns. More public concern and scrutiny.

It has long been public knowledge that horse racing requires strident antidoping regulations and enforcement. It is becoming increasingly evident that the attending veterinarians are the people who require intense monitoring. Once entrusted with the health and welfare of racehorses afforded by their professional standing and education, they can no longer be counted upon to practice right by the horse. Racehorses and drugs have had a long, albeit dangerous, marriage, and the attending veterinarians have been the ministers of the nefarious relationship.

To relentlessly medicate racehorses, rather than to nurture and care for them properly in accord with their long-evolved nature, has resulted in tragedy reaching to the very top of the American horseracing game. The more medication horses are given, the less carefully their natural needs and tendencies are tended to, and the more fragile they become.

Rather than drugs, appropriate care and horsemanship are the keys to appropriately manage bleeding and unsoundness in horses. Racing was originally designed to be drug free, and that clean-running notion of ethical regulation holds to this day. It is generally accepted by most welfare-progressive societies around the world that trainers and their attending veterinarians cannot be relied upon to represent the health and welfare of their horses when money and fame are to be gained by pharmaceutical manipulation of their charges. Permissible race-day drug injections have deteriorated the game considerably.

All of this year’s Derby runners are scheduled to race on Lasix, and most all of them will also get injected with the adjunct bleeder medication which the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission allows to be injected into horses before the race, the drug known as Kentucky Red, or carbazochrome. Good stuff, that Kentucky Red. If one drug is good, two must be better, or so goes the veterinary reasoning and fee structure of attending veterinarians.

In addition to pushing drugs into the Derby runners’ veins shortly before they race, the veterinarians will also be very busy injecting the horses the day before they race. Never enough vetting has become the backside mantra. In addition to the race-day cocktail the Derby runners and all the other runners on the card will be receiving before they run, most of the runners will be medicated with phenylbutazone 24 hours before the Derby, along with various other additionally permitted nonsteroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs, as well as a surfeit of other permissible medications. Most Derby horses will have a cornucopia of drugs circulating through their systems by the time they reach the starting gate, enough drugs to float a battleship, as the saying goes, drugs that allow trainers to exceed the adaptability of their racehorses.

The reality, now demonstrated worldwide, is that horses and their riders are best served to race clean. The fewer drugs the better as far as the horses’ health and welfare are concerned. The public prefers an even field, and a fair horse race. Clean racing evens the field and protects horses, riders, and horseplayers. Clean racing selects for the best horse; the most durable, soundest, best developed, best bred, and fastest horse. Clean racing allows horses to persevere and prevail over a long career of running. Clean racing allows the best horses to prevail time and again, to win the Triple Crown.

Across the oceans, clean runners are currently competing more safely than the drug-addled American horses. Foreign runners break down less, and bleed little, if any, more than the heavily medicated American horses. Everywhere but in America, bleeding and soundness are managed with horsemanship and appropriate husbandry as bleeding and unsoundness should be managed. The correlation between race-day drug use and breakdowns has become painfully evident. The more drugs a jurisdiction permits to be administered to horses, the more breakdowns the horses racing in the jurisdiction experience. The time to ban race-day drugs is now. Horses cannot speak, file lawsuits, or tweet, therefore much of the medication abuse of racehorses in veterinary hands goes unnoticed as unreported, excepting, of course those abuses so prevalent and overwhelming that they require reporting by those news outlets genuinely concerned about the health and welfare of racehorses.

Next time, I’ll deliver another rousing sermon from my rabbit hole in the infield: how to race and win without Lasix, and to race and win again, and then win one more time. It is no coincidence that there has not been a Triple Crown winner since Lasix started sapping the vigor and durability out of champion runners in America. The times they are a changin’ for the better for horses, thanks to those who have the creative cause to step forth and take a stand for the health and welfare of Equus caballus.

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Sid Gustafson, D.V.M., is a novelist and equine veterinarian specializing in thoroughbred sports medicine and equine behavior. He currently practices regulatory veterinary medicine, representing the safety and welfare of thoroughbred racehorses.

How to Race Horses without Lasix, Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Horses have long raced without medication the day they run, and appropriately so. Medication is for horses who are sick or unsound. Only healthy horses are qualified to race. Horses that require drugs to race should not be raced until they heal, and can race without medication. Healthy horses race safest.
Trainers who feel they cannot race horses without injecting them with raceday drugs are unqualified horsemen. The concept of fair play precludes the use of drugs to influence the outcome of a race. Horses deserve better than to be medicated on raceday, as over 90% now are. Horses have long successfully raced clean when properly cared for and appropriately conditioned, and have raced more safely than mismanaged horses that require medication to get them around the oval each race. 

Conscientious horsemanship and appropriate husbandry of stabled racehorses manages both EIPH and soundness. Horses need to get out of their stalls each afternoon for a few hours of grazing and walking about, perhaps some lungeing to lung up the lungs and flush the metabolism. Horses are born to move nearly constantly, and it is this near constant movement that appropriately conditions lungs to handle the athletic rigors of a horserace. Humane care of the horses is the answer to managing bleeding and breakdowns, not drugs, my goodness. The bleeding medication issue is entwined with the breakdown issue, as it is the horses medicated for bleeding that breakdown approximately 4X more frequently than clean running horses.

The horses will prevail soon, as the ban on raceday drugs is inevitably necessary to revive the sport and restore integrity to the game. 

Horses everywhere will breath great sighs of relief at not having to be needled with drugs hours before every race they run.

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. He helps refine horse training methods to accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses. Applied veterinary behavior enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in animal athletes. Natural approaches to development, training, nutrition, and conditioning sustain equine health and enhance performance. Behavioral and nutritional enrichment strategies enhance the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in content, cooperative horses. DrSid provides equine behavior consultations to help recreate the needs and preferences of horses in training and competition.

Appreciating Horses; Equine Behavior and Applied Horsemanship

Appreciating Horses    

Equine Behavior is the basis for Horsemanship
Sid Gustafson DVM

In consideration of the horse’s nature and behavior, horsewomen and horsemen are obligated to provide horses an appropriate environment, unconstrained neonatal development, formation and fulfillment of the mare-foal bond, adequate nutrition, sufficient sociobehavioral circumstances, as well as training and horsemanship modalities based on the horse's innate perspectives and sensitivities.
By nature the horse is a precocious grazer of the plains, a social and herd animal, and flighty. Horsemanship and training are best accomplished through behavioral appreciation of the horse and facilitation of the horse’s nature, rather than by force or coercion. Horses are best trained in a relaxed, calm state. Training that puts the horse into the flight or sympathetic state generated by fear and punishment while restricted by rigs or round pens is discouraged, and not in accordance with acceptable standards of animal training. Horsetraining and horse teaching methods are best based on scientific studies regarding the nature of the horse. Horses learn preferentially in a relaxed state from a calm experienced handler with adept communication skills.
Social behavior in natural feral settings is the 'natural' behavior that 'natural' horsemanship utilizes to appreciate the nature of the horse.
As to dominance, the science reveals that free-ranging horses form social hierarchies that are complex and rarely linear. Under natural open range conditions with adequate resources, horses seldom have the equivalent of an alpha individual because the roles of leadership and defense are more critical than domination. Dominance theory as a training modality is not only discouraged, but appears inappropriate. The formation of order in horse groups sustains collective welfare and enhances group survival, and reflects leadership rather than domination.[1] It is important veterinarians and students of equine behavior appreciate this science.
There is no alpha. Leadership is shared and alternated and variable and context dependent in established harems in natural settings. Dominance is rare, and certainly not prevalent. When present at all, it facilitates group protection and stability. Horses share leadership. Survival is herd based, rather than individual based. The lead mare leads the horses to water and grazing and resting places. She drinks first to make sure the water is safe, rather than because she dominantes the others. Students of equine behaviour appreciate shared leadership and herd stability. Horses seek competent leadership and are willing to accept competent leadership from humans.
The horse is special in retaining the ability to thrive in feral conditions independent of man. This allows us to study their true nature versus their stable nature and to apply that knowledge to their welfare as it pertains to training.
Horse retains the ability to survive without us, and survive well.
It behooves humankind to take care with horses. Sensitive horsefolk respect the 60 million year development of the horse’s social behavior and development. They appreciate equine intelligence in regard to both training and husbandry, and what the future might hold.
Stabling is unnatural. Horses graze and walk together 60-70% of the time under natural circumstances, eating and moving from spot to spot independently but within a few meters of the next horse. Stable managers and horse owners should make every effort to accommodate or recreate these long-evolved herd grazing and life-in-motion preferences for proper physiological function and mental health.

Horses require other horses for proper health and prosperity. Horses prefer the constant companionship of other horses. A horse should seldom be kept alone. Horses being mixed with other horses and expected to share resources should be properly acclimated socially, and be given the required space to adjust to new herds without injury or undue stress. Every effort should be made to provide horses with the social benefit of appropriate companion horses through times of stress and illness.
Horsewomen and men need to appreciate the sensual nature of the horse, and understand the physiological needs of the horse. Horses prefer the open view. If they cannot be in physical contact with other horses, they need to see and smell other horses for proper behavioral functioning and responsiveness.
Water is the most important nutrient, and must be provided in consideration of equine behavioral preferences. Salt is the most important mineral, and should be provided daily in some fashion.
Grazing is the preferred and predominant equine activity. Horses did not evolve to metabolize grains and non-structured carbohydrates, or to remain stationary for even short periods of time. Serious metabolic issues develop when horses become sedentary grain eaters, and this lifestyle should not be imposed on horses.
Play and sleep are naturally occurring preferences that require accommodation however horses are housed or stabled, as deprivation results in behavioral deterioration.
Horses are physiologically dependent on shared social grooming and sensual contact companionship. If stabling precludes these preferences from fulfillment, then every effort need be applied to replace or recreate these needs on a daily basis.
These behavioral considerations apply to horses in transport, and for those horses too, however unwanted, man is obligated to provide the proper environment, social functioning, nutrition, medical care, and exercise to sufficiently assure health and comfort.
As to performance, every care and precaution need be taken to avoid exceeding the adaptability of the horse. All of the horse's normal natural sensation should remain fully intact and functional without undue pharmaceutical influence. The horse's metabolic, physical, medical, and behavioral limitations are best be monitored by equine veterinary professionals on an intense comprehensive basis.
Professional veterinary societies and organizations are encouraged to provide education regarding equine behavior.

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. Applied veterinary behavior enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in animal athletes. Natural approaches to development, training, nutrition, and conditioning sustain equine health and enhance performance, as well as preclude the need for drugs. Behavioral and nutritional enrichment strategies enhance the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in content, cooperative horses that win willingly and consistently. DrSid provides equine behavior consultations to help re-create the needs and preferences of horses in training and competition. 406-995-2266, DrSid@mac.com

Racehorse Advocacy, The End of Raceday Medications

Racehorse Advocacy

The End of Raceday Medications 

Sid Gustafson DVM

Equine veterinary behaviorist representing the health and welfare of horses

Thanks to a wide and diverse variety of racehorse advocacy efforts, a review of racehorse raceday medication practices by a variety of racing jurisdictions and organizations is making advancements to support the drug-free welfare and humane care of racehorses. Raceday medications are in the process of being rescinded, as are the indiscriminate and abusive use of drugs in racehorses in general. It has become clear to many that current racehorse medication practices in the United States and Canada exceed the adaptability of the racehorse, resulting in unnecessary breakdowns and injuries and death to both horses and jockeys. Rather than drugs, it is the humane care of racehorses that supports soundness of wind and limb.

A variety of groups have responded to the call by the HSVMA and HSUS to better care for racehorses. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission invited the HSUS to testify at its raceday medication hearing, and I provided a version of the racehorse advocacy that follows. The Interstate Horse Racing Improvement Act is making its way through the United States Congress, and is supported by several congressional representatives. Make sure your representative supports this important Act. Governor Cuomo has called for an investigation of the New York Racing Association breakdowns. The New York Times is running a series of articles exposing the medication charade that has endangered horses and riders for decades in America. The Breeder’s Cup committee has banned raceday Lasix for two-year-olds racing in this year’s Breeder’ Cup.

Drug-free racing will improve stabling, conditioning, and husbandry practices for racehorses. Medication has long been a crutch that facilitates the improper care of stabled horses. Rather than alleviate medical conditions, recent data clearly demonstrates that racing medications allow people to exceed racehorse adaptability.  Drug use perpetuates fragility in racehorses.[1] Fragility is dangerous for both horses and riders. To appreciate the principles of equine behavior is to understand what is required to maintain pulmonary health in horses confined to stalls being conditioned to race, and it is not drugs. The solution to managing Exercise-Induced-Pulmonary-Hemorrhage and preventing breakdowns is appropriate breeding, development, horsemanship, training, and husbandry rather than drugs. The care that establishes and enhances pulmonary health and endurance in horses is the same care that enriches stabled horses’ lives. It is the same care that keeps racehorses’ musculoskeletal systems sound. It is humane care that keeps horses on their feet during races.

Horses with healthy lungs and sound limbs are content and fulfilled horses whose lives their caretakers adequately and extensively enrich. Lung health is supported by limb health. Appropriate husbandry and training maintains and establishes soundness of both wind and limb. Breathing and running are biologically intertwined on the track, a breath per stride. To stride correctly is to breathe correctly. To breathe correctly is to breathe soundly, and race sound. Limb soundness and pulmonary soundness are physiologically entwined.

Horses who are bred, socialized, and developed properly from birth, and who train while living enriched stable lives are seldom likely to experience performance-impairing EIPH while racing. They are more apt to stay sound of limb. Humane care of the horse prevents bleeding, my friends. Humane care of the horse prevents breakdowns. Pulmonary health is reflective of appropriate husbandry, breeding, training, nutrition, and the abundant provisions of forage, friends, and perhaps most importantly, locomotion. Bleeding in a race is reflective of inadequate care and preparation, of miscalculations and untoward medication practices. Drugs and raceday medications perpetuate substandard horsemanship, artificially suppressing the untoward result (bleeding and breakdowns) of inadequate preparation of the thoroughbred. Drugs are no longer the solution. Humane care of the horse based on evolved behavioral needs is the solution to safe horseracing.

The solution to manage bleeding and prevent breakdowns in racehorses is to breed, develop, teach, train, and care for horses in a horse-sensitive fashion. Horses evolved as social grazers of the plains, group survivalists moving and grazing together much of the time. Horses require near-constant forage, friends, and locomotion to maintain health of wind and limb, even if they are stabled. Racehorses are no exception. The last place a horse evolved to live is in a stall, alone, with a limited view and uncirculated air. Training and husbandry need to be a good deal for horses in order for horses to maintain healthy partnerships with people. Pulmonary health is reflective of overall health and soundness in horses. Pulmonary health is reflective of limb soundness.

In order to maintain pulmonary health, natural conditions need to be re-created in the stable. The solution to managing racehorse health is proper horsemanship and husbandry, which is sadly lacking at today’s racetracks. Horses prefer to graze together and move nearly constantly in natural settings, and to race without drugs, natural has to be re-created in the stable. The equine requirement for near-constant grazing and moving is essential for joint and bone health, hoof health, metabolic health, and pulmonary health. In order for lungs to stay healthy, horses need more movement than they are currently provided. Abundant on track and off-track locomotion is necessary to condition a horse’s lungs. Lungs deteriorate when movement is restricted by excessive confinement in a stall. Horses breath all day long, and trainers need to appreciate abundant movement is required through much of the day to maintain pulmonary strength and health.

To enhance pulmonary health is to enhance the horse’s entire life and outlook. Not only do properly stabled and trained horses’ lungs hold bleeding in abeyance, they hold sway and win. Pulmonary health and bleeding prevention are dependent on smooth running and biomechanically sound locomotion.

Horses evolved in the open spaces of the northern hemisphere and require the cleanest, purest air to thrive and develop healthy lungs and hearts. Stable air needs to be constantly refreshed to maintain pulmonary health. Ventilation is essential, and enclosed structures are often inadequate in providing healthy air horse require. Appropriate barn design and stabling practices maintain pulmonary health. Bedding is critical. Clean straw provides stall movement by simulating grazing. Horses stalled on straw are noted to move about with their heads down nibbling and exploring for hours, recreating nature to some degree, keeping their lungs healthy with movement, their respiratory tracts drained by all the head-down nibbling and grazing. This is not enough. For healthy lungs, horses need to get out of their stalls for hours each afternoon. Horses need near-constant movement to maintain optimum lung health. Long-standing horses’ lungs deteriorate quickly. Not only does near-constant movement maintain and enhance pulmonary health, abundant locomotion maintains metabolic health, joint and bone health, hoof health, and digestive health. To enhance support, and maintain lung and limb health without drugs is to enhance the overall health and soundness of the horse.

Sid Gustafson DVM

http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/goodbye-lasix-and-good-riddance/

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us/death-and-disarray-at-americas-racetracks.html?pagewanted=all

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. Applied veterinary behavior enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in animal athletes. Natural approaches to development, training, nutrition, and conditioning sustain equine health and enhance performance. Behavioral and nutritional enrichment strategies enhance the lives of stabled horses.