Breeders' Cup Keeneland 2022 Failing the Horse

Breeders’ Cup Keeneland 2022, coda

Medication remains intense--Breakdowns continue

 

 

I attended this year’s Breeders’ Cup to celebrate the revival of the American game, to finally—after half a century of advocacy—enjoy racing where horses were not intravenously injected with furosemide prior to going to the saddling paddock. When I arrived Sunday and read the permissive medication rules still in place in the Breeders’ Cup Horsemen’s Guidebook, I could feel the trouble coming. We were all hoping for an injury free event. The Europeans came through, but the Americans did not. Two of their horses did not make it across the finish line.

Monday morning, seeking more information, hoping to ally my fears, I accompanied a prominent Kentucky attending veterinarian as he made his rounds through the Breeders’ Cup barns. He picked me up as I was making the daybreak walk from the frontside where the media shuttle dropped us off each morning, to the stable area, a good mile hike. The Kentucky gentleman noticed my gimp, stopped his car, and took me in as he passed by on his way to work. It was Monday, so time was soft. We visited about trainers and racehorses, Europeans and Americans, the differences therein. We visited openly and extensively. Call it professional courtesy, call it ‘birds of a feather,’ we talked vet talk. We listened to each other. He, having read all of my New York Times racehorse advocacy articles, and I, knowing his honorable reputation, got on fine. We had met briefly at the Run Happy Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland in 2015. As our conversation narrowed to the horses at hand, he explicated all of the impending American medication scenarios, hiding nothing from me, knowing nothing could be hidden from my seasoned eyes:

The majority of American Breeders’ Cup runners would be injected with Lasix 24 hours before loading into the gate. This potent diuretic alters the metabolism and pharmacodynamics of previously injected medications (masking). This is one reason the permitted 24-hour drug is given, as its ability to manage pulmonary fragility and prevent EIPH is by and large absent by race time. Lasix to flush. The good doctor noted that Mr Baffert’s recent problematic post-race positives in Kentucky from horses medicated in California took place in stakes races where raceday furosemide was not allowed. Sophisticated doping strategies falter when Lasix is no longer part of the formula.

Most of the treated American Cup horses received 10cc IV, the maximum allowable. Furosemide is showing up in the post-race blood and urine samples as you read this. Thresholds have been set somewhere, although they were notably absent from the Breeders’ Cup Horseman Guide that stated that 24-hour Lasix was permitted, while the thresholds for all the other drugs were published, an interesting omission, I thought, one still missing, I might add. If the Breeders’ Cup post-race Lasix positives are below established furosemide thresholds, nothing will be said. I personally received this information from the Breeders’ Cup and Kentucky regulatory veterinarians. After we finished our ride around the Smith barns, my attending veterinary friend introduced me to the examining veterinarians who were hard at work. In all, I visited with 11 regulatory veterinarians and 2 attending veterinarians during the week preceding Domestic Spending and Epicenter’s feature race fractures. Drugs and regulators were plentiful.

 

Ultimately, regulation failed as regulation does in permitted pre-race drug jurisdications. In the Classic, the all-time leading American trainer’s horse suffered a fetlock fracture. Out went the ambulance in the most anticipated race of the century. I watched with glasses four floors up. Epicenter faltered badly when asked to move through horses on the backstretch, nearly going down. Joel Rosario, no stranger to leg-fracture spills, kept him afoot, and pulled him up deftly and professionally, saving two lives. 

The outriders and ambulance crew restrained and manhandled Epicenter to keep him upright and off the fractured canon bone. Veterinarians alongside, the uncentered horse hopped three-legged into the ambulance. He rhythmically threw his head as he moved toward the ambulance to lessen the weight bearing of his right front, that catastrophic gait that still makes me shudder. 

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Flightline galloped. 

The ambulance sat stopped for a few minutes after Asmussen’s horse was loaded, a worrisome sign to me. I am an extensively-experienced track veterinarian who has been in ambulances with three-legged horses more than once. The impact of those experiences runs deep, especially when a jockey is being loaded into the other ambulance. The stopped ambulance likely allowed the outriders and veterinarians to suspend Epicenter in a hydraulic squeeze device—taking weight off the broken leg—where it was safe for them to draw blood, medicate pain, soothe excitement, and secure the splint. Pain managed, stability provided, the ambulance departed. Epicenter was transported to Rood and Riddle, a primary sponsor of the Breeders’ Cup, to undergo orthopedic surgery.

Epicenter’s fracture has been screwed back in place and it is said he is being syndicated to stud to perpetuate the cycle of breeding horses whose legs do not hold up to racing. Neither laws of the state nor laws of genetics nor morals nor equine welfare concerns impede American owners, breeders, and trainers. Drug free solutions as to how to prevent these tragedies were put on full display by the foreigners at this year’s Cup. Despite readily available training strategies that enhance soundness of wind and limb, Americans continue to rely on drugs to train horses. 

The results of the American trainer affair with drugs are tragically apparent. Americans cannot get away from unnecessarily locking their horses down requiring a heavy dependence on medication. Overly-confined horses become fragile of limb and wind, and a perceived need for medication follows. This medication cycle exacerbates racehorse vulnerability to injury and subsequently imperils jockey safety. 

Confinement and medication are the downfall of American racing. Rather than a drug-free Flightline celebration, this year’s Breeders’ Cup became a tragedy rivalling Eight Belles bilateral breakdown in the Kentucky Derby. This year’s breakdowns were made all the more tragic for me considering all the time that has passed since that first Saturday in May. Why can lessons in animal welfare not be learned by Americans? Unlike the Eight Belles breakdown—and to their credit—the Kentucky regulatory veterinarians kept all of the horses on their feet despite the fractures, thus sparing the jockeys’ injury. 

The Euros and Asians demonstrated how to race safely. 

Knowing better but refusing to adapt, drug-dependent US trainers continue to break down horses and unnecessarily endanger the lives of jockeys. Mr Brown’s Domestic Spending fractured his pelvis, racing from gate 14 in the BC Mile after a 440 day layoff from an injury. Chad medicated the horse and raced, two weeks earlier claiming to be omniscient regarding all of his horses’ soundness’. Domestic Spending fractures his under-conditioned pelvis, and the horse is vanned off with a major injury. At the starting gate, the horse made it clear he was not ready to race, yet they made him run. 

American trainers continue on with their medication charades that make horses vulnerable to injury, despite simple labor-intensive, medication-free solutions that fulfill and favor the racehorse. Easily-employed enrichment strategies sustain and enhance soundness of wind and limb. Medication does not. Breakdowns and bleeding are largely preventable with appropriate breeding, development, sensitivity to behavioral need, and conditioning that fulfills and enhances the horses’ long-evolved speed and strength. 

The American confinement and training methods remain horse-insensitive, unprofitable, unethical, and ineffectual. The trainer is responsible for the condition of his horse. Not the attending vet, owner, or regulatory vet—the trainer. American trainers continue to send their horses to races medicated and in a condition unfit to race as Brown and Asmussen demonstrated in the Breeders’ Cup. Their horses were not ready, and as a result they were seriously injured in the running and vanned off.  The Euro and Japanese horses were ready, drug-free and ready, sound of wind and limb. All of them returned sound and safe, many of them won easy.

Horses in America continue to break down at an unacceptable rate. Any break down in the Breeders’ Cup is disturbing, and here we had two, further reflection the American horseracing culture continues at its worst—humans failing the horse. Drugs continue to flow into inadequately stabled horses, and injuries and fatalities unnecessarily continue. When the drugs stop, the injuries will dissipate, as has been demonstrated time and again everywhere other than America.

The solution for safe flat racing has been effectively employed across continents and throughout the world by restricting drugs. The foreign horsemanship specialists not only brought their charm and beauty, they displayed sophisticated training strategies that favor the horse’s health and well-being. Holistic therapies, and keen attention to the horse’s long-evolved behavioral needs resulted in winners, winners all around wherever they finished. All made it home sounder of wind and limb than when they arrived to showcase their talent. Their trainers make stabling, training, and racing a good deal for their horses. In return, their horses make racing a good deal for them. If only Americans would embrace these winning strategies that make racing safer and horses and owners happier. All of the Euro and Asian horses returned safely. In fact, their horses returned sounder of wind and limb, a sophisticated display of preparation that Americans must soon emulate if they expect the sport to survive here, much less thrive. 

Two American-trained horses sustained racing-fractures on the biggest day of racing. As well, some of the American horses bled, while the Europeans and Japanese remained sound of both wind and limb. No bleeding, no fractured bones in those horses trained and conditioned with the horses’ best interests in mind. And winners, yes, win after win.

 

Permitted medication perpetuates substandard horsemanship. Drug-free racing favors the horse. America has a choice. Drug-free runners win and come home sound as demonstrated by the Europeans. Look, see: Drugged racehorses are more apt to break their legs. Permitted pre-race drugs do not favor the horse. Too many medicated horses do not finish, exemplified by the American breakdown endemic still in play at the Breeders’ Cup.   

As it turns out, horses do not need drugs to race. NSAIDs and cortisone joint injections potentiate breakdowns by masking inflammation, allowing horses to race and train with pathology present. At times, trainers have had their veterinarians add local anesthetics to the cortisone injections to facilitate a good hard preparatory work. Many of these blocking agents do not test, but both Baffert and Asmussen have had local anesthetic positives in the not-so-distant past. Hall of Fame trainers. Baffert’s horse Messier bled, and Asmussen’s classic runner broke down. 

All drugs and any drug deteriorate safety when utilized to mask pain and inflammation to facilitate training when pathology is present, especially local anesthetics such as lidocaine or mepivacaine. Rest and rehab are indicated when pathology is present, rather than drugs to ease the pain so as to train. Furthermore, drugs and failure to properly develop and condition their horses likely incited the pathology that had them call for more drugs to get their horse to the next race. Claiming trainer tactics taken to the top of the game, to the Breeders’ Cup. 

The American permitted pre-race drug experiment has failed. Permitted drug use led to unpermitted drug use, doping a billion dollar industry, horses the victims. Americans continue to fail their horses on the biggest stage of all. America’s horrid breakdown endemic will not stop until the drugging stops. In Europe and China, drugs are forbidden two to four weeks before horses race. Breakdowns and epistaxis are rare. Their horses fly over here and win easy, and safely.

At Keeneland, where local horses continue to breakdown and bleed, BC runners can receive IV phenylbutazone 48 hours before loading into the gate, and, unfortunately, they can be doped with Lasix 24 hours before they race. None of the Europeans I interviewed planned to partake in the Lasix, considering it more likely to stiff the horse than help. But according to the Kentucky attending veterinarians I rode and visited with, many, if not most, of the Americans are fulfilling their racing drug addiction at the Breeders’ Cup, and having their horses injected with Lasix the day before, and IV Bute two days before. Disgraceful. Unethical. Ineffective. Heartbreaking. Leg-breaking.

 

I observed nearly all of the Breeders’ Cup horses in the barn area and on the training and main tracks. The differences in stabling, training, and care are significant and remarkable. The foreign horses walked, jogged, and conditioned together in herds. Miles and miles of locomotion to enhance the soundness of wind, limb, and mind. Hour upon hours of socialization. If not with other horses, with hands on grooming and grazing care. I estimate Chain of Love spent 10 hours out of her stall day in and day out, accompanied by her pony horse. I visited her most every day. Her pre and post exercise routines were well over an hour long. Rubbing and brushing before, bathing, massaging, and walking after. More massages, more walks, physical connection horses need. A typical conditioning day included two to three trips around the smaller training track with her pony horse, followed by one or two trips around the main. This was in addition to abundant walking to and from the stable, and within the isolation compound.

Likewise, the Euros provided their horses with abundant daily locomotion and socialization. They successfully re-created natural for their horses, rewarded by  how safely and successfully they raced, and how happily they returned. Limb health, lung health, metabolic health, hoof health, digestive health, and mental health are all dependent on miles and miles of daily walking. It was a joy to see trainers putting the horse first, a joy to witness the happy horses loving their track lives. If only the Americans could learn to appreciate the happiness and soundness appropriate husbandry brings. If they do not learn, and learn soon, the American game will continue its decline.

As the Euro horses walked, jogged, galloped through the morning, the American horses were back in their stalls by 9am. Many remained there the rest of the day, Tyler’s Tribe among them as far as I could tell, their lungs withering, legs weakening, veterinary drugs flowing into them, and Lasix flowing them out. Meanwhile, Chain of Love walks clean. Mishriff jogs clean. The Appleby herd whinny together as one.

Beyond the USDA quarantine, I observe the covey of attending veterinarians go from American barn to American barn medicating horses all afternoon, every afternoon during the days preceding the Breeders’ Cup. As counterbalance, the examining veterinarians examine. I witness all of this. I have an eye for medicating-veterinarians and medicated horses. I, too, was once an attending veterinarian. I know their game.  From a distance, I watch the horsedoctors carefully select and load the medications, syringe after syringe. They color the fluids with vitamins and whatever else they can sneak in that will slip by the testing lab. Off they march with their tray of medications into the shuttered stalls. Two days before, the day before. 

As the Friday races went off, the veterinarians with horses in Saturday went to work. The Saturday runners received their intravenous Lasix, urinating the weight away, flushing other drugs along. Lasix imbalances equid electrolytes, drawing the horse up, pulling calcium out of bone. At one stable, I observed the water buckets set out Friday evening, seemingly withholding water, I am not sure. In the quarantine barn, the lads were changing water, cleaning pails, rubbing their horses, walking in communal circles, providing abundant locomotion in the most restricted spaces.

The untoward injuries on Saturday were reflective of the inappropriate American veterinary approach of medicating horses to race rather than walking them. Meanwhile, the drug-free hydrated, enriched and fulfilled Euros ran to win. You’d think winning would be enough incentive for Americans to do right by the horse, but our culture has not yet embraced the welfare of the horse like it needs to. I am sorry to report that as long as the drugs are permitted, American racehorse drugging will continue along with the substandard horsemanship the drugs facilitate. Bleeding and breakdowns will follow at unacceptable rates, and the game will fade away, or be forced to stop. 

 

If and when all of the medications to race are restricted as they are in Europe and Asia where happy racehorses graze, walk, socialize, and race together, Horseracing in America will have a chance, a last chance to help the horses prevail in fashions that favor the horse, rather than fail her. 

 

 

 

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.

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. 

 

Lasix Encourages Racehorse Doping in America

The Florida Derby racehorses will be injected with two performance enhancing drugs before heading to the paddock for their derby run, prednisolone and Lasix. Both prerace drugs are allowed by the state racing regulators, who have become puppets of the trainers' lobby. Raceday injections are the root of all the current doping troubles in America. The state racing jurisdictions, all of them, have chosen to set the example of allowing horses to be injected intravenously with performance enhancing drugs shortly before racing. This practice of legal doping has created an untoward atmosphere of generalized racehorse doping, as we are seeing. Raceday and day before medication has to be eliminated if progress protecting the health and welfare of racehorses is to advance.
A strict policy of not allowing horses to be injected with drugs in the days before and the day of racing is the international standard. Where raceday injections are not allowed, racing is 4X safer for the horses, and jockeys. In America, horses break down at 4X the rate of horses racing without the pre-race performance enhancers in Asia, Australia, and Europe.
The raceday drug Lasix potentiates breakdowns due to its performance enhancing effect. Lasix also allows for the substandard care of the racehorses. To permit legal doping is to encourage widespread doping. Raceday Lasix (and IV cortisone) are considered doping by the regulators in Asia, Dubai, Europe, and Australia, where racing is safer and horses are better cared for. 
Sid Gustafson DVM
http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/author/sid-gustafson/

June 4, 2008, 3:42 PM

Drugs and Racehorses

By SID GUSTAFSON

Phenylbutazone seemed a miracle drug when the stuff began entering the bloodstreams of racehorses in the 1960s. I was collecting the post-race urine that concentrated the metabolites of that drug during the ’60s, and as a teenager I became acutely aware of drugs and racehorses.

What a soothing anti-inflammatory effect bute brought to racehorses in those simpler days when its use first became widespread. The alleviation of certain lamenesses was dramatic. “Really sweet stuff,” I remember Wright Haggerty’s Kentucky groom telling me on the Shelby, Montana, backside in 1965 as he pestelled up tiny white 100-milligram dog pills he had received from my father, the attending and regulatory veterinarian (thus my job as urine catcher). The original medical plan, being that most racing jurisdictions back then prohibited the use of any and all drugs, was to use bute for training. The groom mixed the white powder into a mash, and fed his eager and waiting racehorse, who trained like Seabiscuit the next morning.

Bute cools hot joints and quiets inflamed tendons to desirable medical effect, allowing horses to return to training and racing sooner than otherwise, allowing them to maintain their conditioning. Tight, cool legs and hooves are necessary to continue conditioning the racehorse. If there is excess fluid in a joint, or swelling within a hoof, conditioning is generally counterproductive as further inflammation and damage follow exercise.

Bute was first used to facilitate continued training by quieting certain injuries or inflammations, and was especially effective when used conscientiously and conservatively. In a certain sense and in compassionate, knowing hands the drug provided humane relief to the rigors of racehorse life. The question quickly became: Could bute enhance performance? It was not a question for long. The answer was yes. Bute was and is the cleanest boost ever for a horse with mild inflammation in need of relief. The stuff could move a horse up, as they say, without a mental, or stimulant effect, but with an anti-inflammatory effect.

Two horses being equal, however, bute generally won’t make a horse with quieted inflammation run faster than a horse without joint, bone, or tendon inflammation. In a sense, bute restores normal overall biomechanical function. The nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug takes the heat out of mildly inflamed legs, feet, and joints, and this can be good in considerate hands.

Bute also became useful in the sense that it was diagnostic, or so the mind-set went at the time. If you administered bute and your horse went back to training and eating and being a sound horse after laming up a bit, then it was concluded that the condition was not significant enough to warrant rest, only to warrant bute. Bute, then, could be used to assess the severity of the lameness in racehorses. Some did not consider bute-responsive conditions serious, and this is one line of reasoning that eventually allowed the legalization of bute. There were medical arguments for its use in racing horses, medical arguments made by veterinarians and drug companies.

The conditions that bute administration does not resolve or effectively manage are considered problematic, and those conditions generally warrant rest, rather than more intensive treatment. Today, however, if bute does not manage the condition, more intense treatments are used, and more intense drugs are used.

Rest is the oldest and most effective treatment for lameness. In the history of horse doctoring, no treatment is more effective. The horse has a tremendous potential to heal musculoskeletal injuries if returned to natural pasture conditions, grazing the plains with herdmates. The problem is that it takes a full year of rest to cure many conditions racehorses develop, and at least months for others. No one has time to rest racehorses, to wait a year, and then take eight months to recondition the horse. With racehorses the clock is ticking, fast. If drugs can save time with racehorses, they are used for just that. And that is the case these days. The industry has transcended bute. The monthly veterinary bills at Belmont and Aqueduct often exceed the monthly training fee. Ask any owner.

If conditions are diagnosed accurately and thoroughly, and drugs are dosed properly and administered in a timely manner, doctors can reduce problematic inflammation in a given leg or joint, which in turn protects the rest of the horse by minimizing the risk of extra strain on other joints and limbs to compensate for the painful injured joint. However carefully dosed and administered, however, this brand of racehorse sports medicine puts more pressure on the weakened, and now treated joint, and herein lies the danger. In addition to systemic medication given intravenously to treat joint inflammation, cortisone is injected directly into joints and tendon sheaths to get a significant anti-inflammatory effect. Cortisone is in a different class of drugs called steroids, which can be used more specifically than bute to reduce the inflammation in a specific joint.

When there is swelling in a joint or tendon sheath, excess synovial fluid is secreted, distending the joint structures, and in some cases, deforming them, making for irregular movement. The reason for excess fluid in a joint is most often damage to the sensitive joint structures; damage to the synovial membranes, articular cartilages, ligaments, tendons, and underlying bone, any or all of the above. Damaged joints are weakened joints. They are inflamed joints, and in racehorses, many become cortisone-injected joints: weakened joints that are quieted down with cortisone. Why? Horse joints need to flow smoothly. Imagine an abraded joint surface, or a tendon that loses its lubrication as is passes over a running, moving joint, the resultant pain, swelling, inflammation, increased friction, and impaired function. If there is rough movement in one joint, the roughness is relayed throughout the horse’s musculoskeletal system, increasing the burden on the other legs and joints.

Intra-articular injection of a joint with cortisone is a potent treatment. In certain veterinarians hands it can be used beautifully. The most commonly injected joint is the fetlock, which is also the most commonly fractured joint. The reality is that most of fractured joints were cortisoned joints, although this information is inaccessible because of medical confidentiality. Bute is less intense, less potent, and a more conservative, safer remedy. The original idea was that legalized bute would replace joint injections, or that was part of the intent. That has not been the case.

Phenylbutazone, or bute, abbreviated from the early popular brand Butazolodin, is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug very similar to aspirin. Those who understand the pharmaceutical principles of aspirin understand phenylbutazone. Bute reduces inflammation, and subsequent to that, pain. That is the sequence, anti-inflammatory first, with subsequent pain relief. As a result of reduced inflammation, there is restoration of function accompanying relief of the joint pain.

If you consider aspirin a painkiller, then I suppose you can consider bute one, as well. Bute lasts longer, a day or two, while aspirin is more quickly metabolized in the horse, a matter of hours. The sustained anti-inflammatory effect of bute is especially therapeutic to horses. Prolonged anti-inflammatory relief allows the interdependent musculoskeletal system of the horse to redistribute weight appropriately. Lameness anywhere imbalances the horse. In a sense, bute can improve the balance by providing anti-inflammatory relief of the inflamed parts.

Initially, drugs for racehorses being illegal, bute was used to facilitate training and not so much enhance racing. That came next. The medication got to working pretty darn good, and in time trainers began administering bute to their horses closer and closer to racing, and soon the testing folk started picking it up. Matt Lytle was one trainer who taught me about bute, the smile it put on his face until Croff Lake, one of his horses, suffered a bad test after winning the Oilfield Handicap in Shelby, Montana, one of those years in the mid-’60s. Lost his purse and sort of soiled his reputation all because of a shade of bute in the urine.

Later, I heard him defend the drug, and his use of it: he gave it for the horses well-being, he claimed, and knowing Matt and his connection to his horses, I did not doubt his intent and compassion. Pain relief is compassionate, especially the sort of racehorse pain relief bute provided. The problem today is that a good thing, bute, or medication in general, has been taken too far. In the passion of competition and in a world of big money, horses have become victims of a misguided pharmaceutical culture.

My dad, having dispensed the bute, sampled Matt’s horse after it won the Oilfield Handicap. I was the one who caught Croff Lake’s urine, which tested positive. Then the next spring a winning horse tested positive in the Kentucky Derby. Rather than further restrict drug use to remedy the situation, the industry legalized drugs. From that time, horse racing shifted from a covert medication culture to an overt medication culture, which has been recently brought to its knees.

After hundreds of other doping incidents, there came a general consensus that if so many felt the need to use bute, maybe it should be O.K. to run on. After all, it was only a type of aspirin. And perhaps its legalization would eliminate the need for other more abrasive medications, such as opiates and amphetamines, and local anesthetics. Some even thought it would reduce the urge to administer intra-articular injections of cortisone. Not the case.

By the time I graduated from vet school and began practicing at Playfair Racecourse in the late ’70s, I could legally treat racehorses with nearly everything except stimulants, opiates or depressants. That left a lot of anti-inflammatory drugs, antihistamines, hormones, steroids and bleeding medications to administer to running racehorses, not to mention a multitude of vitamins, amino acids and minerals thought to help a horse endure the rigors of confinement training and racing.

Now virtually all racehorses run on bute and Lasix, and now with too many fractured fetlocks the medication has to be reduced. Bute wasn’t enough. No drug is. Legal bute engendered a drug culture. The ideology that more conservative use of potent medications would follow legalization of bute did not prove up. More intense drugs and medical treatments followed, rather than less. The pharmaceutical adaptability of the racehorse has been exceeded. Horse racing has to wean itself from its addiction to drugs that no longer help, but instead weaken horses. Racing jurisdictions are in the process of rolling back drug use. The trend should continue as a part of the remedy to reduce breakdowns. Foreign horse racing jurisdictions run without medication, and their safety records are better than the United States’. Horses running clean are less likely to break down than those running on medication.

Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.

http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/drugs-and-racehorses/?smid=pl-share

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. 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.

Kentucky Horse Racing Commission RaceDay Medication Transcript

Dr Gustafson's testimony begins on Page 169, Arthur Hancock's testimony begins on page 220, Bill Casner's begins on 137.

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

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. DrSid provides equine behavior consultations to help recreate the needs and preferences of horses in training and competition. He advises owners and trainers how to manage bleeding without drugs.

MR. FARMER: Dr. Gustafson with the Humane Society of the United States.

DR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you commissioners for having this hearing to address this important issue.

My name is Sid Gustafson. A brief biography for those of you who would like to know. In the '60s, I started catching urine in Montana. I was catching urine in 1968 when Dancer's Image number was taken down. And so I put a lot of thought into raceday medication through the years.

I represent the Humane Society of the United States today as well as the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association. I teach veterinary behavior at the University of Guelph and, in addition, I am a regulatory veterinarian in 4 states; California, New York, Montana, and Washington.

So I have been around as both an attending and regulatory veterinarian.

We do not oppose horse racing. But we do oppose race day medication. Hearing the information that exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage is present in nearly 100 percent of the horses, some people would conclude that that is somewhat of a normal occurrence rather than an abnormal pathology.

However, certain degrees of it can be quite problematic. And I feel that part of this is due to exceeding the adaptability of the racehorse. So in my talk, I am going to present some solutions other than medication to exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage.

Apparently all of these other jurisdictions in Hong Kong and Europe and places they don't use race day medication went through this process. And I assume the process they went to -- the collusions they came to will somewhat reflect what happens here. But I guess that remains to be seen.

To appreciate the nature of the thoroughbred, I would like to briefly review the evolution of the horse and the domestication process. Of all of the human equine pursuits, horse racing is perhaps the most natural equine pursuit of all. More natural, for example, than polo or stadium jumping or cutting. Horses have evolved for 60 million years to run at speed in close company. Running at speed in close company is the horse's long evolved group survival mechanism.

This is the nature which is nurtured in thoroughbred lines and thoroughbred development and training.

Racing comes natural to a horse.

To appreciate how horses develop the athletic endurance to run at speed together and connected in close company, veterinary behaviorists observe horses in natural settings to assess how horses naturally prepare themselves to race. We study horses prepare younger horses to develop strong limbs and strong lungs and musculoskeletal systems to achieve success evading prey.

Knowledge of the horse's nature is abundantly applied here in Kentucky. Farm after farm I drove through coming here had large pastures where bands of mares and foals and later bands of cohorts run and play and learn to travel closely together at speed. They learn to communicate together, change leads together and move in a safe and synchronous organized fashion while running in large circles around the pasture.

It is this essential experience with other horses in a heard that a growing thoroughbred gains the confident to run by and through horses later in life in a race. The herd conditions growing horses. Running with the herd facilitates the physical development of the lungs and musculoskeletal system.

The reproduction and recreation of these natural behaviors are essential for the healthy, mental, and physical development of the thoroughbred as is evident everywhere here in the Bluegrass. In order to later prevail in a horse race, growing thoroughbreds need to be conditioned to develop the ability, coordination, stamina, pulmonary capacity, and strength, confidence and experience needed to endure training and racing.

It is this knowledge that elucidates how race day Lasix impoverishes the welfare of horses. 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.

The solution to managing exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage is appropriate breeding development, horsemanship, training, and husbandry. The care that establishes and enhances pulmonary health and endurance in horses is the same care that enriches stabled horse's lives. It is the same care that keeps racehorses' musculoskeletal systems sound. It is the care that keeps horses on their feet during races.

One point is clear about all of this data. The data from non-Lasix, non-race day medication jurisdictions indicates to me, at least, that clean running horses suffer significantly fewer breakdowns than horses running on Lasix in America.

Over the last 2 years, if I am reading the data from Encompass correctly, we watched 2 horses break down for every 1,000 starts. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which has been discussed here quite a bit, has set an example of clean and racing without race day medication. And their data indicates that they have less than 1 breakdown for every 2000 starts.

So on that basis, we find the use of Lasix and race day medication to be a welfare issue. Horses with healthy lungs are content and

fulfilled horses whose lives their caretakers adequately, if not extensively, enrich. Lung health is supported by limb health. Appropriate husbandry and training maintains and establishes the soundness of both wind and limb.

Breeding and running are biologically intertwined on the racetrack, a breath per stride. To stride correctly is to breathe correctly. To breathe correctly is to breathe soundly and to race sound.

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 equine induced pulmonary hemorrhage -- exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage while racing. They are more apt to stay sound.

Humane my friends. appropriate

care of the horse prevents bleeding, Pulmonary health is reflective of

husbandry, breeding, training, nutrition, and the abundant provisions of forage, friends, and perhaps most importantly locomotion.

Lasix perpetuates substandard horsemanship, artificially suppressing the untoward result, which is bleeding, to impair performance of inadequate preparation of the thoroughbred.

Performance medication on race day leads to fragility. Rather than alleviate medical conditions, the data from several jurisdictions and studies indicates that racing medications administered on race day exceed racehorse adaptability and perpetuate fragility in race horses. Fragility is dangerous for both horses and riders.

Genetics play a role in pulmonary health and physical durability. Lasix perpetuates genetic weakness by allowing ailing horses to prevail and sow their seeds of pharmaceutical dependence.

Lasix manages a wide variety of unsoundnesses, as do the cortisone and the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Running sore can cause horses to bleed. Anti-inflammatory drugs aggravate coagulation processes.

Please appropriate that horses running on pharmaceutical scrims are 4 times more likely to

break down than horses running free of race day medication.

Pulmonary health is dependent on appropriate breeding and proper development for the vigor, durability, and endurance thoroughbred racing demands.

Drugs are not the solution. Competent horsemanship is the solution.

Genetic dosage, behavioral and physical development, socialization, training, and husbandry are the keys to racehorse soundness, stamina, and durability.

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. Racehorses are no exception. The last place a horse evolved to live is in a stall alone. The solution to manage bleeding in racehorses is to develop, teach, train, and care for horses in a horse-sensitive fashion.

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.

order to maintain pulmonary health, natural conditions need to be recreated in the stable. 

Horses prefer to graze together and move nearly constantly. This constant grazing and moving are essential for joint and bone health, hoof health, metabolic health, and pulmonary health. In order for lungs to stay healthy, horses need movement, often more movement than trainers provide.

Walking enhances and maintains horse health. Stabled horses need a lot more walking than most are currently afforded. Abundant on track and on track locomotion is necessary to condition a horse's lungs. Lungs deteriorate when movement is restricted. Horse breath all day long and walking is part of the way that assists their health.

Walking and movement enhance breathing and lung health. Development and conditioning of pulmonary health throughout growth and while training are the answers to prevent and manage bleeding as they have always been.

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 locomotions.

Horse evolved in the open spaces of the northern hemisphere and require the cleanest, purest air to thrive and develop health lungs and hearts. Stable air needs to be constantly refreshed to maintain pulmonary health. Ventilation is essential and enclosed structures are often inappropriate. Barn design must be addressed to maintain pulmonary health. Bedding is critical. Clear straw provides the moves

movement by simulating Horses stalled on about with their heads

grazing. straw are noted to move down nibbling and exploring

for hours, recreating natural, keeping their lungs healthy with movement.

Their respiratory tracts drained by all the head-down nibbling and grazing. 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 lung health, is to enhance the overall health and soundness of the horse.

Racing has proven to be safer in Lasix-free and race day medication free jurisdictions where the drug crutch is not allowed.

Drugs are not allowed to replace appropriate care and training in Hong Kong and Europe. And race day drugs should not be allowed in America.

The stabled race horses has to be carefully and humanely cared for and nourished, both physically and behaviorally to win and stay healthy. Lasix has weekend the breed, and weakened the American horse racing game considerably as the numbers across the board reveal.

The horse has brought us all here today. If racing is to flourish as a sport in Kentucky and subsequently in the rest of the world, horse racing must come clean of drugs and replace its race day medication attitudes with appropriate horse sensitive breeding, development, horsemanship, behavior, training, and husbandry programs.

To honorably share this great Commonwealth with our friend the horse, we must learn to use the resources of the land and people to nurture Kentucky horses and rid the heart of the sport of its dependence on race day drugs.

Respectfully submitted. MR. FARMER: Thank you very much, doctor. Any questions from the panel? Commissioners?

Thank you very much. DR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.

Racehorse Advocacy

Racehorse Advocacy

The Trouble with Lasix

Testimony before the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission hearing on raceday medication. November 14, 2011, Frankfort, KY, on behalf of the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association and the Humane Society of the United States.

Sid Gustafson DVM

Equine veterinary behaviorist representing the health and welfare of horses

11-11-11

To appreciate the nature of the thoroughbred, I would like to briefly review the evolution of the horse and the domestication process. Of all human/equine pursuits, horse racing is perhaps the most natural equine pursuit of all, more natural than polo or stadium jumping or cutting, for example. Horses have evolved for 60 million years to run at speed in close company. Running at speed is the horse’s long-evolved group survival mechanism. This is the nature which is nurtured in thoroughbred lines and thoroughbred development and training. Racing comes natural to a horse.

To appreciate how horses develop the athletic endurance to run at speed together in connected and close company, veterinary behaviorists observe horses in natural settings to assess how horses naturally prepare themselves to race. They study how horses prepare younger horses to develop strong limbs and lungs and musculoskeletal systems to achieve success in evading prey. Knowledge of the horse’s nature is abundantly applied here in Kentucky. Farm after farm has large pastures where bands of mares and foals, and later bands of cohorts, run and play and learn to travel closely together at running at speed. They learn to communicate together, to change leads together, to move in a safe and synchronous organized fashion while running in large circles. It is this essential experience with other horses in a herd that a growing thoroughbred gains the confidence to run by and through horses later in life in a race.

The goal of a harem is to teach the foal to run with the herd. The mare and band are the long-evolved teachers of this process. The herd conditions growing horses. Running with the herd facilitates the physical development of the lungs and musculoskeltal system. The reproduction and re-creation of these natural behaviors are essential for the healthy mental and physical development of the thoroughbred, as is evident everywhere in the Bluegrass. In order to later prevail in a horserace, growing thoroughbreds need to be conditioned by the herd to develop the ability, coordination, stamina, pulmonary capacity and strength, confidence, and experience needed to endure training and racing. 

It is this knowledge that elucidates how raceday medication impoverishes the welfare of racehorses. 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. The solution to managing Exercise-Induced-Pulmonary-Hemorrhage is appropriate breeding, development, horsemanship, training, and husbandry. 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 the care that keeps horses on their feet during races.

One point is clear; the data from non-Lasix, non-raceday medication jurisdictions indicates clean-running horses suffer significantly fewer breakdowns than horses running on Lasix in America. Over the last two years, we watched two horses break down for every 1000 starts. Meanwhile, the clean running Hong Kong Jockey Club has less than one breakdown for every 2000 starts. They have no apparent or significant problems with bleeding. They have clearly demonstrated that clean racing is four times safer than medicated racing.

Horses with healthy lungs are content and fulfilled horses whose lives their caretakers adequately if not 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.

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. Humane care of the horse prevents bleeding, my friends. 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. Lasix perpetuates substandard horsemanship, artificially suppressing the untoward result (bleeding) of inadequate preparation of the thoroughbred. Peformance medication leads to fragility. Rather than alleviate medical conditions, this data indicates racing medications exceed racehorse adaptability and perpetuate fragility in racehorses. Fragility is dangerous for both horses and riders. To grasp how Lasix impoverishes the welfare of the racehorse, one needs to understand the long-evolved nature and behavior of the racehorse.

Genetics play a role in pulmonary health and physical durability. Lasix perpetuates genetic weakness by allowing ailing horses to prevail and sow their seeds of pharmaceutical dependence. Lasix manages a wide variety of unsoundness’s, as do the cortisones and NSAIDs. Running sore causes lungs to bleed. Anti-inflammatory drugs aggravate coagulation processes. Please appreciate that horses running on pharmaceutical scrims are 4X more likely to break down. Pulmonary health is dependent on appropriate breeding and proper development for the vigor, durability, and endurance thoroughbred racing demands. Drugs are not the solution. Competent horsemanship is the solution. Genetic dosage, behavioral and physical development, socialization, training, and husbandry are the keys to racehorse soundness, stamina, and durability.

The causes of EIPH are clear. Horses prone to bleed are those horses that are mistakenly bred, inadequately developed, and inappropriately stabled and trained. To allow drugs to cover conditions reflective of horsemen failing to attend to the basic needs of the horse in training impoverishes thoroughbred and standardbred welfare. To administer Lasix, the adjunct drugs, and phenylbutazone to virtually every horse before he or she races is an inappropriate application of veterinary medicine. The en masse drugging of racehorses has been demonstrated to be unethical, unnecessary, and untoward. In the case of contemporary American racing, Lasix is the drug that allows horsemen to abuse horses, to use a plethora of performance enhancing drugs, to cut corners on the proper care, conditioning, development, and husbandry of their racehorses, to develop an ideology that relies on drugs rather than talent. Drugs should not be allowed to alleviate conditions reflective of improper care. The first rule of veterinary medicine is; First, Do No Harm.

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. Racehorses are no exception. The last place a horse evolved to live is in a stall, alone. The solution to manage bleeding in racehorses is to develop, teach, train, and care for horses in a horse-sensitive fashion. 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.

In order to maintain pulmonary health, natural conditions need to be recreated in the stable. Horses prefer to graze together and move nearly constantly. This constant grazing and moving are essential for joint and bone health, hoof health, metabolic health, and pulmonary health. In order for lungs to stay healthy, horses need movement, often more movement than trainers provide. Walking enhances and maintains horse health. Stabled horses need a lot more walking than most are currently afforded. Abundant on track and off-track locomotion is necessary to condition a horse’s lungs. Lungs deteriorate when movement is restricted. Horses breath all day long, and movement is required much of the day to maintain pulmonary strength and health. Walking and movement enhance breathing and lung health. Drugs are not the answer. 

Development and conditioning of pulmonary health throughout growth and while training are the answers to preventing bleeding, as they have always been. 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 inappropriate. Barn design needs addressed to maintain pulmonary health. Bedding is critical. Clean straw provides the most movement by simulating grazing. Horses stalled on straw are noted to move about with their heads down nibbling and exploring for hours, recreating natural to some degree, keeping their lungs healthy with movement, their respiratory tracts drained by all the head-down nibbling and grazing. 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 lung health is to enhance the overall health and soundness of the horse. Racing is safer in Lasix-free jurisdictions where the drug crutch is not allowed. Drugs are not allowed to replace appropriate care and training in Hong Kong and Europe, and raceday drugs should not be allowed in America. The stabled racehorse has to be carefully and humanely cared for and nourished, both physically and behaviorally, to win and stay healthy. Lasix has weakened the breed, and weakened the American horseracing game considerably as the numbers across the board clearly reveal.

The horse has brought us all here today. If racing is to flourish as a sport in Kentucky, horseracing must come clean of drugs and replace its raceday medication attitudes with appropriate horse-sensitive breeding, development, horsemanship, behavior, training, and husbandry programs. To honorably share this great Commonwealth with our friend the horse, we must learn to use the resources of the land and people to nurture Kentucky horses, and rid the heart of the sport of its dependence on raceday drugs.

Respectfully submitted,

Sid Gustafson DVM