Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit

Dr McIlwraith gave a fine presentation on intra-articular steroids. He failed to mention the effect of corticosteroids on the circulatory system and coagulation, and subsequently their contribution to contributing to increased incidences of EIPH. Side effects of fluid retention, catabolic breakdown of membranes and tissues, and alteration of the clotting processes are side effects that need to be explored and studied. Both corticosteroids and NSAID alter normal coagulation and contribute to an increased incidence of EIPH. Their extensive use is one of the many significant reasons American racehorses are prone to experience EIPH. Many medications, especially those utilized regularly in training, create the tendency to bleed. For this reason, many contemporary trainers feel they cannot race without Lasix. Lasix has become a cover for the overzealous use of performance medications, as most performance medications aggravate the clotting and pulmonary circulation process. Aggressive use of corticosteroids, bloodbuilders, and NSAIDs contribute to EIPH. This combined with inappropriate stabling and the failure to enrich the stabled racehorse's wellbeing with abundant forage, friends, and locomotion has created the illusion that drugs are needed to race horses.

Thank Dr Bramalage for the fine conditioning presentation. It seems Dr Bramalage did not mention the critical need to exercise horses throughout the day to sustain and maintain musculoskeletal and pulmonary health. Abundant locomotion beyond the training regimen is what American racehorses lack but need to promote soundness of wind and limb. Horses locked down in stalls all but an hour or two a day are not receiving adequate movement required to enhance the soundness of lungs and legs. Racehorses require movement throughout the day to adequately develop and sustain soundness of wind and limb. 

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist.  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.

Racehorse Advocacy: The Trouble with Raceday Medications

Racehorse Advocacy: The Trouble with Raceday Medications

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. 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.

Lasix-free Horseracing

The simplest and most logical solution that favors the health and welfare of the horse is to ban raceday Lasix and the administration of all other drugs after entry. No medication should be allowed to be administered whatsoever after a horse is entered and the post positions are drawn. This policy would make racing not only safer, but more enticing to the general public, as the playing field would be evened, and the betting would be fairer. 

The drugging-the-racehorse experiment has failed miserably. Drugs break horses down by facilitating substandard horsemanship. Racing was designed to be clean. Racehorses should be free of drugs that influence performance in any shape or form. It is poor form to needle horses before they race, the poorest of form, really. 

Lasix use has engendered the dangerous drug culture horseracing is experiencing. Lasix facilitates substandard horsemanship. Lasix promotes the medication mentality. Most horses that bleed are those horses cared for and conditioned in a substandard fashion. Pulmonary health is reflective of appropriate horsemanship. Drugging horses to race demonstrates a lack of consideration for the health and welfare of horses, as has come clearly evident.

Rather than establish appropriate ventilation and provide horses with abundant locomotion which enhances the soundness of wind and limb, trainers lock their horses down in the stalls, feed them drugs, inject their joints, harpoon their jugulars with Lasix and whatever other drugs they can get away with before heading to the paddock, and race. These people are not horsemen, they are sham pharmacists. This drug-addled behavior, my friends, causes breakdowns. Lasix is the root of the problem, and Lasix and all other drugs, whatever their nature, should be forbidden after entry, as the rules once stipulated back in the 1960s before the pharmaceutical veterinary lobby. Doping has and always will be a problem, but a problem that will be much easier addressed and minimized when permitted drugs are taken out of the picture after post positions are drawn. The standard procedure that resulted in the Aqueduct breakdowns was this: Enter the questionably sound horse. When the race fills and entries are drawn, get the vet over to inject all the troubled joints. Don't stop with the joints. After all that joint work, best make sure everything else that needs doping is doped. Dope the horse thoroughly, with everything and anything that may help and will not test. Race the horse; hope he or she wins to cover the vet bills, and cross your fingers the horse doesn't breakdown and pray the jockey survives if the horse does.

Clean it up trainers and commissioners. Get rid of the drugs-help-racehorses-race idea. Horses that require medication should not be raced until their medication responsive maladies are healed. 

Anyone remember how to race a horse drug free? Charlie and Woody knew.

Ah, I can smell it. I can see a return to horsemanship, I can see all the horses getting the wholesome attention they need and require to stay sound of wind and limb. I envision a return to all the hand grazing and walking the stabled racehorses once received each and every afternoon before the advent of permissive medication. I see again all that leg rubbing, all that muscle massaging, all the abundant afternoon attentions and conditioning. 

Yes, the days of horsemanship may return after all. Let's look forward to clean racing. We have the juveniles in the Breeder's Cup off the Lasix, and the next step is to follow that through, and keep this years two year olds free of Lasix and raceday meds from here on out. 

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. 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.

The Snaffle Connection

More communication can be relayed between a horse and rider with a snaffle bit than with most other headgear. A snaffle allows sophisticated connection in trained, knowing, and familiar hands. In progressive relationships, the horse and rider each knows and feels the other constantly and intimately. The slightest tongue move the horse makes is felt by the rider, and responded to appropriately. The tiniest finger touch to the rein, likewise, can relay the most timely and specific information. Headstalls without bits, or bridles with heavy curbs and shanks cannot detail refined communication like a snaffle can. Snaffles allow refined requests and responses to be taught. In the end, all can be cued from the seat, bridleless, after the teaching process with the snaffle and other headgear has reached ultimate fulfillment. These taught aids can later be overlain with classically conditioned seat and leg cues, and the snaffle can then be replaced with a bride-less contraption, or no head gear at all. Snaffles facilitate refined cue teaching and delicate responsiveness. Horses come to admire sophisticated, timely fingers. Here is an example of snaffle connection. The reins on Rachel are white, and Calvin's fingers, voice, and seat do the talking, and listening. Rachel tells Calvin when rein pressure is necessary, and Calvin listens. This is also an ultimate example of utilizing the horse's proclivity for flight.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=37TaDAMDIkw

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. Behavioral 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.