Drugs in American racing and the role the vet has to play | Trainer Magazine | European Trainer Article Index

Apr 24

Apr 24 Drugs in American racing and the role the vet has to play

TWO horses – Eight Belles and Big Brown – have brought racetrack veterinarians and their care of thousands of racehorses squarely to the forefront of the racing industry in the United States...and in the hot seat of public and government scrutiny. Perceptions that vets are drug pushers responsible for masking injuries that lead to catastrophe are more popular than ever. Dr. Foster Northrop, a racetrack veterinarian since the early ’90s, expresses it in succinct terms: “The perception in the media is we’re a bunch of butchers, right now, and that’s about as far from the truth as you can get.” What is the truth, according to Northrop and fellow racetrack vets, doctors Douglas Beebe and Steven Allday, is that perceptions are grossly inaccurate about veterinary practices and the role that vets are having in the industry. Medications like steroids, anti- inflammatory drugs like phenylbutazone (marketed as Butazolidin and commonly referred to as “bute”), and anti-bleeding drugs like Salix (also called Lasix) cannot mask problems that lead to injury or death nor can they enhance performance, according to the vets. “You cannot make a horse perform better than its potential”, said Beebe. Steroids, a hot-button topic because of their much-publicised use by trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. with Big Brown, are but one example of what these vets believe is a major misperception. “Every qualified veterinarian knows this steroid thing is an absolute farce”, said Beebe, a 45-year veterinary practitioner, of a controversy that is leading more and more states with racing to ban or restrict steroid use. “When you give too much of it, you can’t handle the horse. You can’t walk them. They don’t want to train.” Northrop echoed and elaborated on Beebe’s point: “You can’t get in a stall with them, or they’ll run their race in the paddock, not on the racetrack. That’s the thing: most medications are self-limiting because when you overmedicate you don’t get performance and people can’t understand that.” Anti-inflammatory medications like Butazolidin and their application are also misunderstood, according to Northrop. “You take a lame horse and give them as much ‘bute’ as you want to give them and they’re still going to be a lame horse. It doesn’t mask pain. It’s not a pain reliever; it’s an anti-inflammatory. We are not allowed to give any pain relievers”, said Northrop. Concerns over Salix to prevent post-race and workout bleeding in a horse’s bronchial system are also misguided, according to Northrop. “Horses bleed for a lot of reasons we don’t understand”, he said. “We’re running in cities where there’s tons of smog and pollution. These horses are putting everything they have in what they do and they’re going to bleed. These people that want to take Lasix away can’t be preaching health and safety of horses because you’re putting horses in harm’s way without the medication.” So are there answers for professionals and a profession that rightly or wrongly is looked to for change in practices to placate those who believe change is necessary? All three vets worry that change will come not from the professionals but from bureaucrats and those who, in the words of Northrop, “have never seen the back end or the front end of a horse, who speak out on issues with general vague notions not backed by scientific or clinical evidence. “If you want a good reform in medication”, he continued, “you put a panel together of three true, respected racetrack practitioners, two equine orthopaedic surgeons that specialise in race horses, two internal medicine guys that see a lot of racehorses, two human orthopaedic surgeons that specialise in athletes – Olympic level, professional level, college level – two internal medicine guys that specialise in the same thing, two regulatory vets and a neutral mediator. You put them in a room together and they can come up with a sensible therapeutic medication plan in six hours.” Like many persons within and outside the industry, Allday believes a fundamental problem is the lack of a central governing body for horseracing. “The time in the past where horses stayed in one jurisdiction is past. Horses ship around”, he said. “All the states that have racing are going to have to sit down, budget their money and begin testing for medications uniformly.” Transgressors of any uniform regulation are also going to have to be penalised more severely than what is current, according to Allday. “You have to make penalties stick. When somebody does something wrong, their livelihood has to be affected. That’s the only way we’re going to clean it up.”  Northrop is encouraged by efforts he sees in his home state of Kentucky to improve drug testing. “If the rogues are using illegal drugs, we want to catch them. And if we catch them, we want to get them out of the game – not just fine them, but get them out”, he said. Allday also makes a point overlooked, perhaps, by the media and would-be reformers: the percentage of rule-breakers among racetrack veterinarians. “If you look at statistics there are less than one percent of bad tests [those showing illegal medications or illegal doses of legal drugs] on the industry across the board”, he said. “That represents thousands of horses running every day and there’s less than one percent of horses that are turning up with bad tests. What’s that tell you? It tells me it’s a pretty clean industry.” Northrop presents at least a unique if not novel perspective on the kind of catastrophic injury that led to the 44 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 26 euthanising of Eight Belles. “People always wonder why it happens on national TV so much. Think about it: Why are they on national TV? Because they’re the fastest and they try the hardest. When you’re the fastest and you’re trying harder, you’re more likely to get hurt. Some of these horses have a heart the size of a Cadillac, thus, when something starts pinching in the middle of a race, like any good athlete, they ignore it and try to finish the race. “Every horse that I’ve been involved with that has been a catastrophic breakdown, and fortunately it’s not a whole lot of horses, went into that race or that breeze and I had no clue that anything was wrong. The odd misstep, the hole in the track – there’s truth to those things sometimes being the cause.  There’s also truth in some cases that an injury and catastrophe has been gradually coming on. But the horse has given no indication. “We do everything every day, 10 and 12 hours a day, seven days a week trying to prevent an Eight Belles situation.” Northrop, perhaps surprisingly, believes People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Humane Society “have done us a favour” in the wake of the Eight Belles catastrophe by bringing to the fore issues that can be beneficial to racetrack veterinary practice and the racing industry. “They’ve made us look within our industry and within ourselves, and every safety consideration coming out of this is a benefit to the horse.” He quickly added, however: “Are their claims accurate? Absolutely not.” Some reforms – whether they involve stricter or more restricted use of medications, uniform standards, or more severe penalties to standards’ violators – cannot touch larger issues that may be beyond the reach of even the best- intentioned individuals. “The breed is under a lot more stress than it used to be. Most horses used to get the winter off. Now we’ve gone into year-round racing and it’s hard on a horse”, said Northrop. Beebe, who did graduate work in nutrition before veterinary school, has conducted an exhaustive study of the skeletal system of horses and believes diet is the root-cause of injuries. According to Beebe, 80% of hundreds of samples he studied showed deficiency in trace mineral complexes needed to produce good bone. “We analysed the grasses, hay and feeds and all were lacking significantly in trace minerals. That’s why they break down.”  Allday subscribes to one popular belief that poor breeding is the principal cause of injuries. “You’ve got to stop perpetuating within the breed a horse that makes limited starts because there’s a reason why these horses aren’t staying around.” Artificial racing surfaces – the most significant innovation aimed at reducing injuries in recent decades – are welcomed by the vets but not completely endorsed either. “All are not the same”, said Beebe. “I assumed that most were pretty well consistent in their dynamics – that they would act a certain way when cold, a certain way when wet, and a certain way when dry. Apparently, that’s not the case.” Whether dirt or artificial, Beebe believes consistency in the surface is the real key to racehorse health. “You train on a consistent track every day, you’re going to have fewer injuries, bottom line”, he said. Northrop adopts a wait-and-see attitude on the surfaces: “I’m all for them once they’re proven to be more effective and safer than a dirt track.” He applauds Keeneland’s switch to an artificial surface but doesn’t think it’s an automatic decision for other tracks with dirt surfaces. “Until I’m sure and I’m convinced the catastrophic injury rate is going to do down I’m not sure I’d change a track like Churchill or the Fair Grounds or Palm Meadows, all of which have great records and are very safe racetracks.” While all three vets are united on misperceptions of their role, divisions on the upshot of media and government attention on their profession range from absolute pessimism to hope. Beebe believes we have a situation where “people who know nothing but who are making the rules and regulations will shut the industry down” by taking away from vets the means to correct injuries that occur in horses. The consequence, he believes, will fall upon owners not able to make any return on their investment. “An owner is going to say, ‘I’ve got a horse now that can’t be treated and I’ve got to lay them off for six months or a year. I can’t afford that.’ That would kill the industry.” Northrop’s outlook and perspective, while bright, comes with a caveat that goes back to a principal concern he shares with Allday, Beebe and perhaps all racetrack veterinarians. “All the things going on in our industry are wonderful to help the safety and welfare of the horse...as long as the right people are making the decisions.” No less a racing authority than Kentucky’s chief racing steward and retired Hall of Fame trainer John Veitch believes it’s unfair to focus solely on vets and their role in racing in the wake of controversy like that surrounding Eight Belles. “There’s enough blame to go around for everybody”, he said. The question remains whether vets will go back to “the perpetuator of time-off”, as Allday described veterinary involvement with racing before drugs like Salix and Butazolidin, or whether they will continue with tighter restrictions and perhaps, stiffer penalties for rogue vets. Perhaps more likely, racing years from now may come to know the old adage that the more things change, the more things stay the same. “I’ve got satellite radio and I listen to old shows like ‘The Shadow’ and others from the ’40s”, said Northrop. “They talk about horses getting the ‘juice’ and a ‘sure thing at Santa Anita’ on the Jack Benny Show. And that show is from the 1940s. It’s been like that all along.”

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(European Trainer - issue 26 - Spring 2009)

Apr 24 Contaminants from stable staff - are racehorses at risk?

Apr 24 The Rise of AQPS Horses in international racing