A couple of weeks ago I talked to Ryan Goldberg for over an hour for the last article in the TDN series about drugs in racing. I thought I was a source.
TDN just called to get a photo to run with \"the interview\".
Batten the hatches.
\"TDN just called to get a photo to run with \"the interview\".
Batten the hatches.\"
Why? They can\'t make you send a photo.
I\'d prefer if you would have said \"Open the floodgates\" [for the truth that\'s about to flow out]
I\'ve now read a draft. It\'s a great article, they use a few quotes from me and many from others. Will be out in a few days.
http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/restricted/pdf/magazine/Magazine-Drugs%20in%20Racing-Part%20VI.pdf?CFID=54769980&CFTOKEN=15215744
thanks for linking to this--does anyone know where one can get a copy of the NTRA report on the medications taken prior to this year\'s belmont?
does anyone know if lasix was included as a medication that orb didn\'t receive 72 hours prior to the belmont, or was lasix not considered a medication for these purposes? i thought that the fourth place horse, the Kiaran McLaughlin horse, was supposed to be running lasix free, was he given some other meds, but not lasix?
TGJB--if you have time, could you post a quick comparison of the testing and meds restrictions in all three of this year\'s triple crown races? i know you mentioned them before each race but it would be nice to be able to see them side-by-side.
Glad you asked. Below is a link posted earlier here by Salute The General in the Incognito, Slow Fractions thread. This is a list of the pre-race meds each horse received 48hrs out from the Belmont.
It lists Incognito as having received Thelin, a drug originally created to treat pulmonary hypertension in the lungs. It was withdrawn from the market due to liver toxicity -BUT, apparently the attending vet mispelled it. Apparently Incognito received Theelin. The stock answer for the use of Theelin is to treat stifles, but below are two links that show Theelin is also used as an adjunct bleeder medication.
[www.gaming.ny.gov]
It lists Incognito as having received Thelin, a drug originally created to treat pulmonary hypertension in the lungs. It was withdrawn from the market due to liver toxicity -BUT, apparently the attending vet mispelled it. Apparently Incognito received Theelin. The stock answer for the use of Theelin is to treat stifles, but below are two links that show Theelin is also used as an adjunct bleeder medication. It took me 15 minutes on the Internet to learn this.
http://www.paulickreport.com/f...
I quote, \"There are a number of adjunct medications that have been utilized in conjunction with furosemide in an attempt to further reduce EIPH. These adjuncts include medications such as conjugated estrogens, aminocaproic acid, tranexamic acid and carbazochrome. While numerous trainers and veterinarians believe they have seen a clinical effect with some of these adjuncts, none of these medications has yet been scientifically proven to be efficacious at decreasing EIPH. This fact does not mean these medications do not work."
http://www.thehorse.com/articl...
I quote, \"Mary Scollay, DVM, KHRC equine medical director, said the advisory board voted to recommend prohibition of adjunct bleeder medications, which can be administered to horses in addition to the common anti-bleeder medication Salix, as a matter of uniformity and because there is no scientific evidence \"support the efficacy of adjunct bleeder medications.\" Adjunct bleeder medications include substances such as Tranex, Amicar, Premarin, Estrone, and Theelin.\"
Theelin is an adjunct bleeder medication. As to exactly why it was administered to Incognito, I don't know.
To be fair,
Incognito was also administered Adequan, Legend, and Bute as well. All used for varying degrees of arthritis (or pre arthrithic conditions), and inflammation in joints. Adequan and Legend are given in a series of shots. Same with Theelin if it is used to tighten stifles. Vet records could confirm this. So perhaps, Theelin was indeed administered for the joint issues. But it does beg the question of it\'s anti-bleeder application.
Kekomi-- I think the best source for the TC medication rules is the TDN, that\'s where I was getting what info I had.
thanks!
so i guess lasix isn\'t considered a pre-race medication, since it wasn\'t listed on any of the forms.
they give colts premarin? premarin is an estrogen replacement therapy for menopausal women derived from the urine of preganant mares...
theelin (name derived from the greek word for woman) is a form of estrogen secreted by the ovaries of female mammals, trade names estronal and estrone, used for hormone replacement therapy in women whose estrogen levels are too low.
why would you give estrogen for tight stifles to race horse right before he\'s going place incredible mechanical loads on his stifles? estrogen weakens ligaments...ligaments hold joints together...the stifle is the most complex joint a horse has and is analogous to our knee joint. it\'ll loosen his ligaments for sure, and probably radically shorten his career, and set him up for a catastrophic breakdown.
tranex is short for tranexamic acid, which is sold under the brand name lysteda, which is used to treat heavy menstral flows and to slow blood loss in hemophiliacs--it\'s a coagulant. it causes the blood to clot.
amicar is also coagulant (i.e. blood thickener)--not really sure how making the blood more viscous would aid in EIPH...seems like it would be more likely to exacerbate the problem (since despite the name, bleeding in horses isn\'t a clotting problem, but a bursting blood vessel problem)...these would be nasty combinations with EPO...might cause a horse to drop dead of heart failure for no apparent reason...
i thought the insanity with doping in cycling was bad, but the insanity in horses racing is just plain quackery.
ok thanks
Thelin has been used for many years for its affect on the stay and reciprocal apparatus of the hind limbs. If you\'ve ever seen a mare that is very close to foaling you\'ll notice they become very sloppy behind due to the relaxing of muscles, etc. and that will give you some idea of thelin\'s affect.
This affect makes some horses much more comfortable, esp. if their stifles are sticking(Google it).
Alysheba routinely ran on thelin.
Please, let\'s gets this straight...you just said Thelin, is it not Theelin that you mean? This is how the Thelin/Theelin thing started - with an apparent misspelling.
Excellent article-series of articles, so glad this issue is getting airtime. Love Dr.Scollay, I regard her as a great hope for the sport. I am also very impressed with how credible the sources are in the article. I liked the reference to the \"glacial\" speed at which we seem to be grasping at icicles among the 38 racing jurisdictions. It would be so difficult to know who to target as a decision maker, only to find they will have melted before you get to them and only a drip remains.
Hats off to JB for his role in this, it\'s not always in his self-interest to do it.
I\'ve had a lot of dialogue with Kevin Cummins, Udall\'s legislative assistant, who is a horseplayer himself and knows the players and the game pretty well. He is skeptical (to say the least) about the industry making major changes on its own. But there\'s an interesting, complicated dynamic right now-- this is the most awareness the issue has ever had. We\'ll see.
Theelin,excuse the misspelling. Thelin didn\'t come on the scene until the mid 00\'s, I believe, long after Alysheba\'s time.
foaling mares get sloppy for the same reason that pregnant woman do--one of estrogen\'s major roles is to relax the ligaments to allow the birth canal to expand. estrogen is one of the primary reasons women are naturally more flexible as a group than men are; it is also why women have inherently weaker joints than men do and succumb to joint and repetitive strain injuries more quickly and with greater frequency then men do. it is also why with every additional birth a woman becomes more likely to suffer a prolapsed uterus.
the detrimental effect of estrogen on ligaments is well established (you can google it for confirmation if you doubt me). it is a major contributor to ACL injuries in humans.
mares have estrogen because they a female mammals, that doesn\'t mean that it is a safe and reasonable idea to give estrogen to male horses. it doesn\'t even mean that estrogen or any other hormone is particularly beneficial in the long run fot he individual. nature isn\'t concerned with whether something is good for an individual; all it cares about is whether something is good for the species--which means that anything goes as long as it doesn\'t prevent that individual from reproducing before dying, even if death follows immediately after birthing.
easing the discomfort of a pleasure horse is one thing, giving a hormone to an equine athlete who will exert forces on his leg joints that almost no other athlete of any species ever will, who depends on his ligaments to keep from breaking down under those forces, is not excusable in my book. whether alysheba raced on it or not is beside the point; alysheba also raced on lasix, which is also inexcusable to me.
many practices in horse racing are accepted blindly because they\'ve been done since way back when...if humans applied the same logic to ourselves, we\'d all still be dying of cholera in the 100s of thousands in every major city in the world from drinking $h!t filled water, while inoculating ourselves with poseys to keep away the bad air, which everyone knows causes cholera, because that is what we\'ve always done and what we\'ve always believed (the man who first proposed that cholera was caused by drinking water from the themes contaminated with $h!t was ridiculed by the royal academy of sciences as quack and a fool).
the practice of vets giving horses a lot of off lable human medicines is disturbingly accepted without batting an eye--but here\'s something to consider, nothing in horse racing rivals the sophistication of doping in human sports--if lasix and estrogen where good ideas, they\'d be being used in human doping (testosterone is one of the mostly widely abused substances in human sports, even among female gymnasts, whom you\'d think would actually prefer to increase their flexibility with extra estrogen, over risking growing a beard from testosterone--that they\'re not speaks volumes). human dopers don\'t worry about whether a substance might kill them, but they won\'t risk loosing their knees. death is preferable to retirement from injury...
one of the key points in the article linked to is that vets aren\'t concerned with the well-being of these animals at all, they are concerned with padding their wallets and keep their customers happy.
i know that TGJB and most on this site probably care more about the hit to bettors that all these substances cause--and you should be--note that rich \"bettors\" have enacted a whole scheme of criminal laws for failing to disclose information that might have influenced their \"bets.\" i care about that too, but i figure that since even when gambling is highly regulated and on the level, the house is still going win most of the time anyway...so for me the bigger issue is that if we\'re going to conscript these animals to run in circles for our pleasure, we owe them a fiduciary duty to make it as safe for them as possible...
sorry for the long post...
I fear it may all fall victim to Mendel\'s Defacatory Principle.
http://dailyoddsandends.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/mendels-defecatory-principle/
Raz,
Levity keeps us all in a good place while being seriously real at the same time. The humor on this board has taken me down laughing more than once.
You must read a very old play by a dude named Aristophenes, it is called The Clouds.
After 2500 years, toilet humor still rules!!!
I remember reading that in high school and seeing it performed in Olney, Md. Still a great play.
Well said. Interesting comments about the \"knees\" of human athletes and the comparative risk tolerance.