How fast was it?

[miff]

LFE 2211,


Thanks for the response and understand your job responsibilities. Agree that this board is the best and that Jerry is tolerant of discussions which sometimes have little to do with the product.

Your answer on the benefit of milkshakes is very close to what others have stated. I\'m sure that you are also aware that most in the industry believe that shakes are a big time move up tool.I\'m sure there must be some bio-science that really answers the question of it\'s benefit or otherwise.


Mike

[lfe2211]

Miff,

This may be old news for this board but here are 2 relevant articles on equine nutrition. The first is a general teaching article on nutrition with some info on the effect of blood alkalizing agents on acid build up in horses muscles. The second is somewhat humorous but details the specific mechanics and some myths with regard to the process of milkshaking.

http://www.horsecity.com/stories/061702/hea_performan_HB.shtml

http://www.winninggonewild.com/milkshaking.html

[TGJB]

Two very good articles. A couple of things:

1-- Recently, a stake winning filly I manage was training very poorly (rubber legged after working a half). A vet suggested trying the high fat diet, she turned around immediately.

2-- On the milkshake question-- as I have posted before, there is now a milkshake in a pill, which is being broken up and mixed with the feed. I\'ve talked pretty extensively with Rick Arthur about this (he\'s the state vet in California, pretty much the leading expert on this stuff), he says he has found that even slight increases in CO2 levels (the test for milkshakes) correlate with increased performance. No idea how he measures that.

3--As I have said many times here, the problem is that the legal threshold for CO2 is 37 or 39, depending on the state, when a horse can\'t produce more than around 30 on his own. We have made the drugging of horses legal.

4-- I wonder if \"The Player\", who wrote the second article, drives a white Mercedes.

[TGJB]

Tony-- what the hell good will \"confronting\" him do? I\'m one of the people in the industry working hard to get this problem stopped-- as a lot of people who actually do know what they are talking about know. And I\'m not talking about this board.

There\'s a difference between circumstantial evidence-- even tons of it-- and proof. Witness the fact that our Attoney General still has a job. In point of fact, what is being done is almost certainly legal. It should not be.

[BitPlayer]

Mike -

I wouldn\'t be so sure bioscience has a conclusive answer to your question.  The problems with trying to answer any question like the one you are asking include the difficulty of doing an experiment in which you change only one variable and the difficulty of measuring performance.  It would be interesting for someone to be allowed access to both TG\'s figures and the results of California\'s TCO2 tests and see if there is a correlation between the two.

What I\'ve read agrees with your rogue vet, suggesting that there are at least some positive  effects of lactic acid build-up in muscles.  I think I\'ve also read that milkshaking may have other effects (calming the horse, for example) unrelated to muscle performance.

[miff]

On a somewhat related note, NYRA is seriously looking at detention barns and what overall good they do vs the costs to owners, trainers and nyra. There are strong voices from VERY legit outfits in NY  to discontinue the use of pre race dentention barns. Would not be surprised to see them go.


mike

[fkach]

>In point of fact, what is being done is almost certainly legal. It should not be.<

I wish someone would have made this statement sooner. It more or less explains many of the statements I\'ve made defending some of the trainers while maintaining a generally anti-drug view.

I wish we would be drug free like most of the rest of the world, but unless things are clearly defined as illegal, IMO, you probably shouldn\'t go around calling people cheaters etc... You don\'t know what they are doing even if you know based on figures, quick move ups etc... that they are doing something.  

At a minimum, I think we need much improved definitions of legality. Then the assumption can be made that everything else is illegal.

[P.Eckhart]

Milkshaking would also be a palliative for gastric ulcers which are very common in racehorses.

[rosewood]

Mr. Brown,

I am afraid you are preaching to the choir.

Isn\'t Rick Arnold the vet that is being sued over \"heel nerving\"? Talk about the fox guarding the hen house. The vets don\'t even want anybody floating teeth at a race track.

Lock the track gates and do not allow a vet on site.  Give each trainer a can of REDUCINE and tell them to go at it.

Until the Spa and Derby are run to an empty grandstand and there is no one at the teller windows you can forget cleaning up cheating. It would be a simple matter to correct if it was wanted by the owners,trainers and racing boards who are getting rich.

Do you think the wizz kids could stay in business if they had no horses to run?

[BitPlayer]

The paragraphs that follow are from an editorial in this week\'s issue of the scientific journal \"Nature.\"  They are talking about the use of performance enhancing drugs by human athletes, but I suppose similar arguments can be made regarding thoroughbreds.  I\'m not endorsing the views expressed, but throwing them out there as food for thought:

\"To cheat in a sporting event is a loathsome thing. For as long as the rules of the Tour de France or any sporting event ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs, those who break the rules must be punished whenever possible. But this does not preclude the idea that it may, in time, be necessary to readdress the rules themselves.

As more is learned about how our bodies work, more options become available for altering those workings. To date, most of this alteration has sought to restore function to some sort of baseline. But it is also possible to enhance various functions into the supernormal realm, and the options for this are set to grow ever greater.

The fact that such endeavours will carry risks should not be trivialized. But adults should be allowed to take risks, and experience suggests that they will do so when the benefits on offer are enticing enough. By the end of this century the unenhanced body or mind may well be vanishingly rare.

As this change takes place, we will have to re-examine what we expect of athletes. If spectators are seeking to reset their body mass index through pharmacology, or taking pills that enhance their memory, is it really reasonable that athletes should make do with bodies that have not seen such benefits? The more the public comes to live with the mixed and risk-related benefits of enhancement, the more it will appreciate that allowing such changes need not rob sport of its drama, nor athletes of their need for skill, training, character and dedication.

. . .

As pharmacological enhancement becomes everyday, views of bodily enhancement may evolve sufficiently for sporting rules to change on that, too.

This transition will not be painless. Some people will undoubtedly harm themselves through the use of enhancements, and there would need to be special protection for children. That said, athletes harm themselves in other forms of training, too. They may harm themselves less with drugs when doctors can be openly involved and masking agents dispensed with.\"

[fkach]

In many ways this also gets to the point I\'ve been making.  

The list of ways  to enhance performance is constantly changing and growing, but as far as I can tell there is no clear cut definition between legal and illegal. If I\'m wrong, please let me know about that.  

If I take a natural over the counter herb that reduces stress and anxiety and it allows me to perform better in a high pressure contest, how does that differ from a guy that takes speed because he\'s tired?

Both are altering the natural state of affairs and allowing enhanced performance.

Because of all these possibities (chemical and non-chemical), I think we need a list of approved procedures and therapies, with the default being, until it\'s approved, it\'s illegal. If someone comes up with something new, there should be a national industry review board made up of vets, trainers, owners, and other industry experts to decide whether or not to approve it.

If I had my way, there would be a very small list of approved therapies, drugs, procedures etc...for any horse that will be racing because I happen to love them, and unlike humans, they aren\'t in a position to make risk/reward decisions about their health and lives. However, I think it\'s obvious that the industry in the U.S. couldn\'t give a crap about the animals otherwise we would have rules similar to the rest of the world.

Perhaps that\'s the way to proceed.

Maybe instead of being rational and talking about how drugs and performance enhancers are unfair to clean trainers, owners, and horsplayers. Then explaining how in the long term we might lose fans, hurt the economics etc...

Maybe we should embarass them and call them the bunch of scumbags they are for abusing animals to make an extra dollar and then calling themselves vets, trainers, breeders etc... as if that title means they actually care for the animals.

[TGJB]

Some of these performance enhancing drugs are actually good for the horse. But here\'s the problem--what happens when a trainer runs one cold for three races, drops the horse down, and then goes hot? What happens when a guy who bets has a 3/5 shot that he has been treating that runs in a superfecta race, or on a day with a big carryover?

On a more mundane level-- yeah, we all have a list of trainers we adjust for when a horse goes into or out of their barns. But what happens when a small barn (or a \"straight\", not so small one) switches to one of the supervets? Unless the vet is listed, the next couple of times you deal with that trainer you can\'t get it right.

[fkach]

I\'m surprised to hear that you think some of these drugs are good for horses. Please elaborate if you have some time.

Personally, I do whatever I can to avoid taking any drugs at all because my assumption is that it can\'t be any good to put unnatural things into your system for more than a short period of time.  

I understand the gambling problems and issues, but net net, I think I make more money by monitoring the suspected cheaters and taking advantage of some situations than I lose when I get screwed by them. I know that\'s not a popular point of view here, but it\'s an honest one for me. Maybe I\'m getting screwed more often than I think.

On a more positive note, nice comeback for Shakespeare. ;-)

[TGJB]

Bronchodilators help the horse breathe, and are used therapeutically between races (not supposed to be used on raceday, but some do). Lasix stops pulmonary bleeding. Supposedly milkshakes enable a horse to recover faster from exertion because it eliminates lactic acid buildup in the muscles.

If Ron from St. Johns is out there, he might want to chime in on this string.

[rosewood]

Mr. Brown

The public could care less about cheating as is evident by packed baseball,football,bicycle,etc. events and I should give up on racing as fixed and forget about it.

As a small participant; and not having the inside as to who is juiced or not today, my chances of winning a bet or my horse winning a purse are slim.

I should not have taken the liberty to post on this board with all you big guys and you probably should have blocked my post.

I was only trying to point out that cheating is being \"allowed\" NOT trying to be stopped by the powers that be as a result of no enforcement. There is no reason not to cheat if you are trying to stay in the game as it is.

Wasn\'t it Seabiscuit\'s trainer that was suspended years ago for spraying an inhalant down his nose?
 
Looking around the web I came across Dogwood Stables where  Mr. Campbell was pissing and moaning about the high costs of his vet service . I also saw that he was presenting some award in Saratoga for doing good for racing.  Then lo and behold, I found on one of his entries that Patrick Biancone was his trainer! Duh?

I am not a vet or biochemist, but when 15 of 30 stakes winners test over the limit for anything, either the test is wrong, the limit is too low or someone is cheating.

It would not be that hard to set limits or restrictions and enforce them if it was wanted. Until vets, trainers and owners and their horses are barred from the sport for cheating nothing will change.

I can assure that if and when the owners and breeders have only themselves to buy from and sell to and the whales have to bet with each other something will change.