Steroid Question

[JimP]

At the risk of being attacked for being soft on steroids, which I assure you I am not, I would like to pose the following question to the group for your consideration and response:

Is it not possible that when (if) the industry eliminates the use of steroids, we will see a precipitous jump in the rate of in-race breakdowns?

I ask this question only because it seems to be an accepted fact that steroids are an effective treatment to accelerate healing. If that treatment is removed, is it not likely that some of the borderline unsound cases today will be pushed over the line and result in more catastrophic breakdowns?

Assuming that such does occur, the followup question is what do you expect the resulting PR impact to be?

[jma11473]

I\'m not a vet, but I would think that the more likely scenario is that the steroids are keeping unsound horses on the track that shouldn\'t be by covering up injuries that would otherwise be detected. They also would give a horse more muscle, which is more weight to carry, which could also lead to more leg injuries. While obviously a horse and a human have different physiology, sports fans have seen an increase in muscle strains, tears, and pulls among our more heavily muscled athletes in recent years---injuries that weren\'t as common until the average football or baseball player carried 20% more body weight in muscle than they used to. So I don\'t think steroids are keeping horses from breaking down---they\'re helping unsound horses to keep racing, which leaves them more vulnerable to breakdowns.