Thanks, Flighted.
I wondered about the source of your information because your first post seemed to imply that there was an equivalence between Europe and the US when it came to training on Lasix. You wrote:
\"The comparison between U.S. and Europe is bothersome in the sense that there\'s a misconception about Euro\'s not using Lasix. HAH!! It sounds so ridiculous allowing thoroughbreds to train on Lasix,but god forbid we use it raceday. Pretty much shoots down all the \"weakening the breed theorists\". Double standard plain and simple\"
As Beau noted, it would seem both hypocritical and downright cruel to allow Lasix for training and to deny it for racing. But the evidence I\'ve seen suggests that the number of European horses who train on Lasix is, at the least, an immaterial number and, at the most, a very small minority.
In the UK, per a paragraph attributed to the British Horseracing Board, and posted to the Clean Horse Racing site:
http://www.cleanhorseracing.org/Default.asp?page=learnmore“Over the last 10 years 5275 samples have been taken from racehorses in training by the regulator of horseracing. Medications have been detected in around 15% of these samples (some horses will be receiving more than one medication). The prevalence of findings of furosemide was 0.11%, i.e. it was detected in 6 horses. Furosemide is not allowed on raceday in Great Britain. Recent studies of all cases of visible bleeding from the nose after racing over the last 10 years by the University of Nottingham showed a prevalence of such epistaxis of 0.13% in flat racehorses, and that British trainers consistently chose to electively rest affected horses for longer that the statutory rest periods mandated in other racing jurisdictions.”
Source: British Horseracing Authority
I found this from what seems to be a powerpoint presentation made by Denis Egan, the chief executive of the Irish Turf Club, at International Race Day Medication Summit, speaking for Irish racing:
\"➢ Less than 10% of horses receive Lasix in training\"
And Gina Rarick, writing in the NYT\'s \"Rail\" blog, quoted Criquette Head replying to the assertion that ... \"Europeans are hypocritical because they use all the same drugs, just not on race day\":
“This is completely, 100 percent false,” said Christiane “Criquette” Head, president of the European Trainers Association and a top name in French racing for years. “I don’t use Lasix in training and no one I know uses Lasix in training.”
\"The list of who Head knows is long, starting with Andre Fabre, Alain Royer Dupre and her brother Freddie, who trained Goldikova to her 14 Group I victories. Goldikova raced drugfree around the world but did have Lasix for the last two of her three Breeders’ Cup Mile victories in the United States, a move that left his sister slightly disappointed. “She didn’t need it,” Criquette Head said of the mare.\"
The blog post goes on to note that there are a few trainers that Ms Head apparently does not know, according to a vet from the provinces:
\"Jerome Seignot, a veterinarian in Maisons-Laffitte, a training center that is home to about 800 racehorses, said training on Lasix was not commonplace, although a few trainers in the bigger center of Chantilly, where about 3,000 horses train, did regularly use the drug.\"
http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/race-day-medication-the-view-from-overseas/To suggest that there is any sort of equivalence between the US and Europe when comes to the use of lasix is, I would contend, false.
Bob
