- The five Breeders' Cup races for 2-year-olds drew 52 pre-entered American-trained horses. Only one, Fortify, has not raced on Lasix. That amounts to 98.1 percent of the American-trained 2-year-olds running at Santa Anita coming off Lasix, a monumentally uncertain, potentially disastrous situation for horses, horsemen and handicappers.
This reminds me of the Rachel Alexandra connections not going to the Breeders Cup at synthetic Santa Anita when they stated:
- "These false tracks create potential for injury, a risk that I am not willing to take with Rachel."
The modern racehorse can and does race without lasix. They do in all parts of the world, they do in harness racing. I'm pretty sure Hidalgo didn't get a shot of the drug before his eight gazillion mile trek across the desert either.
Racing cannot and never will let go of the status-quo to become a more relevant sport unless we start looking towards the future, instead of running away from it. If you have a quarrel with the Breeders Cup anti-lasix stance, that's fine. But leave the melodrama in the shedrow, because if you don't, you're part of the problem, not the solution.
1 comment:
Obviously, it would have been better if TOBA had stuck to its guns. It has left the BC hanging by itself. But that said, if these horses can't make it around the track without abruptly stopping to a walk and dumping their jocks...which is the "nightmare" scenario Moran proffers...we really have to consider whether or not we should even be racing. As a handicapper, the ban concerns me not. My assumption is the vast majority of these horses don't really need the drug. The only other assumption one can make is chaos. I'd like to be privy to the play of guys like Moran because I doubt he believes in his assumption strongly enough to back it at the windows.
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