Horse Racing Tips, Picks & Betting Odds - Breeders Cup, Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes

A Column by Steve Davidowitz on Bodog
July 18, 2007

Aside from the high caliber of horse racing we are set to experience at Del Mar in Southern California and at Saratoga in upstate New York, it is difficult to remain silent about the most important issue plaguing racing on these shores.

I am talking specifically about performance enhancing and pain reducing drugs administered for racing purposes.

Consider this fact: Every horse racing jurisdiction in Canada and the United States permits the use of powerful drugs, such as the diuretic furosemide (Lasix) and the analgesic phenylbutazone (Bute), when no other country in the world permits similar drugs for racing purposes.

Unfortunately, American drug testing, while quite comprehensive in some states, is under-financed in too many jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, veterinarians who work with racehorses on the backstretch are given far too many liberties in prescribing and applying “medications” (read that as d-r-u-g-s). Some of these drugs go way beyond helping racehorses recover from aches, pains and temporary maladies. Some, in fact, screen pain and tacitly encourage trainers to run their horses with minor ailments, while their pain-warning systems are shut down or severely muted.

Moreover, the drug problem in American horse racing is not just limited to masking minor aches and pains. The problem is quite similar, in fact, to the performance enhancing issues faced by other professional sports all over the world - from American baseball to international cycling to Olympic track and field.

There are corticosteroids and equine growth hormones; there are marginally known performance enhancing substances; and, as we learned from the case that is building against trainer Patrick Biancone, there may be dreaded snake venom thrown into the mix.

While I am not a vet, or horse trainer, or racing official, I have been watching and betting on horses for more than 40 years and do believe there are some practical steps that racing officials could take to severely curtail drug abuse in the American game. Here specifically is one horseplayer's considered suggestion that attempts to deal with the realities at hand and incorporates several practical components.

• Every racetrack should have a refrigerated, state controlled commissary stocked with the major therapeutic medications for each registered, practicing track vet. The key to this idea would be to bar all vets from bringing any medications from outside the racetrack into the restricted barn area.
• All medications, in fact, should be dispensed at the commissary under state supervision directly to registered track vets before they begin their rounds of the horses under their care each morning.
• At the end of their rounds, all medications that have not been dispensed should be returned to the commissary. Failure to do so would result in fines and suspensions for the offending vets.
• To deal quickly with unusual illnesses and injuries, the commissary would also have a state supervised emergency truck filled with the most exotic medications needed to treat emergency issues as needed.
• Beyond this approach to dispensing drugs for therapeutic purposes, the penalties for violations must be more severe in every case. No longer should an assistant trainer be given the reins to the horses under a suspended trainer's license. No longer should the racing industry tolerate repeat offenders, even if they are national leaders such as Steve Asmussen or Todd Pletcher or any of the other headline makers.

Although the vast majority of trainers work with talented, honest vets, even the hard working, extremely honest trainers such as Michael Dickenson have trouble dealing with the practices in vogue today. Speaking candidly in a public forum last March, Dickenson admitted that he uses steroids on his horses to stay competitive in a game where others are taking such liberties.

The only way to change that, Dickenson said, “is to strictly control access.” That is precisely the rationale behind my proposal, but even with support from trainers such as this two-time Breeders' Cup winner and others, there is no evidence that American racing officials in any state have the fortitude to press for the reforms this issue deserves. Your comments are welcome.

Steve's private, weighted rankings of the top American horses, three years old and up, males and females

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