Does anybody know...[about racehorses]?

Question

Why do people give their horses Lasik [a medicine that makes you pee] before they race. Just curious.

Answer 1

Lasix (now marketed for horses under the brand name Salix)  is a diuretic that has the effect of lowering blood-pressure, thus reducing the incidence of exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage.  That's the ostensible reason for giving it to horses.

Back in the days before we had tracheoendoscopes to examine the inner workings of a horse's respiratory system, it wasn't known how many horses bled into their respiratory tract following exercise.  Unless the horse bled through from the nostrils, and only a fraction of the "bleeders" actually have a blood discharge from the nostrils, there was no way of knowing whether it had bled.  It's speculative, but possible that in the days before endoscopes, some of the bad races that horses inexplicably turned in may have been due to bleeding.

Salix (Lasix) does reduce the incidence of bleeding, but it also seems to have a performance-enhancing boost above and beyond that, so much so that some trainers want all their horses to races on Salix all the time.  

These are just a few of the studies that have been performed:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez...

http://www.thehorse.com/TopicSearch/Defa...

http://www.horseshealth.com/research.htm...

In jurisdictions that permit the use of Salix, its use is regulated with regards to permitted dosage and timing of the administration of the drug, as well as the quantity of Salix or Salix metabolites permitted to be found in post-race drug tests.  Its use has to be reported to the public and a lot of people who bet on horses will bet on first-time Salix users because these are often horses that do well following one or more poor races that drive their odds up.

Answer 2

before lasix, after the races most of the horses would come back bleeding from both ends.

thank god for lasix...

Answer 3

Lasik is a medicine that is given to horses before the race to help the NOT to bleed during the race.  Horse's lungs work so hard during a race that sometimes the tiny blood vessels rupture and leak into the air passage.  Lasik doesn't prevent the bleeding but it does help.

Answer 4

horses stop to go pee. and they run slower with a full bladder so ppl make their horses pee before a race to prevent that c**p from happening.

Answer 5

Yes I've had 15 Horses.

All Thoroughbred Racers/Police.

Currentally training my loveable 18hh.Chestnut thoroughbred Shooter.

I could help..Get back

14 years of experince (All Life) =]

Answer 6

Mostly it's used to stop horses lungs from bleeding. You can read about it here: http://horseproducts.stablemade.com/_Art...