Opportune hypocrites on rise for the Lasix debate that goes on without a defined direction
The Lasix debate right before the grandeur spectacle of the American horse racing, the Kentucky Derby, has spurt doubts and confusions that still hang heavy in the air ever since the last year.
To date the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission has remained unsuccessful in arriving at a dead end resolution for or against the use of furosemide, more popular as Lasix in horse racing. It is an anti-bleeding drug that also aligns and controls high blood
pressure of horses while racing.
The conflicting state of mind of the handful owners and trainers who are advocating the ban makes the ultimate decision more cumbersome when they end up racing their horse on the drug despite raising propaganda against it. Thus far better are those trainers
and owners who go with the drug without first making the false and short term entry in the good books.
The contradiction intensifies when there are baseless claims made that banning the drug will bring back the audience that has been viewing the much beloved sport as insincere and deceptive. The foul play with the biological cycle of the defenseless animals
so that they race without intrusions and make money for the connections is downright reason enough to ban the drug.
However, how many out of the audience actually are aware of the side effects of the medicine that the racing horses are drugged on while racing, assuming that they know that the horses are being drugged in the first place. Proclaiming the return of audiences
on the grounds that hardly impact their attendance is equivalent to aiming arrows in the dark and that too in the wrong direction.
In case the horse racing industry does actually want the use of the drug removed from the sport then they will have to start from the stables rather than holding the number of audience hostage for the final resolution.
Lasix is being used at all the levels of races, regardless of it being a claiming race or the much awaited Kentucky Derby that is the feature for the next month. The sheer brutality and over dose is reflected from the fact that it is used even for those
horses who do not even have a legitimate bleeding problem.
Height of hypocrisy and an opportunist character is defined by those trainers who do defend the ban on the drug but continue racing their horses on it until the ban becomes the rule of the land.
The Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert who is busy with his entries for just round the corner Kentucky Derby is a pro Lasix and is at least favouring the drug up front with reasons that he finds valid and relevant.
“Lasix is so important to racing, banning it would not only be disastrous for the business, but harmful to the horses,” said Baffert.
“It makes me angry when I hear the anti-Lasix proponents talk about banning the drug. Breeders do all sorts of things with their foals, and trainers are made out to be the bad guys. And for what? Giving Lasix and trying to take care of the health of their
horses?”
Possible adverse impact on a horse’s career when deprived of the drug has to be the prime concern or should it be the lifelong health and welfare of the horse that the trainers should be more distressed about?
The bottom line once again stays glued to the fact that squeeze as much profit out of the horse as long as he is able to race on all of his four legs and then make horse number two go through the same ordeal.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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