Salix to be banned in graded stakes races for 2-year-olds in the year 2012
The American Graded Stakes Committee has put its foot down and taken a concrete stance over the race day medications, and has planned to set up a monitoring body to evaluate and pilot the use of medication for the graded 2-year-old stakes races in 2012.
The drug that was under discussion nationally and internationally has been the anti-bleeding medication “Salix” and primarily this is what the monitoring body will be after. The pilot program will be employed in all the 2012 2-year-old graded stakes.
The initiative taken is good for horse racing in the United States, as it is the only country which hasn’t banned the pre race medications for horses, the European and the Asian authorities have banned the substance way back, and they still thrive without
it.
The program will be effective from the beginning of the year 2012, and the policy will come to be evaluated at the end of the year 2012, to decide whether the program should be continued or extended to other graded stakes races.
The move was taken by the Breeders’ Cup to ban the race day medications initially, in the 2012 World Championships which involved 2-year-old races.
The move possibly dovetails the action of the Breeders’ Cup association, but the problem with adopting the whole change is that some small jurisdictions will act accordingly and go with the similar regulations but it remains to be seen whether Salix will
be permitted to be used in the non graded stakes for the 2-year-old horses.
So many horses in the United States run and race on medication, and in many parts of the world it pops the question of the integrity of the breed, but the step taken will bring a positive change for those horse, which are the elite of the sport and mainly
perpetuate the breed.
It is obvious that further discussions are needed to seal the use of Salix from race days, and to endorse tighter regulations, but the long awaited ban of these performance enhancing substances is finally here and it should be implemented without any further
adieu.
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