How many years ago was this?
[QUOTE=Laurierace;8719572]
I probably shouldn’t respond to this, but anyone who expresses a desire return racing to the 50’s and 60’s doesn’t know anything about horse racing in the 50’s and 60’s in my opinion.[/QUOTE]
The naive view that there were no drugs in the 50s and 60s just makes me sigh. With little to no regulation and testing, abuse was everywhere. I knew of an old Standardbred driver/trainer who still milkshaked all his horses with ever-changing special concoctions - and that was 2005. Add in the racing surfaces that were not groomed or designed the way they are now, the amount of times horses ran compared to now…
[QUOTE=ASB Stars;8718978]
Comparing religion with animal welfare? A new low.
We NEED to protect these horses. The fact that HSUS is the one stepping in tells you just how bad it has gotten. However, as with the TWHs, when they show up, things tend to get better for the horses. There will still be a serious need for enforcement, but it’s time to have the Racing world do a better job of policing themselves.[/QUOTE]
Animal rights fanatics are a religion. It is an old religion with an animist pantheon and that is how they act. The HSUS has not helped one organization to better treatment of animals without an agenda. That agenda is using misery as a money raising oppoturnity. They are bunch of whores playing to stupid rich (and not) people’s over emotionalism about animals, and, I might add, to distract people from thinking of the problems with welfare of animals in a normal perspective. If people are going by the millions into poverty in the US, what do you think is going to happen to the animals? It is all about perspective, in the HSUS’ case, it is all about the massive amounts of money the executives and those on salary make. There is not one animal shelter in the US financed by them. Should that not tell you something?
I would like to see the veterinarians handing out the drugs being prosecuted. That would be a good place to start
When I was a very little kid in the early-mid 70s we stopped at a farm in KY for a tour. Can’t remember the name.Wish I could remember the studs.
What I do remember was how much dad liked the grooms and presenters for being honest about why a famous stud they were pulling out to show how neurotic it was with patches of scar behaved the way it did. Scars were biting itself the stall and in its paddock.
They bluntly said these horses ran in the 60s when any type of drug was rampant and there were horses were permanently messed up from it, but this one won his worth and actually was a good stud, esp since the behavior was from the drugs, not something he passed on.
I think the earlier racing that created a Secretariat had lots more Darwin going on…
[QUOTE=skyon;8719973]
When I was a very little kid in the early-mid 70s we stopped at a farm in KY for a tour. Can’t remember the name.Wish I could remember the studs.
What I do remember was how much dad liked the grooms and presenters for being honest about why a famous stud they were pulling out to show how neurotic it was with patches of scar behaved the way it did. Scars were biting itself the stall and in its paddock.
They bluntly said these horses ran in the 60s when any type of drug was rampant and there were horses were permanently messed up from it, but this one won his worth and actually was a good stud, esp since the behavior was from the drugs, not something he passed on.
I think the earlier racing that created a Secretariat had lots more Darwin going on…[/QUOTE]
Self mutilation is an OCD behavior similar to cribbing, weaving, stall/fence walking, that some horses, especially stallions, can acquire.
The hotter breeds, TBs and arabians are known for more of those.
Doesn’t has anything to do with any drugs given to race.
Most of the horses that offer those behaviors have never been even in training, were just backyard horses, some never even backed.
Some times, cause and effect is not what some assume.
By the way, it is also seen in some dogs.
[QUOTE=saratoga;8719968]
I would like to see the veterinarians handing out the drugs being prosecuted. That would be a good place to start[/QUOTE]
While there are plenty of bad egg vets just like there are bad egg trainers, most of the vets are victims of the game like anyone else.
Everyone talks about “doping” race horses. I know I can be naive to stuff right under my nose, but I’ve seen very little “doping” in my days. As halo said earlier, one of the problems is over-reliance/abuse of therapeutic medications. Stuff that many COTHers keep in their tack rooms. But there are so many regulations on pharmaceuticals in racing… in many states, a trainer can’t even be in possession of an empty needle and syringe on the backside. For a big barn, that means you need to have a vet on staff.
So these vet’s entire paycheck comes from doing what the trainer wants. The trainer is just doing what the owner wants (which is usually to win). Everyone’s job is at stake if the horses don’t perform, especially since the majority of owners need their horses to run well enough to pay at least pay of portion of their own bills. Even the racing stables of the ultra rich need to run in the black and not the red.
It’s a vicious cycle. I don’t know what the answer is, I don’t think anybody does. But uniform drug policies are definitely a HUGE step in a right direction. Right now, there are many places where trainers can have dozens of overages and get nothing but a slap on the wrist. If the state ever decides to try to toughen up on them, there are usually opportunities for them to slink off to a different state with slightly different regulations. It’s a game of loopholes for a lot of these guys.
[QUOTE=Bluey;8719988]
Self mutilation is an OCD behavior similar to cribbing, weaving, stall/fence walking, that some horses, especially stallions, can acquire.
The hotter breeds, TBs and arabians are known for more of those.
Doesn’t has anything to do with any drugs given to race.
Most of the horses that offer those behaviors have never been even in training, were just backyard horses, some never even backed.
Some times, cause and effect is not what some assume.
By the way, it is also seen in some dogs.[/QUOTE]
Have you ever seen irreversible fluphenazine reactions? Some drugs can induce self-mutilation tendencies that otherwise would have never started.
I worked for a very controversial racing stable for nearly two years. All of our horses trained on fluphenazine. Most of them were fine. It ruined others for life. It was, IMO, the worst thing we did to our horses. A legal therapeutic medication, given by a veterinarian legally, being abused because it kept the stress down for the horses. They were more focused and trained better, and therefore ran better as a result.
[QUOTE=Texarkana;8720025]
Have you ever seen irreversible fluphenazine reactions? Some drugs can induce self-mutilation tendencies that otherwise would have never started.
I worked for a very controversial racing stable for nearly two years. All of our horses trained on fluphenazine. Most of them were fine. It ruined others for life. It was, IMO, the worst thing we did to our horses. A legal therapeutic medication, given by a veterinarian legally, being abused because it kept the stress down for the horses. They were more focused and trained better, and therefore ran better as a result.[/QUOTE]
Maybe, but I doubt that was the reason, as the groom explained:
Not even sure at that time that stallion ran they had that drug, but never say never, anything could happen, just not apt to.
Two of the biggest problems that racing has are its prominence and its sheer size. There is no other horse sport out there --at least in the US–where the equine participants are as well known and traceable and there are so many of them. The other big problem somewhat related to the first two is when things go in the crapper, they really go south. We can do our best but no horse is immune from going down on the track and being euthanized in front of an audience. Contrast that with any other horse sport where an animal can also develop a career ending injury which in certain hands is its own form of a death sentence --just a quieter more private one.
I struggled with that for the longest time but I really don’t any more. Just the other day I heard from a farm in Kentucky that one of its babies got kicked so hard in the field that the leg essentially exploded. No whips, no jocks, no drugs–just a horse being a horse.
Finally there are umpteen people–hundreds of thousands?-directly employed by the racing industry. There is no such thing as a hundred thousand angels especially in a competitive industry where I win and you lose and I need to make a living by winning. To hold this industry to that standard as some apparently would want flies in the face of the history of any human endeavor. No other horse sport can withstand the scrutiny that some afford racing and yet I see some of the same zero tolerance people get all misty eyed about the great performances. I would submit that you can’t have the good or great aspects of the sport without risking the less wonderful. Secretariat wasn’t pulled out of a field to run 2:24. He was drilled on and he survived it. Some don’t but it is not always or usually I believe about substances put in their bodies.
And then there is the fact that many of the substances --especially at the nanogram level–are pretty benign. There are people out there who know this but it serves their purposes to get upset and imply race fixing is going on. Others have no clue and no one calls them on it. I think racing has made tremendous strides in animal welfare in my lifetime and the good ol’ days were not that good. To me, that is what makes stories like this so deeply ironic.
Animal rights extremists don’t care about the animals, don’t care about race horses, all they want is for racing to go away.
If you give them a chance of being involved in any regulatory way with racing, what do you expect their real interest here is?
Terminate racing, under any excuse of trying to help the poor little horses, by disrupting all they can with absurd regulations, while grandstanding how much they are helping, please donate so we can help even more.
Just read the stories of how the HSUS came down to help in the hurricanes, hogged all TV stories asking for donations to their already overflowing coffers, so much they are squirreling money away in Caribbean stock markets and banks, then left without helping anyone.
[QUOTE=Bluey;8720047]
Maybe, but I doubt that was the reason, as the groom explained:
Not even sure at that time that stallion ran they had that drug, but never say never, anything could happen, just not apt to.[/QUOTE]
I am sorry if I was not clear, but I was not trying to say the stallion in question was on fluphen. I’m saying drugs can indeed have extrapyramidal symptoms that include self-mutilation, citing a specific first hand experience. I would not be so quick to dismiss the possibility just because self-mutilation can also be a stereotypy. But then again, I wasn’t there… and to my knowledge, neither were you?
[QUOTE=Texarkana;8720103]
I am sorry if I was not clear, but I was not trying to say the stallion in question was on fluphen. I’m saying drugs can indeed have extrapyramidal symptoms that include self-mutilation, citing a specific first hand experience. I would not be so quick to dismiss the possibility just because self-mutilation can also be a stereotypy. But then again, I wasn’t there… and to my knowledge, neither were you?[/QUOTE]
I looked at side effects of that medication you mentioned and none were indicative of bringing on OCD tendencies to the fore.
Most side effects mentioned included drowsiness and tremors, but of course anything could happen.
[QUOTE=Bluey;8719988]
Self mutilation is an OCD behavior similar to cribbing, weaving, stall/fence walking, that some horses, especially stallions, can acquire.
The hotter breeds, TBs and arabians are known for more of those.
Doesn’t has anything to do with any drugs given to race.
Most of the horses that offer those behaviors have never been even in training, were just backyard horses, some never even backed.
Some times, cause and effect is not what some assume.
By the way, it is also seen in some dogs.[/QUOTE]
Understand.
However this was extreme and even many, many years later, of seeing some bizarre things with horses from horse keeping, and all kinds of cribbing, weaving, I never saw anything quite like that or on that scale.
I do think the handlers could have easily brushed it off as being neurotic, but instead they were pretty specific and that was what stood out. Again, this was early 70s and Drugs were not even on the radar of the people coming to look at him so it seemed kind of startling at that time they would say it.
I should add I got my horse from the track in the 90s. At that time that was a safer gamble for me in getting a quality horse versus the countless shenanigans that went on at higher prices for horses already showing or just plain being sold.
[QUOTE=dog&horsemom;8719851]
I worked for a Vet yrs ago and I will never forget while we were in surgery, a racing buddy came in to visit and they talkled about a new drug that made his horses run better than ever. The Vet I worked for was completely on board with this and said he would try to get him some.
You might be surprised at how many Vets are NOT on the side of animal welfare. They pay lobbists to fight humane legislation.
IMO - that is worse than hsus trying to fight Inhumane treatment to animals.[/QUOTE
I agree wth you. But notice how the people who don’t want interference with what they do with horses claim that those of us who want disclosure are ignorant. I wanted to be a vet, but didn’t want to experiment so when I was accepted into vet school, I chose law school instead. But I kept up with the development of drugs to mask horse problems since I’ve ridden since a child and owned horses since I was 10 yrs old. TBs have always been my favorites and I raced mine against the QHs across the road.
But some people will always violate all the rules. Anyone who thinks Barbaro’s leg just happened to break in, was it 28 or 38 places?, is unwillingly to believe anything about the dark side of racing. Just one of many horses who should have been brought along slowly and not raced as he was.
It’s the breeding, the training and all other factors as well as the drugs. Ever taken Bute? You can run on a broken leg if you dope up on it. I believe in using drugs to relieve pain, etc., but would not race a horse on Bute.
[QUOTE=Calamber;8719953]
Animal rights fanatics are a religion. It is an old religion with an animist pantheon and that is how they act. The HSUS has not helped one organization to better treatment of animals without an agenda. That agenda is using misery as a money raising oppoturnity. They are bunch of whores playing to stupid rich (and not) people’s over emotionalism about animals, and, I might add, to distract people from thinking of the problems with welfare of animals in a normal perspective. If people are going by the millions into poverty in the US, what do you think is going to happen to the animals? It is all about perspective, in the HSUS’ case, it is all about the massive amounts of money the executives and those on salary make. There is not one animal shelter in the US financed by them. Should that not tell you something?[/QUOTE]
Oh, it does. Essentially, they are lobbyists, as far as I am concerned. But, I’d rather have them use their $$ to work on issues that will improve the welfare of animals.
I am not a slippery slope theorist. However, ANY group that focuses intently on any subject for too long does tend to become fanatic. The question is, does their fanaticism work to move anything forward?
In this case, I believe that it does. I am not wearing rose colored glasses, by the way. I see the world as it is. I’d just rather see a group that will bring more transparency to the issue get involved- even if they are there largely for their own glorification. The upside, for me, outweighs the downside.
YMMV.
[QUOTE=Bluey;8720047]
Maybe, but I doubt that was the reason, as the groom explained:
Not even sure at that time that stallion ran they had that drug, but never say never, anything could happen, just not apt to.[/QUOTE]
I know a WB stallion that self mutilates.
I feel like if someone has something to say about a poster on this forum they should either have the fortitude to come right out and say their peace or shut the hell up. Innuendo adds nothing productive to the conversation and lends the appearance of an old biddy with too much time on their hands and an axe to grind.
[QUOTE=Calamber;8719953]
Animal rights fanatics are a religion. It is an old religion with an animist pantheon and that is how they act. The HSUS has not helped one organization to better treatment of animals without an agenda. That agenda is using misery as a money raising oppoturnity. They are bunch of whores playing to stupid rich (and not) people’s over emotionalism about animals, and, I might add, to distract people from thinking of the problems with welfare of animals in a normal perspective. If people are going by the millions into poverty in the US, what do you think is going to happen to the animals? It is all about perspective, in the HSUS’ case, it is all about the massive amounts of money the executives and those on salary make. There is not one animal shelter in the US financed by them. Should that not tell you something?[/QUOTE]
In 2014, the truth about the HSUS was revealed. Clearly some on this thread prefer that their truth is found in the TV ads depicting poor little animals rather than the recognized published fact that HSUS does little to improve the problem.
http://m.beefmagazine.com/blog/how-charity-navigator-knocked-hsus-down-peg-or-two
http://www.humanewatch.org/humane-society-ceo-the-4-million-man/
