yes, I know for a fact it was Dex. Never said it was a good idea, but people DO use it. Especially in places where a positive Dex test isn’t going to get them booted. Sure, the other stuff works better, but it tests… They can get away with the dex with the current rules of some of the venues.
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I am in a reining group on social media and asked someone very clearly in support of using Sedivet and their response was that it’s better to use it than to lope a horse down for four hours in order to show them.
But my understanding from other people within that group is there have been a number of high profile horses that have tested positive within the past few years.
Part of this welfare policy is now publishing the names of violators, so my guess is there’s probably people that would rather not see their names in print that had input into this drug of choice.
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IMO, Dex does get used to quiet show hunters. I don’t think there are as many horses with allergies walking around show grounds as there are getting Dexamethasone. YMMV… I’m just basing this on my experience working in some decent-name-trainer barns.
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There is something very, very wrong with the training, horse care and breeding within the reining world if you need to wear a horse down by loping 4 hours to get a compliant, exhausted partner to show.
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There is an extensive history of dexamethasone abuse, which is what led to the ban.
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The D&M committee collected data for several years prior to the ban.
It was glaringly obvious the drug was being abused.
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Tell me you’ve never ridden with a big A barn without telling me you’ve never ridden with a big A barn.
It’s used less now in the past few years than it was historically, but literally every horse in every barn who might so much as swish their tail showed on dex in the 90s, 00s and most of the 2010s. I’ll never forget the awful scratches/mud fever horses came back from Thermal with after spending 4+ weeks showing on dex and standing around in that sand/mud.
I have always had to specifically request mine NOT get it the night before showing.
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Lol, I grew up riding in a big AA barn and have worked for a bunch, both in Wellington and Virginia.
Dex was not what they were injecting. Maybe they were telling the ammies that to make them feel better than telling them actually what they were using.
There are non-testing meds out there that work a lot better than dex to calm a horse down.
Of all the things to be worried about being abused in the equestrian world, dex is not the one Id stand on a hill over. It’s a (relatively) safe and regulated medication, and in my time in the H/J world I’ve rarely seen it used because it’s not very effective.
Maybe before people started getting savvy with the untestable stuff it was more prominent. My experience is post 2006/2008 or so.
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It was def dex in my world, up and down the west coast and in VA as well… and I agree it doesn’t work particularly well. Mine always seems more agitated the few times they got it for hives from the show shavings.
Frankly, I’m glad my people were using dex and not the non-testing compounds a certain creative vet in Wellington was coming up with that may or may not drop a horse dead.
ps- I haven’t been able to get my hands on sedivet in a few years now, which has really sucked trying to rehab horses, because dorm just isn’t the same. It’s a travesty that reining horse people can manage to find it to drug their horses for shows, but we can’t get it for actual legit uses.
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Yeah… the amount of times I’ve seen big syringes full of concoctions all lined up for some poor horse. Yuck.
I grew up in Seattle and the barn I was at usually used Ace and just hoped they wouldn’t get caught. I think that was what most people were using, at least in the under 2’6” because I know of a few times when the vet showed up to test a Horse, words were exchanged, and suddenly that horse didn’t need to be tested anymore.
In Wellington that was a whole different story though.
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It was dexamethasone, among other things that were more clearly behavior-altering.
But so long as dexamethasone was a permitted medication, even though it might not have worked as well, it was “legal”.
AHSA/USEF D&M program tested samples for dex for a couple years to get a handle on how widespread the use was. No one was penalized for it–this was an information gathering endeavor.
When it was determined that the drug was indeed being abused, the use was restricted.
IIRC, that was somewhere around 2013.
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Was thinking this exact thing.
How about we breed them for better brains instead of allowing a sedative in order to make them rideable?
Insane. Absolutely insane.
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Correct.
Dex was unregulated until the info gather reporting. It was used by almost everyone in the hunter rings. In ridiculous amounts. Most people reported just half of what they were actually giving and it was still ridiculous amounts. We had some outside horses come in with care sheets that sent us back asking if there was a typo in the dose.
The first rule regulating dex (I remember this as earlier than you, I think around 2003, I know the reporting happened in 2002) I think let you give 6cc, which most people found still useful and still gave, and now it’s down to 2.5 which is generally not useful unless the horse actually does have allergies. But of course there are still people who will still chance the testing and give more.
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Unfortunately, good minded does not always equal winning skill set. In fact, I think more often than not - we get crappy minded horses who go win a ton and then are bred because of their resume.
It’s 1,000% a product of our own making, but it’s reality.
I’m torn on this topic. I wouldn’t WANT to show anything that has been sedated, but then again - I’ve used things like Perfect Prep and natural calming agents so the line is very, very thin.
I have a horse that requires a decent amount of “work” (riding down/lunging/etc) at a show to go in and do well. It’s a Catch 22 because the horse is phenomenal and does want to be good - it’s not naughty minded - but in a show environment with tents and loud speakers and just absolute overwhelming stimuli … it’s a lot. I don’t particularly enjoy hours of lunging or riding and neither does the horse, but the problem is that during show season - the horse is in peak physical condition. It takes a lot more to tire out a horse who is ridden six days a week than it does to tire out ole Dobbin who sits in a field except for the occasional weekend, walk only trail ride.
I think they should’ve kept the line in the sand - no drugs. But then I go back to all the people I know who use “natural” alternatives and I say - well, where is the difference. Dex is okay if it’s for allergies, but not if it’s for calming - despite the allergy horse also receiving the calming benefit. PerfectPrep is fine because it’s natural, but a very small amount of a well researched prescription only is not because… ?
In a perfect world, we’d all ride the packers - the saintly horses who can go anywhere and walk right into the ring and do their job with little to no fuss. I have a couple and I treat them like they’re as valuable as their weight in gold. But not all horses are like that - and horses lose a lot of value if they don’t have a job. There’s only so many homes who can accommodate the tougher horses who need management to perform their best - if you eliminate the show homes from them - I think that just leaves us more useless horses and the market shrinks further. How do we account for that?
Anyway - just rambling while drinking my morning coffee - as this is a multi layered problem manifesting into a singular argument.
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Same with the hunters - how do you get that slow crawl + jump out of its skin combo? Drugs or lunging. If you manage to find a horse who can do it without a ton of prep, it’s a rarity.
I think there needs to be rules on both fronts - no drugs, and no lunging into oblivion. That would force people to breed out the whacko.
It’s fine to compare to Ol’ Dobbin in the field, but the fact is that 50% or better of the horses at the show are also at peak condition. Some of those need lunging into the ground, others don’t. By making it hard to exhaust that crazy horse into submission (because that is what’s being done) without getting DQed from the show, the nutty horses will not have good competition records and will phase out.
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For hunters, I don’t think we can or need to breed out the whacko, especially given that most of our hunters are Europe’s failed jumpers. I just think we need to go back to recognizing that we ride farm animals and they have brains and are allowed to have opinions about things too.
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While I agree personally, I think that your average middle aged AA can’t handle that ride. That’s how we ended up here to start with.
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You’re right–he initial regulations were earlier–the maximum dose was decreased in 2013.
From the 2012 AAEP proceedings:
“Dexamethasone is the only corticosteroid that is permitted to be used during sanctioned competitions, and this medication may be administered topically, PO, IV, or IM. Twomilligrams of dexamethasone sodium phosphate per 100 lb of body weight may be administered to an animal for 5 consecutive days without exceeding the permitted level of 3 ng/ml, and this dose is routinely administered to Hunter horses and ponies for the purpose of eliminating “spookiness.” It should be reiterated that this use of the medication is illegal under USEF rules, but statistics regarding the use of dexamethasone in the Hunter Divisions are not available.”
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None of my 7 horses, each a different breed used for hunters, jumpers, dressage and working cattle, have been packers. They are/were athletic, spirited and very aware of their surroundings but were bred to be rideable. My three dressage horses were the equivalent to high performance sport cars. Correct training combined with their great minds and rideablility (breeding) allowed me, an adult amateur, to safely ride without the use of drugs cross country, at competitions and at home. Ride the horse that you(g) are capable of riding safely without the use of drugs to control the energy or state of mind. It appears many reiners are over horsed. That is the fault of the trainers and their clients who are letting themselves be pushed into riding above their ability.
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So, I think there is some mis information here. I do not know of any reiners or cowhorses that need to be loped for 4 hours. You would not have a horse left especially in cowhorse. Most of them are ridden an hour or hour an a half before your draw. It is also not continuous loping. Cutters do lope their horses for a long time, I was told 3 hours by my nationally ranked cutter friend. I do think that is excessive and on FB it is mostly the cutters saying Sedivet would cut down on the excessive warm up. Many cutters also do a lot of long trotting.
Most of the reiners I know are totally against this rule. They think it is unfair and since a big part of the judging is that that horse is willfully guided, that it is cheating. Also, they fear it will lead to hotter horses being bred and passed off as easy to handle. In cowhorse, we think it would be dangerous to go down the fence on any horse that had its senses dulled. Hopefully, the backlash will result in this rule being overturned, however, the big money funneling through the sport may matter more than the members voices.
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