Seek bleeders and ye shall cure them with Lasix

Australians racing fans moving stateside usually adapt to American tracks and horses pretty well. But one thing just completely throws us.

Where do all these bleeders come from?

For the non-veterinarians (myself included), I'm referring to a disorder known in American racehorses as Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Hemorrage (EIPH) that causes them to bleed from the lungs after hard exercise. It is usually called simply bleeding and is treated legally in American barns with the medication furosemide, generally known by the brand name Lasix.

Lasix is also a race-day performance-enhancer. And therein lies the issue. In Australia, all race-day medication medication is banned. Horses can't have so much as a chai latte within 24 hours of the race. So forget shooting horses up with Lasix (and other PEs) on race day, as is common practice around American tracks.

In fact, Australians actually consider EIPH to be a problem only if the horse actually bleeds from the nostrils (see pic. above right). And Australians don't medicate bleeders anyway. If a horse bleeds at a track in Australia, he must be spelled from racing for at least three months. If he bleeds again, he must be retired from racing. Doesn't happen often - the rate of such epistaxis in Australian racehorses is about 0.2%.

And yet we have more questions: how do you know if a horse has EIPH if you don't see blood in the nostrils? Well, not long after Lasix was approved for use in bleeders in the early 1970s, along came  a very useful tool that made it much easier to find bleeders before they actually bled - the flexible endoscope (left). This allowed veterinarians to stick a tube down the horses throat to look for blood much closer to the source (in the upper pulmonary system - the top of the lungs). And sure enough, they found it.

Problem is, recent research has in fact pointed out that EIPH is common in most horses after strenuous exercise like hard running. Consequently, estimates of the rate of EIPH diagnosis in American racehorses vary from 50% up to 100% by some researchers. No big deal, says the research. Not so, say American racehorse veterinarians. So American racehorses are almost universally treated with Lasix to reduce the incidence of EIPH, which is of debatable danger in the first place. It also helps them run faster and is a major reason why American horses don't enter the Australia's most prestigious horse race, the Melbourne Cup.

The simple fact is that the widespread use of lasix is a scam, pushed by greedy parmaceutical companes and veterinarians and eagerly embraced by owners and trainers looking for that extra edge at the track at the risk of possibly endangering the horse's health. This leads to breakdowns, fewer starts per horse and a general decline in the quality of American horse racing.

American racing should take a leaf out of Australia's book and ban all performance-enhancimg drugs between 24 hours of race-day. On second thought, better write some national rules of U.S. racing first.