New Santa Anita Lasix Rules a Litmus Test for Entire
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MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2019 REBEL WINNERS IN FINE CONDITION NEW SANTA ANITA LASIX Omaha Beach (War Front) and Long Range Toddy (Take RULES A LITMUS TEST FOR Charge Indy) emerged from their respective upsets of highly regarded Bob Baffert trainees Game Winner (Candy Ride {Arg}) ENTIRE INDUSTRY and Improbable (City Zip) in split divisions of the GII Rebel S. in good order, their connections reported Sunday morning. Omaha Beach is set to return to Southern California Tuesday, trainer Richard Mandella said Sunday. The Fox Hill Farms colorbearer made a bold bid on the far turn and held off a late run by champion Game Winner to claim the second division of the Rebel. Mandella also sent out Extra Hope (Shanghai Bobby) to a fourth-place finish in the first division. AExtra Hope was set to run in the [since-canceled GII] San Felipe out there,@ Mandella said. A[He] ran well, too. He had kind of a mixed-up trip. He can do better than that.@ Cont. p7 Horsephotos IN TDN EUROPE TODAY EGAN FORGES AMERICAN ALLIANCE John Egan of Alliance Bloodstock will offer several American- The Week in Review, by Bill Finley sired 2-year-olds at the upcoming Tattersalls Craven Sale. In the end, and after all the meetings, discussions and rancor, Emma Berry has the scoop. Click or tap here to go straight Lasix has in fact been banned at Santa Anita. Sort of, that is. to TDN Europe. Neither side, the horsemen nor The Stronach Group (TSG) got exactly what they wanted when a final agreement between the two groups was announced Saturday concerning the use of Lasix. TSG wanted an immediate ban on all race-day medications and the horsemen did not want to lose Lasix. Period. To the credit of both sides, they reached a compromise that called for the maximum amount of Lasix allowed to be halved from 10 cc to 5 and, starting with the crop of 2018, those horses and all future crops, will not be able to race with Lasix. There is a "grandfather clause" that will allow current Lasix users to continue to use the medication throughout the rest of their careers. So, it's going to take some time, but by 2024 or so, racing at Santa Anita will, basically, be completely Lasix-free. No matter which side of the argument you are on, all should agree that the new Santa Anita rules will finally give the sport the answer it has been looking for ever since the drug arrived on the scene in the seventies: does racing need Lasix or not? Cont. p3 PUBLISHER & CEO Sue Morris Finley @suefinley [email protected] V.P., INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS Gary King @garykingTDN [email protected] EDITORIAL [email protected] Editor-in-Chief Jessica Martini @JessMartiniTDN Managing Editor Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Monday, March 18, 2019 Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN News and Features Editor Ben Massam @BMassamTDN Associate Editors Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN Joe Bianca @JBiancaTDN ADVERTISING [email protected] Director of Advertising Alycia Borer Advertising Manager Lia Best Advertising Designer Amanda Crelin Advertising Assistants Alexa Reisfield Amie Morosco Advertising Assistant/Dir. Of Distribution Rachel McCaffrey Photographer/Photo Editor Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew [email protected] Social Media Strategist On the morning after her GII Azeri S. victory, part owner Jeff Bloom visits with Justina Severni Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute) at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, AR. | Sarah Andrew Director of Customer Service Vicki Forbes [email protected] Marketing Manager SANTA ANITA SETS OPENING WEEKEND STAKES 6 Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen With racing set to resume at the Arcadia oval Mar. 29, the Santa Director of Information Technology Anita racing office has finalized a reworked stakes docket for the Ray Villa first weekend.. [email protected] Bookkeeper Terry May [email protected] LETTER TO THE EDITOR FROM GRAHAM MOTION 8 WORLDWIDE INFORMATION Trainer Graham Motion offers his thoughts on the situation in International Editor California and its broader implications for the industry as a whole. Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN [email protected] European Editor Emma Berry [email protected] Associate International Editor Heather Anderson @HLAndersonTDN Newmarket Bureau, Cafe Racing Sean Cronin & Tom Frary [email protected] 60 Broad Street, Suite 100 Red Bank, NJ 07701 732-747-8060 | 732-747-8955 (fax) www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 8 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • MARCH 18, 2019 The Week in Review (cont. from p1) The proof will not be in the pudding, but at what happens at Santa Anita, and perhaps the other TSG-owned tracks, over the When it comes to Lasix, no one is in the middle or neutral. You next few years. either believe it is a vital therapeutic drug that horses need to As someone who has never been a fan of Lasix and does not keep them from bleeding and that without it a vast amount of understand how the sport got by without it for 150 years or so horses would be unable to compete or compete effectively. Or and how every other country does just fine without it, here's you believe it is an unnecessary performance-enhancing drug, is what I think will happen: what has led to the modern era horse running so infrequently The California trainers, most of whom have never trained at a and is an embarrassment time when Lasix was not considering that virtually allowed, will adjust. Just like every other country in the their predecessors did in the world seems to have no sixties and every other problem conducting its racing decade before that, they will without it. All that and it find that most of their horses gives animal rights activists can do just fine without Lasix. ammunition to paint horse As for the bleeders, trainers racing as a cruel sport in will need to figure out new which the competitors are methods that will allow them pumped up with dangerous to race effectively. If they drugs. have serious bleeders that So, which is it? All along, Eclipse Sportswire simply cannot do without that's been one of the major Lasix, those horses probably shouldn't be racing anyway. problems concerning a controversy that has dragged on for Since I am neither a trainer nor a veterinarian, I am not exactly 40-some years. Would horse racing be better off without Lasix or not? TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 8 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • MARCH 18, 2019 an expert on the subject, but I still, for the life of me, cannot everything we need to know. understand how dehydrating a horse before they go out to race, If racing thrives under the Santa Anita experiment, or even if it is a good idea....especially on a hot day. Remember, Lasix is not merely continues on without any problems, then it will be time an anti-bleeding drug per se, it is a diuretic and its primary effect for horsemen's groups across the country to admit defeat and is to causes horses to urinate to the point where they lose a give up their insistence on keeping the drug legal. I'm not sure large amount of water weight. While there may be some horsemen realize how serious a threat the animal-rights advantage to that when racing, as the horse should be able to community is to horse racing. It has brought down dog racing run faster when it suddenly loses 75, 100 pounds, there's little and you'd have to be very naive to think that it can't do the doubt that it makes it much harder for them to recover from a same to horse racing. Obviously Lasix is not the boogeyman and race. There's a direct correlation between the legalization of directly responsible for the recent deaths of 22 horses at Santa Lasix and the plummeting numbers when it comes to the Anita, but that's not the point. This is a case of where perception amount of starts horses average each year. Will the new rules is vastly more important than reality and the racing industry lead to the end of the mind set needs to show PETA et. al. that it where horses need five to six is doing everything it can to weeks off between races and make the sport as safe as it won't owners be thrilled to see possibly can be. their horses now running 12 or If things go haywire at Santa 13 times a year and therefore Anita without Lasix, then it will earning far more money? be time for the hay, oats and I fully realize I could be water crowd to admit it was completely wrong, that the wrong, that the sport cannot do doomsday prophesy espoused without the drug and it must be by the most vitriolic pro-Lasix brought back to protect the trainers could come true. We livelihood of trainers and owners may well see smaller fields and, perhaps, keep horses from because a lot of California suffering dangerous bleeding horses need the drug and we The paddock at Santa Anita | Horsephotos issues during racing. may well see more incidents of horses bleeding during races. Everyone needs to keep an open mind and when all the Trainer Peter Miller told the TDN that it is "inhumane" to run a evidence is in and base their opinions not on what is right for bleeder without Lasix. It could be that, when it comes to Lasix, them but for the good of horse racing. racing in the 1960s cannot be compared to racing in 2019.