Originally Posted by
str
Q. I think I would be paranoid about the security of horses in their barns. Does such fear exist among trainers?
A. Yes. That has always been a concern. The barns are wide open. Security typically stinks from when I was there. Hell, the Lieutenant in charge of security at Laurel was paid off, and in on, a break in at my barn in the 80's when I had a very expensive sonic machine ( similar to todays version of a tens units) stolen along with some saddles from my tack room. I went to get updates on the investigation daily from him. And turned out, he was in on it. Cost him his job. Me, about 2,500. Found the machine up in Charlestown about 6 months later broken, and in a dumpster. That was decent money 40 years ago. Can't imagine the security has gotten any better. Bunch of Barney's back then.
Or thieves.
Funny ending, I ran into that Lieutenant about a year or two later. He was working as a locksmith. Fixing locks and opening car doors for people and such. Guess locks was in his blood. Lol. I can laugh now. Back then I wasn't. Worthless friggin crook.
Q. Medicine, as the present world is showcasing, is a highly volatile topic. Coming from the holistic corner, I would be inclined to label 90 percent of modern pharma as a scam; not intended to solve problems, but designed to make people come back for more (or, worse, control them). But I'm aware that many people assign a near godlike status to their doctors, so I have to respect their attitudes as well.
A. Once they found the way to stop polio and it ended, drug companies learned it would be more lucrative to maintain instead of cure. Once again, it's all about the money.
Q. Are there trainers who turn to medicine too easily, not to cheat, but to err on the side of caution, for instance?
A. Not so much. The reality is that if you are by a sire that bled, out of a mare that bled, you are going to need Lasix and probably other legal remedies to help prevent bleeding. That's just the way horses pass along traits.
With other medications for aches and pains, you use those on a case by case basis. No need to give a totally sound horse bute , and a trainer won't until race time in most cases. Why then? Well, it was my stance that the horse did not need it to train so I didn't give it ( I actually trained very few on bute) but when I compete against a full field of horses with controlled amounts of bute in them, I am going to be on a level playing field.
At first, some might not feel that way but get beat a couple of noses and that will fix that thought. In high competition, you try and level the field all you can. Not take an edge, but make sure the others are not talking that edge against you.
Same thing with Lasix, although if you scoped every horse every race and nobody ran on Lasix, or any of the 20 some other anti bleeding drugs the public knows nothing about, you would find that the vast majority of those horses showed anywhere from trace amounts of bleeding all the way up to heavy bleeding. Those other drugs I refer to do not help performance other than to help stop bleeding, but the public is unaware. Back in the hay, oats and water days of NY racing with no Lasix, those "other" anti bleeding meds were used by everybody everyday, yet to this day, I still hear people talking about the good ole days of NY racing. Lol. Dream on.
So I guess my answer would have to be, the better, smarter, more highly educated from high end trainers growing up that the trainer is, the better the chance of less drugs while training. But the weaker the trainer when it comes to knowing what to do, the more that trainer will rely on the vet and drugs to train for them. Hope that makes sense.