MEDICATIONS AT THE RACETRACK

VET BILLS FROM A LEADING TRAINER

The following vet bills are from an actual leading trainer at a major track

Training throughout the eight months is $45 a day. Vet bills, shoes, and ponies are all extra.

The horse was at the track a total of eight months. I am going to walk you through those months. This filly had placed in a stakes and was a solid allowance horse. She definitely had ability.

Upon arriving at the track, the horse was seen by the vet.

1/4 - Wormed
1/5 - X-ray left ankle
1/6 - Tube oil
1/8 - CBC Blood Chemistry

TOTAL VET COSTS: $155

We see the trainer observed something as he had the left ankle X-rayed. The oiling of the horse on day six suggests perhaps a colic. A CBC would not be unusual for a new horse coming into a trainer's barn. There are no further vet bills this month. Perhaps the horse is getting used to the track.

Month Two

2/13 - Electrolyte Vitamin JUG
2/13 - Banamine Injection
2/14 - Adequan Injection
2/15 - Pre-Race Treatment
2/15 - Pre-Race Injection

HORSE RACED ON 2/15

2/15 - Post-Race Endoscopic Exam
2/19 - Liver and Vitamin Injection
2/20 - Bronchial Injection
2/21 - Bronchial Injection
2/21 - Inject Right and Left Stifles
2/22 - Bronchial Injection
2/23 - Electolyte Vitamin JUG
2/23 - Banamine Injection
2/24 - Adequan Injection
2/25 - Pre-Race Injection
2/25 - Pre-Race Treatment

HORSE RACED ON 2/25

Electrolyte jug - IV fluids mixed with electrolytes and vitamins and perhaps other additives. Expensive and unnecessary.

Banamine - A very POTENT PAINKILER! Lame and sore horses under the influence of this medication appear sound. That definitely means pain was masked! Notice Banamine was given two days before every single race that this horse ran! If admininstered less than forty-eight hours before the race, it might show up in the drug test!

Adequan i.m., Luitpold Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Shirley, NY. - According to the product insert, "Adequan... diminishes or reverses the processes which result in loss of cartilaginous mucopolysaccharides... by stimulating synovial membrane activity... and increasing synovial fluid viscosity in traumatized equine carpal joints."

Pre-Race Treatment - Perhaps an inhalant of some type to open the lungs.

Pre-Race Injection - Probably a mixture of corticosteroids or pain killers, such as SoluDeltaCortef, ACTH, Adenosine, Medicorten, and Prednisone.

Liver and Iron Injections - Maybe the horse had a low blood count.

Bronchial Injections - Throughout the horse's time at the track, she is given this medication the three days preceding every race. No one can give me a clear answer as to what it is. It might be a medication from Canada called Clenbuterol (a steroidlike product) that has been used as a lung medication and is now illegal.

Editor's note: The use, both legal and illegal, of Clenbuterol has become a contentious issue in horseracing recently. Clenbuterol, a bronchial dilator, was approved for use in horses on May 11. 1998 by the Food and Drug Administration through the product Ventipulmin Syrup, and at the same time, new tests designed to detect low doses of the drug were being implemented in state drug-testing laboratories. The controversy of Clenbuterol's effect on performance was hightened when the drug was detected in the top older horse FREE HOUSE after he won the 1998 Hollywood Gold Cup. In high doses, Clenbuterol is thought to have a "partitioning effect," altering the fat-muscle ratio in an animal, the same effect produced by steroids.

Injection of right and left stifles - This tells us that the horse is going sore in her stifles. (Horses indicate soreness in the stifles when they are short strided in the rear legs. They may also have trouble backing up or turning in small circles.) The problem may be in the front legs. We see the manifestation in the rear, because the horse compensates by shifting weight to the hind legs. Usually, the stifles are injected with a caustic substance, possibly an iodine type product that causes scar tissue to form in the area. This is called an "internal blister". The track this horse runs on is noted for causing soreness. Stopping this horse and allowing her soreness to heal would be preferable to medicating. The best cure for sore stifles is turnout, long trots and slow gallops on a kind surface.

The Post Race endoscopic exam suggests that the horse quit in the race and didn't run well. The trainer was looking to see if she bled.

THE VET BILLS THIS MONTH WERE $435.

TRAINING CONTINUES AT $45 PER DAY.

BEWARE WHEN YOU SEE INJECTIONS IN JOINTS ON YOUR VET BILL! YOUR HORSE WILL NOT LAST!