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November 2010
Racing Grapples With Smaller Fields, Fewer Starts.
By BILL FINLEY
llen Jerkens’s list of feats is a mile ortwo long, but none is more impressivethan his dismantling of Secretariat. Hedidn’t do it just once, but twice, and didit in the span of eight weeks. FirstOnion beat the Triple Crown winner inthe 1973 Whitney at Saratoga. Fifty-sixdays later, Jerkens got him again, thistime with Prove Out in the Woodward.Theywere different races, won by dif-
ferent horses, but each had one thing incommon, besides their trainer: Bothwere running back in a week or less.Onion raced four days before theWhit-
ney; Prove Out ran one week prior tothe Woodward. Thirty-seven yearslater, with seemingly every owner andtrainer in the sport convinced the ani-mal is no longer sturdy and must bepampered, no one would dare trysomething like that.Jerkens, the 81-year-old Hall of Famer
and racing icon, can’t understand why.“The biggest change in racing is that
people are of the opinion that youshouldn’t run horses very often,”Jerkens said. “It used to be that if ahorse was sound and hadn’t lost anyweight from his last race and was feel-ing well, and if a race came up, youwould run them. Now people for somereason think they shouldn’t run. I can’tunderstand it. I’ve had a lot of horses inmy life who won real big races close to-
gether. What’s going on, it’s a fallacy.”Jerkens remains one of the most re-
spected horsemen in the game, butthere are probably some, maybe evenmany, who think he’s out of touch withthemodern realities of the sport and theequine athlete, a dinosaur from anotherera. After all, the statistics tell a verydifferent story.In 1970, the year Secretariat was born,
the average number of starts per runnerper year was a healthy 10.22. Forego,born that same year, ran 57 times, in-cluding 18 starts in 1973. But even thosenumbers, remarkable by today’s stan-dards, don’t put the mighty Forego inthe same league with some of the trueiron horses in the sport’s history.
Hall of Famer Stymie started 131times.
A
*All photos courtesy of Horsephotos unless otherwise indicated.
“The biggest change
in racing is that people
are of the opinion
that you shouldn’t run
horses very often.”
Allen Jerkens
Allen Jerkens
2 Magazine
Do We Need aSturdier Racehorse?
Racing Grapples With Smaller Fields, Fewer Starts.
By BILL FINLEY
Round Table raced 66 times and won43 races before anyone sent him off tothe breeding shed, from where he be-came the leading sire in NorthAmericain 1972.
Whirlaway’s 1941 campaign typifiedwhat horses did 70 some years ago. Hehad seven starts prior to the KentuckyDerby, including a win in the DerbyTrial just four days prior to the Run forthe Roses. After his horse won theDerby and the Preakness, trainer BenJones was apparently concerned therewas too much time between TripleCrown races. Why else would he havestarted him in an allowance race at Bel-mont 10 days after the Preakness and 18days before the Belmont? It was one of20 starts he made during his three-year-old campaign.Previewing Whirlaway’s appearance
in the Belmont allowance race for theNew York Times, reporter Lincoln A.Werden wrote: “In keeping with hispolicy of giving the colt plenty of work,trainer Ben Jones announced thatWhirlaway will not only race today (ona Tuesday), but possibly in the PeterPan Handicap on Friday, depending onthe outcome of today’s test.”(After winning the allowance race by
2¼ lengths, Whirlaway passed the PeterPan).The most recent Kentucky Derby win-ner, Super Saver, raced just six timesthis year andwas retired after a poor ef-fort in the Travers. And that makes himmore robust than most. In 2009, the av-erage number of starts per horse wasdown to 6.23, a 39-percent decline over
the 1970 numbers.That’s among the reasons why so
many believe the modern Thorough-bred is a veritable weakling, unable tostand up to the pressures of racing,prone to injury and no match for histough-as-steel counterpart from the‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s.“There’s no doubt, we are breeding aweaker horse,” owner and breederArthur Hancock said. “The big problemis all the medication. We are breeding achemical horse.”Hancock believes that the influx of
drugs and medications, legal and oth-
erwise, is at the crux of the problem, atheory many people share. Others be-lieve the cause of the apparent weaken-ing of the athlete is due to the changesin the way we breed horses in moderntimes. Everyone, or so it seems, wantsto breed for speed and not stamina, andif that means breeding a horse thatraced just five times before breakingdown to an unraced mare, so be it. Ormaybe it has something to do withyear-round racing, or problems withtrack surfaces. Theories abound.Among those trying to answer the
question are a number of scientists who
specialize in equine genetics, smart peo-ple whose perspective is different fromthat of the typical horseman. Why hasthe breed changed? They argue that ithasn’t.Dr. James MacLeod is a member of
the team at the University of Ken-
tucky’s Gluck Equine Research Center.Among other things, he studies howphysical exertion and the muscu-loskeletal stress of athletic events pre-dispose both horses and humans tojoint injuries. In other words, he knowsa lot about horses and genetics and howthe animal can change from generationto generation. As a scientist, he cannotsee any reason why horses now are anyweaker or more injury prone thanhorses from 40 or 50 years ago. He saysthat not nearly enough time has goneby for the breed to undergo any sort ofsignificant change.“It is hard to arrive at a genetic expla-
nation for a shift in the population aslarge and as diverse as Thoroughbredsin such a short period of time,”MacLeod said. “I understand there aremany variables in play in terms of howcondition books are written, how wetrain and other factors, and separatingthose things out would be a challenge.But, purely on the genetics and lookingat what is this animal and the biome-chanics of its tissues, it is difficult to
November 2010 3
Forego
Super Saver
“There’s no doubt
we are breeding
a weaker horse.”
Arthur Hancock
Arthur Hancock
support an inherited biological mecha-nism to explain why horses race muchless frequently today than three to fivedecades ago.”
Dr. Ernest Bailey is also with theGluck Equine Research Center, and isan expert in the field of genetics and thehorse. LikeMacLeod, he says there’s noevidence to support the theory that themodern horse is somehow less sturdyor strong than the horse of the mid-20thcentury.“Many breeders believe that horses
have become less durable,” Bai-ley said. “This certainly impliesa change in the genetics of theThoroughbred horse popula-tion since the beginning of the20th century when horses ranmore frequently. The breedersare very astute and I respecttheir opinions. I do have somereservations. Forty to 50 yearsis a very short time tomanifestsuch an extensive change insuch a large population ofhorses, worldwide. The onsetof the problem appears to befairly abrupt, and that is moreconsistent with changes inmanagement.”How long would it take for
the breed to undergo a radicalchange? A very long time.“Gene frequencies change at
a glacial speed for large popu-lations like the Thorough-bred,” Bailey said, adding that
only very modest changes are possiblein a breed in a period as short as 40 or50 years.Then, what has happened? Why doesthe modern racehorse run so infre-quently and seem to get injured sooften? Could it be that it is the peoplebehind the horses and not the horsesthemselves that have changed?The Jockey Club’s statistics regarding
how often horses run go back to 1950,when the average starts per runner peryear was 10.91. In 1960, the number had
increased to 11.31, and, with the excep-tion of a very small increase in 2009,from 6.20 to 6.23, it has been falling eversince. In 1980, the figure was down to9.21. In 1990, it fell to 7.94. In 2005, it fellto 6.45, the first time it dipped below 6.5since The Jockey Club began keepingrecords.Anecdotally, top-level horses seem to
run less frequently than ever. A five- orsix-race campaign for a Grade I horse isthe norm, and rarely will any run backin less than a month. Never was thatmore evident than during this year’sTriple Crown series, which, by the timethe Belmont rolled around, had fallenapart. No horses competed in all threeraces, and the Belmont field includedneither the Kentucky Derby nor Preak-ness winner.
Perhaps no trainer represents themodern trendmore than Todd Pletcher.He pulled Super Saver out of the TripleCrown within minutes of his eighth-place finish in the Preakness, a typicalmove from a trainer who prefers to givehis horses at least five weeks betweenraces. Owners flock to Pletcher becausehe has a proven record, is a multiple
Eclipse Award winner and winsconsistently at the highest levels,but give him a horse and it willnot run often.Yet, Pletcher is not among those
who is convinced the breed hasgrown weaker.“It is so complicated and there
are so many variables, it is toohard to narrow it down and justsay in 1950 the horse was moredurable,” he said. “Maybe it was,but I just don’t know if that istrue.”Pletcher was a disciple ofWayneLukas and worked for him as anassistant for more than four years,but he seems to have patternedhis style more after that of the lateBobby Frankel, who was a trend-setter when it came to the less-is-more approach. Frankel’s trainingstyle was typified in the way hehandled Ghostzapper, one of his10 champions. He made just 11
4 Magazine
The Gluck Equine Research Center’s Dr. James MacLeod and Dr. Ernest Bailey
Average Starts per Runner
lifetime starts, but won six gradedstakes races and was considered one ofthe best horses of his era before beingretired to stud. Ghostzapper ran justfour times in 2004, but it was enoughfor him to be named Horse of the Year.“When you see a guy like Frankel
having so much success giving his
horses plenty of time, it would be fool-ish not to consider doing the samething,” Pletcher said.Frankel confessed that he was influ-
enced by the beliefs of Len Ragozin andhis team. Ragozin--the first to publish“sheets,” or sophisticated speed figureslaid out on graph paper—and his disci-
ples believe that after a big effort ahorse needs plenty of time to recover. Ifnot, they say, the horse will not runwell, or bounce. Ragozin’s theories arenow widely accepted and many toptrainers use his sheets and those ofcompetitor Jerry Brown tomanage theirstables.“Now everyone is a sheets guy and alot of trainers race wherever the sheetguys tell them to run,” weighed in an-other Hall of Famer, three-time Derby-winning trainer Bob Baffert said.Pletcher also follows the sheets, but
that has nothing to do with whether ornot he believes the modern horse isfrail. Rather, he believes spacing out ahorse’s races gives them the best chanceto win.“What has happened over the years isthat things have evolved,” Pletchersaid. “A number of years ago, mostguys did the same thing: everybody rantheir horses once a week and the samehorses ran against one another in raceafter race. Probably at some point alongthe way some guy figured out, ‘If I skipa week and come back and catch allthese guys after they’ve run the previ-ous week, I’m going to have a fresherhorse that’s going to run better and I’mgoing to be able to beat them.’“We’re in such a statistical era that
everything is looked at and scrutinizedclosely. Trainers feel like they’re in a po-sition where their horses have to per-form as well as possible every time theygo over there, and the only way to dothat is to make sure they have plenty oftime between races, they’re fresh andready to go every time, especially at thehigher levels. There are other caseswhere you can have horses run poorlyand run them back on short rest, butfrom our experience, when we runhorses back off good races, they needmore time to get back to that same cal-iber of race. That’s what we’re trying toaccomplish and that’s why we givethem more space.”
Pletcher typically wins with about25% of his starters, a healthy figure thatis in line with what he has accom-plished throughout his career. He ad-mits it is important to him to have ahigh percentage, and that it’s a hugeselling point when it comes to attractingowners. There’s little doubt that some
Todd Pletcher
John Kimmel
“It is so complicated
and there are so
many variables, it is
too hard to narrow
it down and just say
in 1950 the horse
was more durable.”
Todd Pletcher
“With the incredible
amount of statistics out
there, trainers are very
concerned about their
winning percentage.”
John Kimmel
November 2010 5
trainers are so obsessed with maintain-ing a high winning rate that it dictateswhen and how often they will run theirhorses. Running infrequently and onlyin spots where your horse has an excel-lent chance of winning is one way to en-sure an impressive winning percentage.But it’s just that sort of thinking thatkeeps horses in the barn instead of inthe entries.“With the incredible amount of sta-
tistics out there, trainers are very con-cerned about their winning
percentage,” said trainer and veterinar-ian John Kimmel. “It is out there foreverybody to see. Trainers don’t wantto run their horses in prep races orbring them alongwith a couple of races,because then they’ll get this connota-tion that if they’re not winning at a 20or 25-percent clip they’re not doing agood job. That’s one of the downsidesof what statistics have brought. It hasmade the trainers more cautious aboutwhen they lead their horses over thereand how prepared they are. Races used
to be the preparatory steps for runningin major races. It doesn’t happen any-more. When you go out there, you areexpected to put in a big performance,andwhen you put in a big performancethe consequences are that you are look-ing at significant down time after thehorses run, and that has a negative im-pact on the number of starts horsesmake during a year.”Trainers like Kimmel and Pletcher
who deal with top-of-the-line horseshave to worry about more than justwinning races. Their primary goal withsome horses is to turn them into valu-able stallions and broodmares andsend them into retirement ready toearn more money breeding than theycould ever make racing. That’s amongthe reasons some trainers are so cau-tious; a bad effort in a big race can costan owner millions when it comes to ahorse’s future value in the breedingshed.That may help explain why a horse
on the level of a Super Saver or aGhostzapper runs so infrequently, butwhat about the $5,000 claimer at FingerLakes? The days of the iron-horseclaimer that runs 30 times a year alsoseem to be long gone.“When I see what trainers used to do
with horses years ago it makes mescratch my head,” said Chris Engle-hart, the leading trainer at FingerLakes. “I have to think the horses justaren’t as durable as they used to be be-cause if I tried to do that, I wouldn’thave any horses left in my barn after ashort period of time. I’m not sure whythat is. It might be changes in the breedin general, the racetrack surfaces werun on, a combination of those factorsor some unknown reasons. Whoknows? But I can tell you if I tried to dothat with my horses they would all beon the farm.”Is Englehart correct? Or is he just one
more trainer who has simply con-vinced himself that horses aren’t astough as they used to be? How muchof what has been going on is a matterof perception winning out over reality?As Pletcher admits to having been in-
2009 Sires by Lifetime Starts per Starter
6 MagazineGrayson-Jockey Club Research Today, volume 27, no. 2
fluenced by Frankel, isPletcher influencing train-ers everywhere, even thosewhose barns are filled withcheap horses?“Once everybody else is
doing it a certain way,you’re pretty much afraidof facing the criticism ofgoing out and doing some-thing different,” said DanRosenberg, the presidentof Rosenberg Thorough-bred Consulting, and for-mer president and chiefoperating officer for ThreeChimneys Farm.Still another unexplored area when it
comes to durability and the modernracehorse is how they are handled be-tween starts. The way Pletcher trainedSuper Saver leading into this year’sDerby was fairly typical of how atrainer prepares a horse for major races.After a brief freshening over the winter,Super Saver began working approxi-mately once a week at the Palm Mead-ows training center in Florida, startingin late January. After he made his finalKentucky Derby prep in the Apr. 10Arkansas Derby, Super Saver had justone work for the Derby, a four-furlongbreeze a week before the big event.After winning the Derby, he had justone work for the Preakness, a three-fur-long breeze on the Saturday betweenthe two legs of the Triple Crown. Neverin his entire career has Super Saverworked beyond five furlongs.Suffice it to say, Pletcher didn’t de-
mandmuch from his horse in themorn-ings, especially when compared toTriple Crown warriors from the ‘40s.
Bill Pressey is an equine exercisephysiologist based in Louisville whodoesn’t believe in pampering horses.Aspart of his research, he uncovered thetraining routine of 1946 Triple Crownwinner Assault, who was trained byMax Hirsch. He breezed four furlongsthe day before the Derby, a mile twodays before the Preakness and hadeight workouts between the Preaknessand Belmont, among them mile-and-a-
quarter and mile-and-a-half works.Pressey believes the implications areobvious: horses were tougher then be-cause they were made that way by theirtrainers.“Currently our runners such as Super
Saver and Lookin At Lucky, while stillfantastic specimens, cannot breeze/racefour times in this period, much less the20 of Assault, and no doubt all othersduring the 1930-1948 period when wehad seven Triple Crown champs,”Pressey writes in his blog, which car-ried the headline “I Blame Trainers forLack of Triple Crown winners.” “As-
sault's mother never rana race, and the colt him-self had a foot injuryearly in his career. Today,he would have beentrained/raced like hewas made of glass—in-stead of iron.”Assault made 42 starts
during his career and re-turned to the racetrackafter it was found out hewas sterile.Like most horses of theera, a lot was demandedof Assault as a two-year-
old. He began his career in June andmade nine starts during his freshmanseason. Others were even busier: Whirl-away made 16 starts as a two-year-oldand Count Fleet ran 15 times at two.Anyone who ran a two-year-old 15 or
16 times todaywould be showeredwithcriticism. Asking that much of a younghorse is considered to be borderline cru-elty and a foolproof way to make surethey never last. Animal rights advo-cates often rail about two-year-old rac-ing, arguing that horses aren’tdeveloped enough physically at thatpoint to be pushed into races.The Jockey Club Information Systems
has crunched numbers relating to all as-pects of racing and the health andsafety of its competitors, and came upwith some fascinating findings regard-ing two-year-olds and two-year-old rac-ing. Despite conventional wisdom, itappears that modern trainers are notpushing their two-year-olds hardenough.According the TJCIS research, in 1964,
52 percent of the foal crop of 1962 racedas two-year-olds. Those two-year-oldsaveraged 6.9 starts, and two-year-oldraces accounted for 11.6 percent of allraces run that year.In the period from 2004 to 2009, only
30 percent of the applicable foal cropraced as two-year-olds and they aver-aged about three starts per horse. Racesfor two-year-olds accounted for only 7.9percent of the total races run.Dr. Larry Bramlage took those num-Lookin At Lucky
Bill Pressey
November 2010 7
“I blame trainers
for lack of Triple
Crown winners.”
Bill Pressey
Bre
ntP
ress
eyph
oto
bers one step further and found that ahorse that races as a 2-year-old is likelyto have a lengthier, healthier career. Hefound that horses that race as two-year-olds will, on average, make far more ca-reer starts than horses that did not raceat two. It’s also worth noting that theaverage career earnings for horses thatstart as two-year-olds are nearly twicethose of horses that began their racingcareers after turning three.“This data is definitive,” Bramlage
said during aspeech in 2008 be-fore The JockeyClub Round Table.“It shows thathorses that beganracing as two-year-olds aremuch more suc-cessful, havemuchlonger careers and, by extrapolation,show less predisposition to injury thanhorses that did not begin racing untiltheir three-year-old year. It is absoluteon all the data sets that the training andracing of two-year-old Thoroughbredshas no ill effect on the horses' race-ca-reer longevity or quality. In fact, thedata would indicate that the ability tomake at least one start as a 2-year-oldhas a very strong positive affect on thelongevity and success of a racehorse.
This strong positive effect on the qualityand quantity of performance wouldmake it impossible to argue that thesehorses that race as 2-year-olds are com-promised.
“These data strongly support thephysiologic premise that it is easier fora horse to adapt to trainingwhen training begins at theend of skeletal growth. Ini-tiation of training at the endof growth takes advantage
of the established bloodsupply and cell populationsthat are then convertedfrom growth to the adapta-tion to training. It is muchmore difficult for a horse to adapt totraining after the musculoskeletal sys-tem is allowed to atrophy at the end ofgrowth because the bone formationsupport system that is still present inthe adolescent horse must be re-createdin the skeletally mature horse that initi-
ates training.”These are the great ironies of the
modern Thoroughbred and how it ishandled. Trainers have never beenmore cautious in how they handle theirhorses, taking great care to space theirraces apart and to keep their number ofstarts to a minimum. Few horses everwork beyond six furlongs, part of dailytraining routines that emphasize lightexercise over anything too taxing. Thebest two-year-olds are unveiled not inMay or June, but in September or Octo-ber, and once they begin racing theywon’t be asked to do too much. Two orthree races during a juvenile season isconsidered a norm.Yet, horses have never seemed more
injury prone or susceptible to fatalbreakdowns on the track. Recent fig-ures released by The Jockey Club showan alarming number of catastrophicbreakdowns, with 2.14 horses per every1,000 starters suffering fatal injuries indirt races over a one-year period endinglast October. With little if any dataavailable concerning the number of fa-
talities in past decades, it’s impossibleto know if the current numbers are onthe rise, but anecdotal evidence wouldsuggest that they are.Could it be that in the sport’s rush to
go easy on its competitors it is actuallycreating animals that, because of the
8 Magazine
Assault
Dr. Larry Bramlage
“These data strongly support
the physiologic premise that it
is easier for a horse to adapt to
training when training begins at
the end of skeletal growth.”
Larry Bramlage
kid-glove treatment, haven’t beenmadeto be tough enough? Pressey thinksthat’s exactly what is happening.“You see what is happening, and yet
all these horses still get hurt,” he said.“That’s what drives me crazy. Trainersdo what they do and their horses stillget hurt and they don’t see it as thecause. Then if you get someone to trainmore aggressively and they hurt ahorse, they get blamed for being too ag-gressive. That doesn’t make any sense.”To try and explain why horses run
less often now than they did in the ‘50sand ‘60s, you have to look at how theindustry has changed over the last 40 or50 years. Arguably the single biggestdifference between racing now andthen is that drugs are a much biggerpart of the equation.Owner-breeder Gary Biszantz fondly
remembers a simpler time when horsesran more often and did so without anyassistance from a plethora of medica-tions. Biszantz raced his first horse in1956 and, of course, it ran without bute,Lasix, anabolic steroids, corticosteroids,clenbuterol or anything else. Integrityhas always been important to him, andhe is proud of the fact that never oncehas a horse he owns test positive for aprohibited drug.Over the years, Biszantz saw drugs
creep more and more into the fabric ofthe sport. He, like most other owners,was told that drugs would do thehorses, the sport and the owners noth-ing but good; they would create health-ier horses that, thanks to the magic ofmodern medicine, were able to runmore often than ever. He says he andeveryone else were sold a bill of goods.“Horses are not the same,” he said.
“The veterinary community misled theAmerican racing industry into thinkingthat increasing the amounts of medica-tion we gave these horses would do nu-merous good things. It would makethem run faster, their careers would belonger, the field sizes would be largerand they would get hurt less often. Onehundred percent of what they said hasgone the other way. Everything. Wehave seen a dramatic increase in the
amount of medications given to horsesand careers have never been shorter, wehave smaller fields than ever and thehorses don’t have as much stamina.”Arthur Hancock says that the reason
horses don’t last is that, instead of beinggiven time to heal when they are hurt,they are injected with drugs in order toget them back on track.“Pain is a friend,” he said. “If a horse
has pain you need to give him rest. To
not do so is like trying to run a crippledman on medication. Let the man healup before he races.”Like Biszantz, Hancock places much
of the blame for what has happenedwith the track veterinarians.“With the racetrack veterinarians, I’m
not saying they are bad people, but aculture has evolved and, with that, theyhave hijacked this industry,” he said. “Alot of owners are sick and tired of pay-
2009 Sires by Lifetime % of Foals of Racing Age Started
Grayson-Jockey Club Research Today, volume 27, no. 2
November 2010 9Grayson-Jockey Club Research Today, volume 27, no. 2
ing $1,000 amonth in vet bills or buyinga yearling for $200,000 and having itmake five starts or fewer and thenbreak down.”And no drug is more prevalent today
than Lasix. In 1960, the idea of injectinga horse with the diuretic was unheardof; today, virtually every horse thatcompetes in North America does sowith the assistance of Lasix.According to research done by author
Bill Heller in his book “Run, Baby,Run,” the late veterinarian Dr. AlexHarthill was among the first to giveLasix to racehorses, and says he treatedNorthern Dancer with the drug in 1964.It was illegal at the time, but it appearsthat Harthill’s idea that he could controlbleeding in horses with a drug that wasdevised for humans to treat congestiveheart failure and edemacaught on quickly.That some horses seemed to
improve dramatically oncetreated with Lasix made iteven more popular on thebackstretches of Americanracetracks. According toHeller, by 1975, Lasix waslegal in Colorado, California,Florida, Illinois, Kentucky,Louisiana, Maryland, Ne-braska, New Mexico andOhio.In 1995, New York, the last
bastion of hay, oats and water,fell. When the 1995 Belmontfall meet began in Septemberwith Lasix now allowed,every racing state in the coun-try had become a drug state.
Trainer Ken McPeek be-lieves Lasix is definitelyamong the reasons horses areracing less often than ever.“Lasix takes off water and
those fluids need to be re-plenished,” McPeek said. “It takeslonger to get horses back to the racesbecause of this. There is certainly amerit to the argument that there arehorses that need it, but what percentageis that really? It’s lower than it is higher.Absolutely, Lasix affects the amount of
starts per year for a horse.”McPeek reasons that dehydrating a
horse and then asking it to give maxi-mum effort on the racetrack, and some-times in hot weather, must have ataxing affect.“We’ve measured the average weight
drop for a horse after a shot of Lasix,and it is 20 to 30 pounds of waterweight,” he said. “I’m talking aboutfrom the moment they get the shot, to
when they run, to when they cool offand to when we put them back on thescale. Between losing water from sweat-ing and water from the Lasix, it’s al-ways been at least 20 to 30 pounds andthat’s a lot of water weight. So thatwater has to be replenished. Draining
that much water from a horse, theyneed time to recover from that.”Yet McPeek, like most trainers, runs
virtually every horse in his stable onLasix. He said he does so because hefears he will lose owners if he insists onrunning his horses Lasix-free. He hassome experience with that problem.“I had one particular horse [Wild and
Wicked] and he ran his first four careerstarts without Lasix,”McPeek said. “Hewon his first three and then was fourthin the [2003] Haskell without Lasix.Well, I got chewed out by the owner be-cause of that. He ran back in the Traverswith Lasix and ran the same race. Hewas fourth again. After that, I got thehorse taken away from me. All I wastrying to do was do right by the horse,and it got me fired.”
After the Travers, Wild andWicked made one more ca-reer start, finishing fourth inan allowance race in Califor-nia for trainer Doug O’Neill.In a study on how diuretics
such as Lasix affect thehuman athlete, LawrenceArmstrong, a professor at theUniversity of Connecticut’sHuman Performance Labora-tory, wrote, “Diuretics nega-tively affect athleticperformance by reducingcardiorespiratory enduranceand muscular strength. Theyalso increase whole-body heatstorage during exercise by re-ducing sweating and skinblood flow. These physiologi-cal effects, coupled with thepotential for electrolyte[e.g., potassium] depletion,demonstrate that diuretic useis counterproductive andsometimes deleterious tohealth. Finally, because di-
uretics are banned by the IOC, theUSOC and the NCAA, their use by ath-letes should not be accepted or ig-nored.”Larry Bramlage argues that horses
aren’t people. “Many of the quotesabout Lasix--furosemide, Salix or what-
10 Magazine
Ken McPeek
“Absolutely, Lasix
affects the amount
of starts per year
for a horse.”
Ken McPeek
ever you call it--in the media are ridicu-lous physiologically. Horses are graz-ing animals; in the natural setting theyoften go to water only once every day.They can do this because they can storelarge volumes of water in their colonand access as their hydration status re-quires. Lasix is a short-acting diuretic.It causes the horse to lose sodiumwhich takes water with it in the urine.The sodium is readily replenished inthe short term from inside the cells, andin the long term from the diet. As longas you don't give Lasix every day ordon't feed a feed without any salt, thehorse has no long-term trouble with adose of Lasix if you use the doses mostcommonly used. The water is readilyreplaced in the circulation from thecolon. So the horse doesn't dehydratebecause it has a readily accessible re-placement source, even if they don'tdrink. The net effect of a dose of Lasixtherefore does not affect the circulationas the water that passes out of the bloodin the urine is just replaced from thecolon. But, the net effect of loss of a gal-lon of urine is to remove a gallon ofwater from the colon. Agallon of waterweighs eight pounds, so the horse iseight pounds lighter. So, in therapeuticdoses you get no dehydration of the cir-culation and no electrolyte imbalance.If you give it in very large doses, thewater and electrolyte exchangemay notoccur fast enough and youmight affectthe horse andmake them dull, but mosthorses deal with this with no trouble inthe doses we use.”According to Bill Heller, in 1996, the
first full year of Lasix use in New York,67.8 percent of the starters at the NewYork tracks used Lasix. Fourteen yearsago, there was still some attempt, albeitnot a very strong one, to limit Lasix useto actual bleeders. Over the years, thatchanged. By 2001, 88.3 percent of allstarters at the New York tracks usedLasix, Heller wrote. The number iseven higher today.It’s not hard to see why some believe
that giving a drug to horses that dehy-drates them and doing so every timethey race is, in the long-term, harmful.
November 2010 11
August 4 (Day 1)This is the day of serious exercisewhere I run as fast as I possibly can forone mile. I weigh 192.2 pounds whenwaking up in the morning and am up to192.8 when ready to do my one-milerun at 10:30 a.m. On a warm day (88degrees), I hit the track and run myfastest mile since I began to get inshape. My time is 6:59, something thatshould definitely knock me out for afew days and is a big effort for me. Putit this way: I just ran a 2 on the sheetsand a bounce is inevitable. I follow themile run with light exercise for the next75 minutes, walking 3 ½ miles and jog-ging 2 ¼ miles.
August 5 (Day 2)Am definitely beat up. I take a brisk 30-minute walk and follow that with a 30-minute run in which I average 10minutes per mile. My left hamstring iskilling me. I feel worse now than I didwhen I ran and walked after the milethe day before.
August 6 (Day 3)Am tired, but my hamstring feels bet-ter. I go on a long bike ride, which Inever find to be as hard as running. Iride for 90 minutes, covering 25.79miles. My average speed is 17.7 milesper hour, which is outstanding for me.
Until horses learn how to talk, theanswers to the Lasix riddles--howdoes the drug affect them and doesits usage require them to need ampletime between races--remain largely
unanswered. I may not be a finelytuned equine athlete, but I do runand know what it’s like to try to re-bound from rigorous exercise. So I
decided to try to answer the ques-tions a horse can’t answer, namelywhether or not using Lasix had a de-bilitating effect on my running. Tryingto be as scientific as possible, I didtwo trials in which I did a hard runwith Lasix and one without. The ideawas to make each trial as identical,with the lone exception that in thesecond one I would run after ingest-ing Lasix. I was mostly concernedwith how I felt after the hard run andwhether not running on Lasix seemedto wear me out more so than when Iran without it.I am 49 and, thanks to a workout
routine I began early in the year in aneffort to lose weight, am in prettygood shape. The workouts listedbelow are typical of what I have beendoing throughout the year, which isto have a taxing run followed by eas-ier routines in the following days, andthen to repeat the pattern all overagain. Rest is important. I am capa-ble of running a half-marathon andhave done so, but wouldn’t dream ofdoing something like that more oftenthan twice a month and not withoutserious rest in between.
Our Human Guinea PigBy BILL FINLEY
Continued next page
Trial 1 � Drug Free
Author Bill Finley takes a spin around the trackon Lasix.
Sar
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ndre
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But Bob Baffert is not among those whowant to see a return to drug-free racing.He believes horses would actually raceless often than they do now if Lasixwere banned.“If we didn't have Lasix, they would
have to shut down racing because of alack of horses,” Baffert said. “A lot ofpeople would be out of a job. It’s veryinhumane to let a horse bleed. Ourmedication rules are fine.”Baffert believes the primary reason
horses race so infrequently and are soinjury-prone has to do with moderntrack surfaces.“I think what has happened has to do
with the care of the surfaces,” he said.“Theyworry less about them than otherthings. That’s why we were easy pick-ings for synthetic tracks. I was on acommittee and we were thinking aboutwhat kind of track we would put in atSantaAnita if wewent back to dirt. Peo-ple asked who has the best dirt surfaceand everyone just said ‘I don’t know.’In the olds days, like when I was train-ing Quarter Horses, the tracks weremore like actual dirt. Now they’ve gonemore to sand because sand can handlewater much better. But the sand causeslots of wear and tear. Sand is very abra-sive.”Englehart, the Finger Lakes-based
trainer, agrees that track surfaces are anon-going problem. “Most of the race-tracks are now designed with stonedust bases so they can be used in in-clement weather and during the wintermonths,” he said. “They didn’t use tobe like that. All the tracks in the ‘50sand ‘60s were clay-based.”Baffert and Englehart point their fin-
gers at track surfaces. McPeek andBiszantz believe drugs are the primaryculprits. But they appear to be in theminority. Among owners, trainers andbreeders, there is a prevailing wisdomthat the breed is in fact weaker; that theindustry is churning out horses that arenot as strong or durable as the animalsfrom a few decades back, and that theyare more injury-prone.That could also have something to do
with drugs. There are plenty of horses
12 Magazine
August 7 (Day 4)Rest day. Taking it easy today to pre-pare for another mile run.
August 8 (Day 5)Another hard mile, with the idea beingto see how much the first mile took outof me. The answer is, quite a bit. Ittook me 7:14 to finish this time, a full15 seconds slower than my time fourdays earlier. It’s a discouraging per-
formance, but proof that I can’tbounce right back from a very toughperformance. The heat isn’t helping.It’s 91 degrees.
August 9 (Day 6)Another rest day…so that I can befresh for the next demanding mile. Goto Yankee-Red Sox game with my son.I hate the Yankees. Sox win. A greatday.
It’s debatable whether or not a 49-year-old man running a mile every fewdays is at all comparable to anything aThoroughbred racehorse does.Nonetheless, I can’t say running withLasix was all that different than run-ning without Lasix, particularly when itcame to how easy or difficult it was forme to bounce back from big efforts.
The most noticeable differences withthe Lasix were the rapid and dramaticweight loss and the failure to perspirewhen running. Over the long haul, Ican’t imagine those sorts of things aregood for a person a horse. The otherdifference was that I was slower duringthe Lasix trial, which is the last thingthat seems to happen with horses.
August 10 (Day 1)Begin the day weighing 194.6 pounds.How did I gain over two pounds withall of that exercise? Must have beenthe hot dogs at Yankee Stadium. Take60 milligrams of Lasix at 10:30. Spendthe next two hours glued to the toilet,urinating eight times. Prepare to run at1 p.m. Weigh myself again and havelost 5.6 pounds. Amazing. It’s again 88degrees, exactly the same as it wasduring mile day during the first trial,with brutal humidity. Not that I feelgreat, but I don’t feel nearly as awfulas I figured I would after drugging anddehydrating myself. My wife tries totalk me out of this foolishness, figuresthere’s a good chance I am going todrop dead. I’m juiced. If I did a 6:59the other day, how fast will I be withthese drugs coursing through my sys-tem? Do I hear 6:30? My final time is7:09. So much for the performance-enhancing drugs theory. The strangestpart is that I barely sweat while run-ning. I guess that’s what happenswhen you’ve drained every last fluidout of your system. Again follow thebig run with 3 ½ miles of walking and 2¼ miles of jogging. I am definitelydead tired after it is over.
August 11 (Day 2)Again do a brisk walk followed by aslow 30-minute jog. Hamstring againhurts and I am tired, but nothing out ofthe ordinary. Can’t say I feel any worsethan I did on Day 2 of Trial 1.
August 12 (Day 3)Can’t bike because of rain. Switch torunning. Run 6.3 miles on a treadmill ata slow pace, 9:31 miles. Am reallylethargic, both mentally and physically.No energy or spark. Afterward, walkfor 30 minutes. First time I can trulysay I feel worse during Lasix trial than Idid during non-Lasix trial.
August 13 (Day 4)Rest.
August 14 (Day 5)It’s a beautiful day, only 77. With somerelief from 60 straight days or so ofbrutal summer heat, I figure I’m in for agreat one-mile run to end the greatLasix experiment. Doesn’t happen. Irun a 7:23 mile, about as bad as it getsfor me. That’s 14 seconds slower thanthe mile on Day 1 of this trial. However,that’s just slightly less of a decline thanthe one I endured during Trial 1, whenmy time for the second mile droppedoff by 15 seconds.
Conclusions
Trial 2 � Juiced
who may not havebeen successful on theracetrack without arti-ficial assistance fromdrugs that have goneon to become sires andbroodmares. It makessense that they wouldhave passed on theirimperfections to futuregenerations.But the more popu-
lar theory is that thesport has become ob-sessed with producingbrilliant horses thatpeak early in their ca-reers and flourish atseven furlongs andone mile.That certainly wasn’t the case in the
mid-to-late-1800s, a truly different timefor the sport of horse racing. Born in1850, Lexington was among the bright-est Thoroughbred stars of his time.Though he only raced seven times, Lex-ington was obviously sturdy. (He wasretired prematurely due to poor eye-sight). Many of his races were four-mileevents.Sent off to stand at stud at Woodburn
Stud in Spring Station, Kentucky, hewas the leading sire in America 16times. Lexington’s offspring won nineof the first 15 runnings of the Travers.The dominant sire of the 1930s was
Sir Gallahad III, a French-bred colt whostood at Claiborne Farm and was theleading sire in America four times.Some 60 years after the era of Lexing-ton, much had already changed. SirGallahad III won at a mile and a quarterand competed in even longer races, buthis forte was races at a mile or less. Fastforward to the 1980s and the top sire inthe land was Mr. Prospector, a brilliantsprinter whose greatest accomplish-ments on the racetrack came in six-fur-long races. He set six-furlong trackrecords at both Gulfstream and GardenState.“If we are breeding more for speed,
then there will be more horses se-lected to go into training that were
bred to be that type,” said DougAntczak, a Cornell professor who spe-cializes in equine genetics. “Then, wehave more horses that have the pheno-type or the genetic or physiologicalmakeup to break downmore easily. Youwill have more breakdowns and thehorse will seem more fragile. That’swhat I think is happening. We havechanged the relative proportion oflighter faster horses frommore solid en-durance-type horses.
“We can make durable horses.They’re called draft horses. If you imag-ine a draft horse, an Arabian and a
Thoroughbred and had a race amongthem, the Thoroughbred will winevery time. Even the slowest Thor-oughbredwill beat the fastestArabiansand the fastest draft horses. What doesthat tell us about genetics? It tells usthat the genes that control speed havebeen highly selected for in Thorough-breds, much more so than in Arabiansand in other breeds. Everyone wantsfast horses, but fast horses cause break-downs. If you breed fast horses, you aregoing to get breakdowns.”Mr. Prospector was an anomaly when
he went to stud, a horse that had blaz-ing speed on the racetrack, but didn’tprove much when it came to winningmajor races, particularly longer races.That’s why he began his second careeras a stallion in 1974 as an under-the-radar stud standing in Florida for a$7,500 fee. Thirty-six years later, theMr.Prospector types seem to be every-where.Among the Top 25 leading sires by
2010 progeny earnings (TDN, as of No-vember 11), there were 12 sires whonever won a race at nine furlongs orlonger. Five of those sires never wonanything beyond seven furlongs.“They definitely don’t make them
like they used to,” trainer Nick Zitosaid. “There’s been a lot of talk aboutthere being too many drugs, but if Iwind up with a horse that only racesonce or twice I can’t blame that onmed-ication. How can you be over-medicat-ing when a horse is just getting started?I don’t see that as a factor.”Zito is like most modern trainers in
that he wants his good horses to haveplenty of time between races. His IceBox skipped this year’s Preakness afterrunning a troubled second in the Ken-
Bob Baffert
Mr. Prospector
“I think what has
happened has to do
with the care of
the surfaces.”
Bob Baffert
November 2010 13
tucky Derby and waited for the Bel-mont. That didn’t work--he finishedninth. But Zito has had plenty of suc-cess using similar methods. Birdstonefinished eighth in the 2004 KentuckyDerby and did not run again until theBelmont, which he won. He then satidle until the Travers, which also re-sulted in a victory.But it wasn’t that long ago that Zito
would run his horses far more often.His Kentucky Derbywinner Strike the Goldraced in the three TripleCrown events, as wellas the Jim Dandy, Tra-vers, Woodward,Jockey Club Gold Cupand Breeders’ CupClassic in 1991. He made 12 starts thatyear, and 31 in his career.“He was a throwback,” Zito said of
Strike the Gold. “But look at his breed-ing. He was by Alydar out of a HatchetMan mare. That’s the Calumet familyand the Greentree family. Those sorts ofthings are things of the past.”Zito says that many top mares with
solid, classic pedigrees were bought byforeign interests in the ‘80s andwhisked away to Europe and Japan. Hebelieves that by taking somany of those
sorts of mares out of theAmerican genepool, the U.S.-born horse has beenweakened.Even Dr. Bailey, the University of
Kentucky geneticist whois skeptical that the breedhas undergone any signif-icant changes, does pointout that it is not impossi-ble for a species to changein what amounts to
overnight.“There is a precedent
that we have recentlylearned of--people whoexperienced famine in thelast 50 years, the Dutchin World War II and theChinese in 1958-59,” he said. “They hadchildren who were smaller in stature,shorter-lived and more prone to dis-ease. The thought is that the effects onthe parents impacted the sperm andeggs of the parents such that their chil-dren were constitutionally affected.This is called epigenetics. The effectsmay have been passed on to the grand-children as well. The changes were re-markable.
“According to theory, the DNA itselfdid not change and the descendents ofthese suffering people would eventu-ally recover. But the deprivation isthought to have changed how geneswere expressed during the develop-ment and lifetime of offspring. This ob-
servation was also in contrast to the ef-fect on Japanese children, who tendedto be larger than their parents followingWorld War II due to a higher protein
diet during growth. These are thingswe don't understandwell, but the pointis that changes in management duringone generation can have a profound im-pact on the health of the next, and pos-sibly the third generation.“I do not know of any changes in
management of Thoroughbred horsesover the last 60 years that would leadone to think that this is the case forthese horses. But you askedme to spec-ulate on what could cause suchchanges. Perhaps someone can identifya management change or a dietary sup-plement that has been universal andpotentially devastating to the currentgeneration of horses. But I am unawarethat Thoroughbred horses were raisedunder conditions of stress that wouldresult in the effects that are being de-scribed.”Yet, something is different. Horses
race infrequently, get hurt a lot, andmany are convinced breeders are turn-ing out a weak, infirm animal.There’s no reason why things can’t
change again. Perhaps a trainer likeGary Contessa will become the flavor of
14 Magazine
Nick Zito
Gary Contessa
“They definitely don’t
make them like
they used to.”
Nick Zito
“I believe in watching a
horse train, and if the
horse is doing well, why
not run them?”
Gary Contessa
the month some day, or the person oth-ers copy. If nothing else, he is gettingmore out of his horses than most, andhis owners don’t seem to have any com-plaints with his approach because he ismaking many of them money.
Contessa came up under Hall ofFamer Frank Martin, an old-schoolclaiming trainer who believed in run-ning his horses as much as possible.While Contessa may not operate his sta-ble like a typical trainer from the ‘50s,many of his horses are keptbusy.And what he does is work-
ing. Contessa has been theleading trainer in New York inthe annual standings everyyear from 2006 through 2009and is once again in front inthe 2010 race.Much of Contessa’s success
has to do with how often heruns his horses and the num-ber of overall starts his stablemakes. In 2010 so far, he hasmade more than 600 starts,more than twice as many asany other trainer. Over a 31-day period beginning in mid-June, he ran a cheap claimingfilly named Mighty Irish fourtimes. She won two races dur-ing that period, finished sec-ond in another start and thirdin still another. During thatperiod, she earned $32,000 for ownerEdward McGettigan.“I believe in watching a horse train,
and if the horse is doing well, why notrun them?” Contessa said. “MightyIrish ran four times in a month and hastwo wins and second and a third andthat owner mademoney with a sub-parhorse because of it. I could have run heronce a month. But she was good, so Iran her.”When it comes to what he believes his
job to be, Contessa isn’t any differentfrom Pletcher, Baffert or anyone else.He understands that it is to do his bestto make money for his clients. It’s justthat he believes that often means run-ning a horse as much as possible, as
long as the horse is fit and healthy. Doeshe think his owners make more moneybecause of that strategy?“Yes,” he answered. “It’s an absolute
given that you have to run to makemoney.”Contessa will be given the occasional
well-bred horse to train—he’s won 11graded stakes since 2006. But he mainlydeals in cheaper stock and New York-breds. That may have something to dowith the fact that he routinely wins
about 14 or 15 percent of his races, wellbelow the numbers trainers likePletcher, Baffert, Rick Dutrow andSteveAsmussen post. That’s what hap-pens when you aren’t incredibly pickyabout where you run your horses.“I could win a higher percentage if I
wanted to,” Contessa maintained. “Todo that, though, I’d have to do whatsome other trainers do around here.Any time they see a situation where
they can’t win, they’ll scratch theirhorse. That’s how obsessed some ofthese guys are with their winning per-centages. It’s become a vanity thing. Idon’t believe in that.”Robert Clay shares that philosophy.
The owner of Three Chimneys Farm, heuses Jerkens as one of his trainers, andhas no problems when Jerkens decidesto run one of his horses back in twoweeks or less. Like most, though, he be-lieves the overall picture concerning
durability and themodern Thor-oughbred is a complicated one.No matter what may be goingon, he believes that he and hisfellow commercial breedersneed to start putting more of anemphasis on durability.“The American breeder espe-
cially, but the internationalbreeder as well, has hadmore ofan appetite for brilliance thanthey have for durability,” Claysaid. “That’s sort of the Ameri-can way—faster is better. I’mnot sure that won’t shift backsome. We have had horses inour breed that have been bril-liant, but not necessarily sound.We still have horses that arevery, very sound. Dynaformer isan example. The breeder nowhas the challenge to combine theingredients and come up with abrilliant horse that produces
sound horses and has commercial ap-peal.”Clay sees a scenario where economics
will come into play and start forcingbreeders to create sturdier horses. Hesays that a time will come when train-ers and owners will realize they cannotmake money if their horses continue toonly start two or three times a year.“Let’s say a trainer goes to the sales
for five years and buys nothing butsprinters or horses that look brilliant,and they all break down,” Clay said.“He’s going to have an empty barn andno owners. He’s got to come back andsay to himself, ‘Hey, wait a minute; I’mnot going to do that again. I have tohave some durability in there. I have to
“That’s sort of the
American way – faster is
better. I’m not sure that
won’t shift back some.”
Robert Clay
Robert Clay
November 2010 15
have horses in my barn last longer so Ican make a living.’“Take the commercial breeder. That
trainer is his customer, so if those train-ers start coming up to me and saying,‘what do you have in your barn that’sgot some soundness?’ then I’ve got toreact. I better start breeding tomore Dy-naformer mares than (mares by lesssound sires). The market is the greatequalizer. Do we allow things to get towhere the average number of starts per
horse goes all the way down to two? Idon’t think so.”Clay already sees some movement in
the direction of durability and awayfrom speed and brilliance.“I’m not going to name horses, but I
see horses that aren’t as popular todayas they were five or 10 years ago be-cause they’re getting unsound prog-eny,” he said.
Clay’s job is to breed horses thatmake money for the people who buythem or race them. Pletcher says that atthe end of the day, it all comes down toeconomics. He’s not wrong; at leastwhen it comes to a game that has be-come more and more of a business andless of a sport. But are toomany ownersand trainers guilty of undertakingquixotic pursuits? They may want tomake money owning racehorses, butfew do. Putting the sport back into thesport may also help create a differentparadigm.“We have got to forget about this no-
tion that people are in horse racing tomake money,” consultant Dan Rosen-berg said. “The odds of you makingmoney are not in your favor. If that isyour ambition, you ought to get out.”Rosenberg, like most, agrees that it is
in no one’s best interest to have horses
racing so infrequently. The owners takethe worst of it. Unless one of yourhorses strikes gold in a Grade I race andgoes on to become a sire or a valuablebroodmare, it’s awfully hard to makemoney when your trainer keeps tellingyou your runners shouldn’t competemore than four or five times a year.
Trainers can’t make money by not run-ning, either.But it is the sport as a whole that suf-
fers the most. Short fields are an anath-ema; gamblers hate them and stayaway. Hollywood Park has had to can-cel racing a handful of times because ofa lack of names in the entry box, andeven Saratoga has had to lower its stan-dards to run conditioned $10,000 racesin order to come up with enough raceswith enough horses.Arthur Hancock fears that foreigners
are close to the point where they will nolonger buyAmerican-bred horses at thesales because of concerns about theirfragility.“Already, we’re seeing that people
from Europe and the rest of the worlddon’t want to buy over here,” he said.“They still buy, but they are wary be-cause now we are selling them horseswho have drugs in their families goingback two, three generations.”With gains in total handle of 213% at
the elite Monmouth meet, where aver-age field size has grown because of therich purses the track offered this year,
there's no doubt that the sport needs tostart offering the type of betting prod-uct the customer is demanding. Thatalso includes competitive fields when itcomes to stakes races, which too ofteninclude one dominant odds-on favoritefacing four or five challengers. Thisyear’s Triple Crown will be remem-
bered as much for how it fell apart afterDerby winner Super Saver and Preak-ness winner LookinAt Lucky bailed onthe series and for a lifeless Belmont S.as anything else.The easiest way to accomplish that is
to have horses run more often and tohave the top horses run in the topraces—at least a lot more often thanthey do now.No one seems quite sure if that is
going to happen, or what it will take tomake it happen. The answer may be inchanging the mindset of trainers whohave become so over protective of theirhorses they cringe in fear at the thoughtof asking them to do what they wereborn to do—which is to run. It might bethat breeders have to stop gravitatingtoward the type of sires who have bril-liant speed, but never proved them-selves when it comes to stamina ordurability. The answer might be drug-free racing. It could take a combinationof the three, not to mention dozens ofother factors.There are no easy answers, but an-
swers are exactly what are needed.
16 Magazine
“We have got to
forget about this
notion that people
are in horse racing
to make money.”
Dan Rosenberg
Dan Rosenberg
