Focused Filly

It doesn’t matter where you put the S and the L, the battle of Salix / Lasix will be raging for a while. And rage it should because we only have ourselves to blame.

We, as an industry, wanted the bigger, faster, better Thoroughbred – at any cost. Forget the argument about breeding for speed not soundness; our biggest problem is that we didn’t see bleeding as a sign of weakness: we saw it as a surmountable obstacle on the way to the next Kentucky Derby winner.

A horse’s will to win is only impeded by his physical limitations

Consider Midnight Lute: as talented a horse as Baffert ever trained and the only horse to win the Breeders’ Cup Sprint twice. He could not breathe right: 3 tie-back surgeries helped but, best-case, he had an airway getting 60% capacity.

Will he be anything like Two Punch as a sire? Don’t get me wrong, I love Two Punch progeny and many of his babies run very, very well. Many of his babies also fail a veterinarian’s scope because he passed on small airways. And a horse who can’t get enough air in tends not to run very far.

These aren’t quarter cracks, folks. Those are situational. Sure, a horse can be prone to them, but a quarter crack heals completely as long as you give the proper time off – see Big Brown.

Every stallion passes on positive and negative traits to their progeny and most flaws we as buyers can live with: it’s our job to find those specimens that have the best of mom and dad. But we, as an industry, should have known better when it comes to bleeders. We’ve allowed traits to be passed on for so many generations; yet, being prone to bleed is often overlooked for the distance or surface a horse should be able to run.

So man invented a salve: something that slows down the evolutionary process of thinning out the herd. In the wild, if an animal can’t keep up, it is – sadly – often left behind. That’s also true in every other professional sport. Don’t have the speed to make the 72 man roster in the NFL? You make the practice team. Can’t keep up there? You’re cut. It’s not nice, but it gets wins.

In racing, it’s become Win At Any Cost

There is a story out there right now about the harness trainer who’s been banned for being too good. He admits to using a drug from France that is widely used in the sulky community. Well, TP-500 has made its way to the Thoroughbred ranks. At $7,000 a pack, it’s quite an investment. Anything to get the win, though! And – like the steroid ban – I don’t believe for one minute that veterinarians won’t still be giving Lasix on backstretches across the country: as long as it’s not on race day, anything is possible.

One of the arguments against Lasix is the case of a horse who was beaten some 30+ lengths, was given the anti-bleeder medication, and came back to win by a comfortable margin. That’s a performance enhancing drug!

No: that’s a horse who probably couldn’t breathe because of blood filling his lungs and, when given something to stop the bleeding, he was able to run at maximum capacity. And, at maximum capacity, he wasn’t all together awful.

But why was he even on the track? If memory serves, the horse in question was a claimer – the backbone of the industry. If we don’t have cheap horses to fill races, we don’t have much of a game. But isn’t it up to us as owners and trainers (at all levels) to say, “this horse bleeds – he’s not meant to be a racehorse.” No, we shoot ‘em up and send ‘em out.

So, now, we’re left with the ultimate problem: we let this go for far too long and now we want to correct the mistake. At least we gave ourselves a year’s head start. Doing this was always going to be painful and I applaud the various committees’ efforts to put the ban into place because it takes guts. But why a sudden ban, not a gradual one? This cliff’s edge approach will undoubtedly lose us a generation of runners. A let-down approach over the next 7 – 10 years would have allowed it to be weaned out of the gene pool.

I can’t name one G1 winner in the last 5 years that didn’t run on Lasix, at least in North America. When Silver Charm shipped to Dubai and won the World Cup, he did it with nothing in his system. And he paid the price: he was never the same, probably because his lungs were already scarred and the problem was greatly exacerbated from being “allowed” to bleed again. Silver Charm’s been a useful stallion, but will never top the yearly rankings. What about every horse who does? Lord knows what they would have really been had they not had a little help.

We let this happen. And now the solution we’re about to put into place is going to make it ten times worse before it gets better. I never really understand the long-term planning by the federal government when they dole out $20 billion over the next 10 years – give us the funds, we could use them now.

In the case of racing’s ban on Lasix, though, I believe the only way to do it is long-term: we bred it into the Thoroughbred, we should be allowed to breed it out.

Horseracing is inherently rhythmic: it is hearts pulsing and hooves pounding, heads turning and hands moving, sweat dripping and legs tangling.

All this at 45 miles per hour in a tightly packed herd hurling themselves around hairpin turns – it puts the Quickstep to shame.

Like other well paid performers, racehorses each have their own style: there are those like Zenyatta who prefer to toil at the back and be all-but forgotten until the final eighth of a mile; or those like Secretariat who would pull jockey Ron Turcotte out of the irons to lead the field through its paces.

Competitive ballroom dancers are accomplished in many styles, yet typically shine in one specialty. The best racehorses are much the same.

Going into the last leg of the 2011 Triple Crown races, you’ll see these stars at the Belmont.

Shakleford is very much a Foxtrot star: his style is “quick – slow – slow – quick.” The chestnut son of Forestry has won 3-of-7 races lifetime, including the Preakness, and owns a second in the Florida Derby. His best finishes have been when he’s set or been just off a quick early pace, then slowed down for the middle fractions, and come home in a relatively quick 13-and-change.

Animal Kingdom, however, runs more in the style of the Paso Doble: a dance of passion and drama that is an interpretation of a bullfight. It is danced with sharp movements designed to create a sense of tension. The Kentucky Derby winner has never been worse than second in six starts, though anyone who’s ever had a wager on him can attest to the fact that he eeks out every last inch of the racetrack before finding the wire like a bull drawn to the red cape.

Watching “always a bridesmaid, only once a bride” Nehro is like watching someone dance the Mambo: consistent steps at the same intervals. Santiva owns a similar record of 7-1-3-1 and is consistently sluggish in his fractions, despite being rather elegant to watch – like two dancers in the continuously turning Waltz. Stay Thirsty has the Rumba rhythm down pat: “quick – quick – slow – slow.”

What does this mean for the Belmont Stakes on Saturday? If you’re like me and a fan of the true ballroom dance competitions, big races with full fields are much like the freestyle round where couples dance choreographed routines with many elements of their best dances.

In America, there is no race like the Belmont: combine the sweeping turns with the distance, and angles like post position bias and trainer statistics go out the window; as handicappers are forced to rely on pedigree and jockey ability. Plus remember the age-old adage that the best horse doesn’t always win and you might as well be dancing the frenzied Merengue come post time.

After two minutes and twenty seven seconds, one thing clearly separates dancing from racing. It’s no longer about fancy footwork. Winners often prevail by a nose. Other than Jennifer Grey – noses typically don’t take the prize on DWTS.

photo courtesy of the amazing Rick Samuels