JC / Railbird - Medication/Drug Policies

Medication/Drug Policies Archive

Steroids Once and Forever?

The WSJ reports a small Swedish study suggests the effects of steroids continue after athletes stop using:

Rather than returning to their original proportions, the muscles of the steroid users who’d stopped taking the drug looked remarkably similar to those of the subjects who were still using. They also had larger muscle fibers and more growth-inducing “myonuclei” in their muscle cells than the nonsteroid users.

The study subjects were 26 elite powerlifters, not equines, but I wonder if the same effect would be seen on racehorses previously supplemented …

Posted in Medication/Drug Policies on April 4, 2008

No Place in the Game

Consider: There are no allowed raceday medications in Dubai, so all 83 starters in the Dubai World Cup ran without the anti-bleeding drug Lasix, including 15 American horses who all raced on the powerful diuretic in the US. Of those 15, three won (Curlin!) and two more finished in the money. “Lasix is a fraud,” Bill Finley declares, and these results prove it. The time has come for American racing to end its dependence:

There is strong evidence that it is detrimental to the long-term well-being of the horse and some of the world’s most respected scientists say it can mask other drugs. Its pervasive use adds to racing’s image as an outlaw sport where drug use is rampant. Besides Canada, no other country in the world allows it. Yet, its usage here is out of control and no one seems to want to do anything about it. That needs to change.

Posted in Medication/Drug Policies on April 3, 2008

Druggy Americans

“As this weekend’s 24th Breeders’ Cup approaches we’re given another reminder that American racing’s defining characteristic is its dependence on drugs” (Guardian).

Posted in Medication/Drug Policies on October 23, 2007

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