Sports

Without Lasix, Spring in the Air eased in Juveniles Fillies race

ARCADIA, Calif. — Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Going into this year’s Breeders’ Cup World Championships over the weekend at Santa Anita, trainer Mark Casse was a vocal critic of the Breeders’ Cup’s new policy of no longer allowing 2-year-olds to race with Lasix (furosemide), a diuretic medication meant to control exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhaging (bleeding from the lungs) in race horses by reducing the fluid in their bodies.

“They’ve never done it [banned Lasix], so I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Casse said.

Friday he found out when his 2-year-old filly Spring in the Air, 5-1 in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies coming off a win in the Grade 1 Alcibiades, was virtually eased by jockey Patrick Husbands to finish fifth and was later found to have bled badly in the race.

“Before, I was disappointed with the Breeders’ Cup,” Casse said. “Now I’m just down-right mad. I am furious.”

Though most American racehorses routinely are treated by the injection of a low dosage of Lasix on race days, the Breeders’ Cup plans to ban Lasix for all of its runners beginning next year. The purpose is to bring American racing in tune with major international racing circuits, such as Europe and Hong Kong, where race-day medications are not allowed.

“In my opinion, the people making some of these decisions, I don’t know where they gained their knowledge,” Casse said. “They didn’t get it from training horses.

“I have been around horses my whole life. Nobody loves them more than me. If you run a horse more than five times, 100 percent of them will bleed. Is it inhumane to let a horse bleed? As bad as Lasix might be (to its opponents), the alternative is worse.”

Spring in the Air “coughed the entire way back to the barn,” Casse said. “We called the vet. He scoped her and said she bled a 3 out of 5 [on the scale]. She put her head down and blood came out of her right nostril.”

Casse said that every time a horse bleeds, it weakens the blood vessels, like a hose that springs a leak that just gets bigger.

“This could be the end of her career, which is absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “We’ve got all these smart guys [in favor of banning Lasix]. Let them come back to the barn some time and watch a horse that bleeds [after a race].”

One of the most vocal advocates of banning Lasix and other medications is thoroughbred owner Barry Irwin, who campaigns 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom under his stable name Team Valor International.

“Horse racing in the United States is in crisis,” Irwin said in testimony before the U.S. Senate. “The public perception of racing is that of an industry out of control. Before the industry is able to properly present a race-day program worthy of the public’s trust, certain steps need to be taken to improve the integrity of the game.

“All of the arguments on behalf of horsemen, racing associations and veterinarians that racing on drugs is required for the health of a racehorse is refuted on a daily basis by the same type of horses racing medication-free on the race courses of Europe and the United Kingdom. And make no mistake, the top-rated horses in the world compete in these countries, not in the United States.”