Editor’s Note: The story below from Daily Racing Form’s Matt Hegarty effectively describes the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s (HISA) issuance of a request for proposals for scientific studies concerning the administration of furosemide (Lasix) to racehorses, and asks whether Lasix should be considered a “performance-enhancing” drug. Although temporary, three-year exemptions from that prohibition have been issued to all racing states that applied for them, Lasix is not permitted to be used on race day. But if the science shows otherwise, that ban will be modified, right?
Not so fast.
As stipulated by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020 and regardless of the outcome of the studies, only the Board of the Authority by unanimous vote may modify the Lasix ban, and the hurdles needed to be cleared are clearly spelled out in the Act that created HISA. They are:
- That the medication is warranted.
- That the medication is in the best interests of horse racing.
- That furosemide has no performance enhancing effect on individual horses.
- That public confidence in the integrity and safety of racing would be adversely affected by the modification.
This language has long concerned us, and it runs counter to relying on science to inform medication regulations because scientific studies will, in the end, be judged in a very subjective manner. If even one person on the Board arbitrarily decides that Lasix is not in the “best interests of horse racing,” the Lasix ban stays.
The U.S. Trotting Association believes that the most humane way to address Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhage (EIPH), a progressive condition that a vast majority of racehorses will experience during their careers, is through the continued approval of the race-day administration of furosemide under controlled conditions and by a licensed veterinarian.
Sadly, the USTA believes that conditions surrounding HISA’s request for furosemide studies declare the therapeutic “guilty until proven innocent” and establish parameters that emphasize optics over science. Horsemen should rightly be alarmed.
To read the full DRF story, click here.