Horse Racing | Sport is addicted to drugs

If many people concerned about the safety of Thoroughbreds had their way, the Preakness might be a race for 4-year-olds instead of 3-year-olds. Saturday's race at Pimlico in Baltimore would be run on a synthetic surface instead of dirt. The jockeys would be forbidden to carry whips.

These are among the proposals put forth since filly Eight Belles broke down shortly after finishing second to Big Brown in the May 3 Kentucky Derby and was euthanized on the track at Churchill Downs.

Even with the second leg of the Triple Crown four days away, the sport is preoccupied with the filly's death and stung by harsh criticism it has taken on the issue of equine safety. The industry knows it has to do something, but what?

One of the most common responses to the breakdown of Eight Belles is the argument the sport places too much stress on undeveloped horses by racing them at age 2 and by subjecting them to the rigors of the Triple Crown events as 3-year-olds. The evidence of two fatalities in the past six Triple Crown races — Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro in the 2006 Preakness and Eight Belles — seems to support this theory.

But top equine veterinarians insist it is a fallacy that Thoroughbreds race at too young an age. Rick Arthur, equine medical director of the California Horse Racing Board, said horses need exertion as 2-year-olds because it develops their bones.

"It's beneficial for that process to occur as the horse goes through the maturation process," he said. "The 3-year-old is a mature horse in terms of his bone development."

The death of Eight Belles also brought calls for more tracks to install synthetic surfaces. Preliminary evidence suggests the rate of fatal accidents is lower on synthetic tracks than on dirt.

Jay Hovdey, Daily Racing Form columnist, last week made a case for synthetics that goes beyond breakdown statistics. One major reason for the fragility of U.S. Thoroughbreds is breeders' obsession with speed; they don't care as much about durability.

This is a seemingly insoluble problem because nobody can legislate decisions of breeders. Many synthetic tracks have proved to be tough for horses on or near the early lead; in some cases, the synthetic tracks have had a distinctly anti-speed bias. If all racetracks adopted synthetic surfaces, Hovdey noted, breeders would have to produce a different type of Thoroughbred.

But a drawback to this vision is that horse racing might not be much of a sport if speed became a liability. The Thoroughbreds who make the game exciting tend to be the brilliant ones such as Big Brown — not the plodders who often win on Polytrack.

Even if synthetic tracks do reduce catastrophic injuries, it is a specious argument to suggest dirt surfaces are the root cause of the safety problem.

There was no perceived epidemic of breakdowns in the United States 30 years ago; dirt tracks seemed to be safe enough. And the rate of breakdowns is not a serious issue in some other nations where racing is conducted on dirt.

When a series of fatalities marred the 2006 Del Mar meeting, the California Horse Racing Board reacted by mandating tracks replace dirt surfaces with synthetic surfaces.

Perhaps my view is too cynical, but I believe the industry is focusing on this peripheral issue because it can't face up to the real one.

U.S. horses are less durable than they used to be, and they are less durable than their counterparts in other countries. So what makes contemporary U.S. racing different? We all know the one-word answer to that question: drugs.

In the 1970s, American racing adopted a policy of "permissive medication," legalizing drugs that are banned in the rest of the racing world. The administration of the diuretic Lasix and the painkiller Butazolidin became standard at U.S. racetracks. Other commonly used drugs — such as corticosteroids injected in the joints of ailing animals — allow them to run without pain and surely contribute to breakdowns. The use of anabolic steroids puts extra muscle on horses, forcing them to carry more weight.

Eight Belles' trainer, Larry Jones, last week vowed the filly was never on steroids.

The average U.S. horse has made fewer and fewer starts per year since the 1970s, suggesting a vicious cycle: Unsound horses who succeed with the aid of medications go to stud and propagate more unsound horses.

Despite the evidence the U.S. medication policy has been a failure, horsemen have regularly resisted most efforts to curb the use of medications.

American racing is addicted to drugs, and American horses will never again be fueled by hay, oats and water alone.

But until the industry faces the medication issue seriously, its efforts to address equine safety will be misguided.