On yesterday's Steve Byck At The Races radio show, there was a segment interviewing Dr. Steven Allday:
https://stevebyk.com/broadcast/hour-...ite-dr-allday/ You can pick up about 30 minutes in. The subject of the SA breakdowns was discussed followed by a bisphosphonate segment. Allday stressed he had no California experience for many years, and, knew very few SA horsemen. He went on to speculate about certain track conditions unique to Southern Cal (desert like, then heavy rain and cold etc). that might logically be a cause of breakdowns; of course, no one mentioned the huge increase in deaths in Allday's home state of Kentucky, nor the large amount of turf race deaths at SA which logically (there's that word again) would point away from SA main track causation.
They then went on to bisphosphonates, and Byck covered the recent news about sales company. He then went on to blast a "certain on line publication" (the Paulick Report) for irresponsibly quoting an anonymous Florida vet. Here is the pertinent quote:
“In my opinion, Santa Anita's recent breakdowns may have less to do with the track and more to do with the rampant use of bisphosphonates,” the veterinarian wrote.
“I am an equine only veterinarian and work primarily on Thoroughbreds in training. In our practice, we have seen an almost ten-fold increase in catastrophic breakdowns and large long bone stress fractures (humeral/femoral/physeal) in our 2-year-old in training horses (both sales and race-prepping clients).
“These drugs are widely used prior to the yearling sales in Kentucky to supposedly decrease certain radiographic findings, despite these drugs only being FDA approved for the use in horses 5 years of age and older. The scariest part about bisphosphonates is that no one knows the half-life of the drugs in horses. In humans, the half-life can be up to 10 years.
“Even if a horse has not been given a bisphosphonate as a yearling, there are still trainers/vets on the track that are giving this for its almost immediate analgesic effect. It can take a lame horse and make them sound the very next day."
Just like Byck's guest Allday, this Florida vet, based upon his knowledge, was applying logic (***) to try to find the cause of SA breakdowns. Note that he did use the word "may".
Byck, focusing just on the drug misuse in sales babies, went on to brand as "phenomenally" inaccurate attempts to attribute SA deaths to bisphosphonates b/c half were homebreds and some were older race horses. Using this logic,(****), he actually counted off so many victims he knew could not have been given the drug. I know this guy is a race track shill (cannot forget his defense of takeout increases), but to completely ignore the well known analgesic power of bisphosphonates, which cannot be detected in post race testing, really defies his precious logic.(***). Instead of loudly voicing a misleading discussion, why does he not apply the same energy to pressure Calif authorities (KY also) to reveal the necropsy bisphosphonate assay reports? No logic needed to evaluate those results.
