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It's unfortunate that HISA was necessary, but it was because the sport didn't do a good job of policing itself. This was especially true of certain jurisdictions. The CHRB's handling of drug violations and horse deaths by certain trainers was certainly suspicious.
This will create the consistency that was needed all along. Once penalties start getting handed out, I suspect that we'll see less drug violations.
I do wonder about this, pertaining to controlled substances, when those drugs are used in a suspicious manner. For instance, when Baffert had those 7 horses drop dead in a 16-month period, during the CHRB investigation, he said that he gave them a thyroid medication, sometimes referred to as Thyro-L. This is a drug that is often used incorrectly, in other words, given to horses that DO NOT have any sort of thyroid problem.
I'd like to see HISA require that trainers state the reason why they're giving a horse particular medications. I don't think that trainers should be using racehorses as experimental guinea pigs, administering drugs that the horse doesn't require or need because they heard that it might get the horse to run faster. And it leaves open the possibility that they're using it to mask other drugs. Baffert said he gave it to horses because he "wanted to build them up" but longtime veterinarian and CHRB board member Rick Arthur expressed surprise at that remark because he said that the drug actually causes horses to lose weight.
Last edited by pandy; 09-21-2022 at 09:49 AM.
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