Re: the bolded part of the above quote --
Because a high percentage of the time the difference in weight between those skinny horses and the ones that dust them is muscle mass.
According to an article published in June 29, 2015 on The Paulick Report, the average thoroughbred sheds 28 pounds of water weight (not muscle mass) after being treated with Lasix.
New Furosemide Research Reveals Unexpected Impacts Of The Medication:
https://www.paulickreport.com/horse-...he-medication/
Suppose a 180 pound human athlete takes a diuretic prior to competing in a race, be it cycling or be it track and field, and the diuretic helps him to shed 5.4 pounds of water weight (or 3% of total body weight) and his muscle mass remains unchanged.
Purely from a physics standpoint:
All else being equal, said athlete's final time in said event will be faster as a result of having taken said diuretic.
The Equibase chart data I posted back on
page 4,
post 50 clearly shows that thoroughbreds treated with Lasix win a higher percentage of their races than those not treated with Lasix.
The difference in win percent between those treated with Lasix and those not treated with Lasix isn't glaring or obscene. But it is noticeable and has been present in the data every single year dating back to the 1980's when I first began compiling horse racing databases.
-jp
.
