New Study Could Affect Horse Racing Industry

Thursday, July 9, 2009

(July 7, 2009   Stillwater, OK) – Michael Davis, DVM, Ph.D., Dipl. ACVIM, is a Physiological Sciences professor and Oxley Endowed Chair in Equine Sports Medicine at Oklahoma State University’s (OSU) Center for Veterinary Health Sciences.  According to Davis, the results of a new study may change the future of the horse racing industry.   
 
The July issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association featured a paper on the “Efficacy of furosemide for prevention of exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage in Thoroughbred racehorses.”  The study, led by Dr. Kenneth Hinchcliff, demonstrated conclusively that furosemide reduced the occurrence and severity of exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH) in horses under actual racing conditions.
 
“We have been giving furosemide to horses for a long time without any solid scientific proof that it did anything beneficial for the horse,” explains Davis.  “The racing industry went along with it.  There was no proof that it did or that it didn’t benefit the horse.  However, the use of medications in racehorses has been getting a lot of negative press recently.  Some people believe horses just need hay, oats and water, while others perceive that the race horses are drugged up monsters.”
 
Davis goes on to say that the racing industry is looking at getting stronger on the rules to keep public interest.  A major problem with the use of furosemide was a couple studies a few years ago showing that furosemide, administered the way it is typically done in racing conditions, could make the horse run faster.  
 
“The racing industry found itself in the position of not having proof it was any benefit but it was, in fact, a performance enhancer, which was becoming difficult to defend.  This study provides the proponents of furosemide with the proof they needed that it does provide a benefit to the horse,” he adds.
 
According to Davis, right now in North America, the racing industry supports the use of furosemide.  There are rules attached to it in terms of how much can be given to a horse, how soon before the race it can be administered, and which horses can receive it.
 
“This should pretty much stop the efforts to restrict the use of furosemide dead in its tracks,” says Davis.  “People who are advocating the elimination of furosemide have to explain why they want to deny a horse medicine that has been shown to be beneficial to the horse’s health and well being.  
 
“The other thing that it does, though, is it makes the job of the forensic chemists a little bit harder.  Furosemide is a diuretic, and as a result, the urine tends to be very dilute.  If you are looking for other chemicals that are not supposed to be in the horse, it has just become more difficult to find them.”
 
Davis believes this is a step in the right direction for the horse industry.
 
“It was an incredibly expensive and difficult study to do and was supported by the racing industry,” he explains.  “Extremely well designed, and conducted by investigators with impeccable integrity, the study was designed to honestly investigate furosemide, not to come up one way or another.  Had it shown no benefit to using furosemide, then the racing jurisdictions would have started outlawing the drug.  If it had shown no benefit, that would have been equally defensible.  Bottom line, the conduct of the study demonstrates in deed and not just talk that the racing industry is, in fact, trying to improve the conditions of the sport.”  
 
Davis is also the director of the veterinary center’s Comparative Exercise Physiology Laboratory.  He earned his DVM degree at Texas A&M University, MS degree in Veterinary Science at Virginia Tech, and his Ph.D. in Physiology at Johns Hopkins University.  Davis is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine – Large Animal.