Fri. Misc

Short break from posts. TC over.  A few thoughts and then on to Qs of racing performance.

--in answer to Lazar Simic--3 bowed tendons over the years each caused by various errors. 2 on same horse. Both horses won races after the bows.  Neither retained its speed after bowing.

--and there's Mark Valeski retired for the year.  Big surprise.  The Q for me is why some of these trainers are able to maintain licenses injuring horse after horse.  And, yes, you Parboo, if you're reading this.  Possibly the new KY vet initiative identifying at risk horses will help.  My mantra has been to limit entry to appropriately trained horses. Pre-race xrays and scanning for TV races.. Giant Ryan and 8Belles and many others likely  would be alive.

--the KY Racing Commission action on lasix--the dirty little secret of the Jockey Club anti-lasix is the understanding by the certain deep pockets that have for a decade or more been trying to NASCAR the sport that denial of lasix wll push small stables and hence smaller tracks out of the sport.  For clarity, NASCARing the sport means restricting access to persons with a lot of money.  Needless to say, what does Bill Casner care if he has to retire a bleeding horse.  Anybody seen that ridiculous Casner video on You Tube where Casner claims none of his horses bleed.  Anybody ever seen a Casner horse race more than 4 or 5 times?  Might try scoping them after race #10 Bill, and report back.

--there are, of course, many well intentioned people that are anti-lasix.  I was never anti-lasix but I never used the stuff till my first horse bled.  That was at least 10 years after I began racing horses.  At that point, naturally, the light comes on and u start to understand what all that post exercise coughing was about over the years.  I'd like to send one of Casner's horses to the high humidity race track at Bossier City and see what Casner would say.  This is the same nut that campaigned to eliminate toe grabs without reading the studies.  How do I know he never read the studies?  Casner's statements were contrary to their conclusions.

End of rant.  In terms of the effect of the lasix ban on my stable, if there will be another--weirdly I should have a training and knowledge advantage.  Yet, it boils down to this--neither of my best horses could have continued racing successfully without the drug--and this is interpreted that outlawing lasix creates a large new level of risk for the small racing stable, for breeders trying to sell horses or race their own and will have a geometric effect in shrinking the sport.  In the end sanity will hopefully prevail.  Will see.