This One Won’t Be a Bleeders’ Cup : Use of Preventive Medication Not Allowed in New York

In the World Series, it’s every other year that the teams are allowed to use designated hitters, who during the regular season are permitted only in the American League.

In the Breeders’ Cup, which is fast becoming the World Series of thoroughbred racing, there is a designated-drug rule.

Last year, when the seven Breeders’ Cup races were run at Hollywood Park in the series inaugural, horses were allowed to compete while being treated with Butazolidin, which combats inflammation, and Lasix, which by reducing fluid in the lungs helps prevent internal bleeding.

On Saturday at Aqueduct, where the $10-million Breeders’ Cup races will be staged again, 82 of the finest horses in the world will be running without medication, in accordance with New York rules. Trainer Clive Brittain, however, says that Pebbles, the English-bred filly, will get her usual daily pint of Guinness stout, since there’s nothing in the New York rules to keep a horse from running on heavy beer.

Except for Pebbles, however, this year’s Breeders’ Cup crowd is, by fiat, a water, hay and oats bunch. Next year, when the series returns to California and is held at Santa Anita, Bute and Lasix will be in again.

Hardly any horsemen--starting with trainers and going right up to breeders, who actually are the controllers of the game--like this on-again, off-again setup. Even in horseshoes, the rules don’t change, no matter who’s throwing the picnic.

As a result of this Breeders’ Cup dichotomy, Saturday’s bettors--who should be the controllers of the game--will be in a bigger quandary than ever. It’s bad enough that they have to struggle with handicapping more than 25 European horses, whose past is sketchily documented and whose initial races in the United States can be typically erratic. But they must also ruminate over the bleeders, many of them California horses, who can’t benefit from Lasix here.

For example, how does a horseplayer assess Dontstop Themusic, the morning line second choice in the $1-million Distaff Stakes? This 5-year-old mare is a registered bleeder in California. She has run 34 races, but the Breeders’ Cup will mark her first start in a state that doesn’t accept Lasix.

Some California bleeders--Alabama Nana, Fighting Fit and Mt. Livermore--have made the transition to New York and won. Gate Dancer, however, has never won in New York and the jury is still out on bleeders Fifty Six Ina Row and The Noble Player, as well as on Smile, a 3-year-old colt who only recently has raced without receiving Lasix.

Yashgan and Estrapade, horses that have won important stakes in California recently, are not running in the Breeders’ Cup, partly because they are bleeders. Spend a Buck, who won this year’s Kentucky Derby while on Lasix, probably also wouldn’t have appeared at Aqueduct Saturday, although that became academic when he was retired because of a training injury.

Most U.S. racing jurisdictions--New York, Arkansas and Arizona are the exceptions--permit racing with certain medications, although horses must run, as they say, “clean” in Canada and the rest of the world. The issue is gnawing, because America’s top two racing states, New York and California, are polarized and the sport’s showcase event is being held in those states for the first three years.

There is a smugness among many people who are asked their opinions on medication. “New York is really not a no-medication state,” said a California veterinarian, who asked that his name not be used. “It’s really splitting hairs, because some of the trace levels for drugs in postrace tests are as high in New York as we allow in California. The New York rules are capable of forcing trainers to use steroids on their horses, and that can be more deleterious in the long run.”

Said Manny Gilman, a respected New York veterinarian: “No person has been able to write a drug rule palatable to all groups of the business. Every group reacts to this drug problem according to how it affects them personally, rather than how it affects the business as a whole. Racing commissions and stewards like a permissive-medication rule because they have fewer drug cases to handle.

“Many horsemen favor medication because they think they need help getting their horses to run better. Vets like medication because it increases their income.

“The questions we should ask are, do we want horses to compete with drugs in their systems or do we want horses to run on even terms? The betting public is in a dilemma. We’ve become a drug-oriented society, but now the entire country is up in arms over the use of drugs, and I believe that the proper time to attack their use in racing is now.”

You would find most California trainers kicking and screaming if there were no medication allowed. Trainers like Willard Proctor and Bruce Headley prefer rest and diet changes instead of Lasix for their bleeders, but they are in the minority.

Pro-Lasix trainers believe that the warm California climate, especially with the humidity that exists during the summers at Del Mar, contributes to a higher percentage of bleeders. Studies regarding the number of bleeders vary widely around the country, with results running from 42% to 75%.

New York trainer Sidney Watters, who has been in business for 40-plus years and will have Musical Lark Saturday in the Juvenile Fillies Stakes, says he doesn’t believe that there are many bleeders here.

“But you don’t have to go very far to find a lot more,” Watters says. “Just over in New Jersey, more horses will bleed than they do here. I think it’s mainly due to the bad air.”

Mickey Taylor, who raced Triple Crown champion Seattle Slew and handicap and 3-year-old champion Slew o’ Gold, is in favor of a common, no-medication rule for Breeders’ Cup competition. Jean Romanet, general director of what amounts to the French Jockey Club, favors a ban on medication for all major races throughout the world.

“The medication situation has been discussed at meetings,” said John Mabee, a California owner-breeder and a member of the Breeders’ Cup board. “But it’s unlikely that there will be any change in the way we’re doing it now, mainly because New York and California are so far apart on what they think is right in this area.”

So, on Saturday as well as for subsequent Breeders’ Cup programs in New York, it looks as though they’ll run with the local version of the designated-drug rule.

Let the bettor beware.