THOROUGHBRED RACING : Sea Hero Will Have to Prove Himself Again--Without Lasix

Handicappers must factor in an additional element when they consider today’s Preakness: Will the absence of Lasix affect Sea Hero, the Kentucky Derby winner?

A colt who hadn’t won a race in more than five months, Sea Hero won the Kentucky Derby while racing on Lasix, a diuretic commonly given to horses that suffer from pulmonary bleeding. In the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland three weeks before the Derby, Sea Hero raced with Lasix for the first time and finished a strong fourth.

But because Maryland has stricter medication rules than Kentucky, Sea Hero cannot be treated with Lasix when he runs in the Preakness.

Sea Hero, 30-1 on the morning line and 12-1 at post time at Churchill Downs, got his wakeup call in the Derby for several reasons, one of which might have been Lasix. Because of a suggestion by his jockey, Jerry Bailey, trainer Mack Miller removed Sea Hero’s blinkers. And Miller thought that Sea Hero improved this spring as soon as he left hot, humid Florida for cooler temperatures.

Will Sea Hero be able to duplicate his Derby performance without Lasix?

“Before the race, I’m going to tell the horse that he’s got it (Lasix),” Miller joked the other day. “It’s a concern, him not running with the drug after he was able to use it in the two previous races. Not using the drug might have some effect on him if it’s real hot on race day.”

In other words, Miller is saying that there’s a possibility that Sea Hero will bleed during the Preakness, just as he bled in Aiken, S.C., on March 5 after a workout at Miller’s training center.

“He coughed several times that day,” Miller said. “So we scoped him, and found a little blood in his trachea.”

Sea Hero began running with Lasix at Keeneland, but Maryland’s rules say that for horses to qualify for Lasix, they must bleed on the track after a race or be examined by a state veterinarian and show bleeding. Cherokee Run, who won the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs on April 24 and the Lafayette Stakes at Keeneland on April 6, was new to Lasix for those races, and he, too, won’t be able to run with the medication for the Preakness.

This is not the first time that Lasix has been an issue at the Preakness. In 1983, Desert Wine’s owners challenged the Maryland rules, and after a lengthy court hearing the day before the race, a Baltimore judge--an asthmatic, who had trouble breathing--ruled that he could run with Lasix. Desert Wine finished second to Deputed Testamony.

Bleeders have had both good and bad luck in recent Preaknesses. In 1990, Summer Squall bled from the nostrils after a gallop the day before the race, but still won while racing with Lasix. Last year, Lil E. Tee, the Derby winner, bled despite being treated with Lasix and finished fifth in the Preakness.

Mack Miller trains in New York, where even bleeders aren’t allowed Lasix under the state’s no-medication rule.

“We used Lasix in Kentucky because it’s when in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Miller said. “I’ve been preaching for years that racing should have uniform medication rules. And I really don’t care which rules we follow, as long as they’re the same for everybody. Find out what the majority of racing wants, and make the rules accordingly.”

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Mack Miller, born in Versailles, Ky., not far from Keeneland, began his Hall of Fame career with a visit to that track when he was 14. “From then on, I loved to watch the horses,” he said.

“What could be better than working out of doors all the time, and if you’re a trainer blessed with some good 2-year-olds, you never want to sleep. If I hadn’t become a trainer, I’d probably be a retired policeman or fire fighter now.”

The morning after this year’s Kentucky Derby, Miller was attending a Presbyterian church in Versailles, where he still has a home. The pastor is a friend of his, and he announced that there was a trainer of a Kentucky Derby winner in the pews. The congregation stood and applauded.

Miller was overwhelmed. “I had never heard clapping in church before,” he said.