New York Removes Lasix Ban : Horse Racing: Diuretic that checks bleeding will be allowed starting Sept. 1, too late for Belmont Stakes.

In a landmark development, the New York State Racing and Wagering Board announced Thursday that, beginning Sept. 1, horses that run there can be treated with Lasix, a diuretic used in all other major racing jurisdictions to curb bleeding.

The ruling will not affect the June 10 Belmont Stakes, the final leg of the Triple Crown, but on Oct. 28, Belmont will play host to the $10-million Breeders’ Cup, a seven-race program that attracts horses from throughout the world. In two previous Breeders’ Cups in New York, horsemen with bleeders had to run them without Lasix.

For decades, New York has prohibited all race-day medications, including Lasix, discouraging trainers to run horses that suffer stress-induced pulmonary bleeding.

In 1990, Summer Squall, the winner of the Preakness, bypassed the final Triple Crown race, the Belmont Stakes, because he was a bleeder and couldn’t be treated with Lasix.

That year’s Kentucky Derby winner, Unbridled, was also a bleeder, but his trainer, Carl Nafzger, ran him in the Belmont. Unbridled finished fourth, beaten by more than 12 lengths.

When Unbridled returned to Belmont Park in 1991, he ran again without Lasix and won the Breeders’ Cup Classic, becoming an example of the frustrations bettors have faced in handicapping bleeders in New York.

Jerry Bilinski, a veterinarian and the newly appointed chairman of the New York racing board, said Thursday that the three-member board unanimously approved a policy that should allow horses that qualify to be given race-day Lasix starting Sept. 1, the first day of Belmont Park’s fall meeting.

At the time of Bilinski’s appointment, it was reported that he might be sympathetic to the use of Lasix.

Kenny Noe, named last year as president of the New York Racing Assn., which operates Belmont, Aqueduct and Saratoga, was also pro-Lasix. He came to New York after a long career at Calder Race Course in Florida, where Lasix is allowed for bleeders.

Many New York racing figures, however, have been adamant about preserving the state’s no-medication rule. Several years ago, the Jockey Club commissioned a study suggesting that the use of Lasix enhanced horses’ performances.

Other theories, frequently debunked, have linked Lasix with the masking of illegal drugs in post-race testing. As recently as March, Joe O’Dea, a New York state steward, former member of the New York racing board and past president of the American Assn. of Equine Practitioners, wrote in the Thoroughbred Times about the harm that Lasix causes.

“The empirical use of Lasix,” O’Dea said, “is not only without merit but may be dangerous, for it lulls the patient’s principles into complacency while the true nature of the horse’s complaint is left undetected and unresolved, his racing potential unfulfilled.

“The saddest part of the whole problem is that there has been very little comprehensive, clinical monitoring of the Lasix-treated horses in racing. Some get the one- or two-race enhancing effect of Lasix, while others suffer serious challenges to their physiologic balances and racing performance. . . . So far as performance is concerned, Lasix has proved to be a double-edged sword, for it often diminishes performance.”

The approval of Lasix in New York may have as much to do with economics as anything else.

Losing millions of dollars, New York tracks have been under sustained political pressure from the state capital in Albany and are in the midst of a cost-cutting campaign under Noe. A national shortage of horses and owners has affected the quality and size of the racing fields, and Belmont Park has been racing five days a week instead of six at the current meeting.

Neither Kentucky Derby winner Thunder Gulch nor Preakness winner Timber Country is a bleeder, but Suave Prospect, another contender, has run all but the first two of his 15 starts with Lasix. Suave Prospect, who lost two tight finishes to Thunder Gulch at Gulfstream Park this winter, was 11th in the Derby and skipped the Preakness.

Suave Prospect and Citadeed, another Lasix horse and a Belmont possibility, will run in a large field Sunday at Belmont Park in the $150,000 Peter Pan Stakes. Peaks And Valleys, who may also run in the Belmont, is a Lasix horse who won the Derby Trial and the Illinois Derby.

After his Oliver’s Twist finished second in the Preakness, trainer Billy Boniface quickly ruled out the Belmont and his colt is expected to run at Thistledown in the Ohio Derby, in a jurisdiction that will allow him to run with Lasix.

Despite New York’s green-lighting Lasix, there is still a need for the Triple Crown tracks to standardize medication rules in their states. Tejano Run, who ran well three times in Kentucky with Lasix, including a second-place finish in the Derby, was not allowed to use the medication at Pimlico and bled badly while finishing ninth as the fourth betting choice in the Preakness.

Kentucky’s Lasix rule is one of the most liberal, and Maryland’s is one of the most stringent, if not the most confusing. In 1983, the owners of Desert Wine went to court the day before the Preakness when Pimlico officials wouldn’t allow their colt to run with Lasix. The judge, an asthmatic, ruled in favor of the horse, who finished second to Deputed Testamony.

After this year’s Preakness, Ken McPeek, who trains Tejano Run, called for a uniform Triple Crown medication rule. Tejano Run had never bled before the Preakness, but was allowed to use Lasix in Kentucky because he had a lung infection. After the Preakness, the colt came back coughing.

Before the Preakness, only alert bettors knew that Tejano Run was coming off Lasix. Unlike the official program at California tracks, there is no Lasix-off designation in the program at Pimlico.

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Horse Racing Notes

Pat Day, who won the Preakness Stakes with Timber Country, will head for Hollywood Park after riding Suave Prospect at Belmont in Sunday’s Peter Pan. Day has the assignment Monday on Wandesta, who will try to become the third female to win the Hollywood Turf Handicap. The other distaff winners were Typecast in 1972 and Dahlia in 1976. . . . As many as 10 may run in the $500,000 race, including Sandpit, the high weight at 122 pounds. . . . Bobby Frankel, who trains Wandesta, won Thursday’s feature with Opera Score, ridden by Corey Nakatani. The meet’s leading rider, Nakatani added three winners to his total. . . . Trainer Wayne Lukas said Gary Stevens, not Nakatani, will ride Serena’s Song when she runs in the Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont on June 9. “Mainly,” Lukas said, “it’s because Stevens will be in town to ride Thunder Gulch in the Belmont the next day.” Nakatani was Serena’s Song’s regular rider, but he was suspended a week ago today, and Stevens rode the filly to a nine-length victory in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico.