Posted By:
David GoffDo you know there are steroids with therapeutic purposes? Some horses are on steroids for that reason. It helps with allergies, chronic inflammation and other conditions as well. Every state where racing exists has laws which prohibit the use of performance enhancing drugs in race horses- and ALL race horses are tested before and AFTER every race, every single time they run, throughout their entire careers. There is a long list of prohibited substances, and it's the trainer's responsibility to know what is and is not allowed- and those horses who test positive for illegal or banned substances can be barred from racing permanently. In addition, there are stiff penalties for people involved in such behavior- and these can and do range from fines, to loss of licensure, to jail time in many cases. Any prize monies won by horses with illegal drugs in their systems become forfeited automatically. I know that Kentucky state law forbids performance enhancing drug use in race horses. So I don’t know why everyone thinks that every single race horse is on performance enhancing drugs. There may be a few trainers that cheat, but majority of them are clean and look out for their product as do Jockeys. I can't believe someone would say that Kent was disgusted with Big Browns performance. If he thinks something is wrong with him, he will let up on him and after the race get off as quick as he can so the doctors can look him over. More than likely Big Brown did not want to race Saturday. Horses are like people sometimes. If they don’t want to do something, they just wont do it. It doesn’t mean he is on drugs.
My dog died of cancer last year. He was on steroids to slow tumor growth. Did I abuse him for feeding him steroids? By the sounds of this thread, I did...just my opinion.