Anyone hear of liquoring up horses?

[imnumberjuan]

Anyone ever hear of this? I have heard backstretch rumours before, some good some bad of liqouring up horses (apparently they get hangovers - not pretty).

Just read this on msnbc...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16709919/#storyContinued

[jellac]

Off topic and I don't mean to hijack your thread but your question made me think of the horse in an old film: "Cat Ballou" (sp?)....he almost stole the scene from Lee Marvin - anyone else recall that????

[imnumberjuan]

Cat Ballou... that brings back memories, my mom was a big fan of the movie, I think she still has it on VHS.

[Barbaro06]

Well they used to shoot horses up with heroin and that's how the drug got its nickname of "horse." Was supposed to calm them down too...good grief!

[Sangue Vecchio]

I have seen a horse, that would wash out before a race, be given 10cc's of Vodka via IV. It seemed to work. Hardly enough to get them intoxicated or to create a hangover, but allow them to handle saddling and post parade.

[pistol]

I remeber a few years back some story of a Derby horse (maybe Breeders Cup) that they would give some Guinness each morning.

[Toccet02]

Yeah but that was mainly for nutrition and to keep them interested in the food. Not enough to intoxicate!

[amanda1]

I have not only heard of this but have actually been around a horse that it was done to. And apparently it was more than 10cc because just standing in the vicinity of the sweating horse after the race was enough to turn me green. Vodka was used, I'm assuming because it's strong and clear.

Other than that I don't really know a lot about it, it was explained to me after I wondered why I was schnockered afterwards.

[horsenuts]

I have seen a horse, that would wash out before a race, be given 10cc's of Vodka via IV. It seemed to work. Hardly enough to get them intoxicated or to create a hangover, but allow them to handle saddling and post parade.

This practice has been going on for a long time all throughout the country. I see they caught some poor vet up in Nebraska for this and are putting him on trial. What about the other 500+ vets that "didn't get caught"? Lucky them... for now.

I'd never recommend becoming a race track vet.. to anyone... because it is such a corruptive/competititve business/practice. If you don't have the latest "stuff" trainers will get someone else that does. Basically, you either "put up" or are "put out" of business, sadly. I'm sure people that have been closely involved in racing know of what I'm speaking.

[Tucumcari]

Absolut is the "drink" of choice.

[geowarrior]

Dick Francis had a plotline in one of his novels that involved cocaine. His treatment of it seemed to be a bit inconsistent because the horse in the story performed better with the drug, but Francis in his background text seemed to suggest that the effect would be unpredictable.

[majxmom]

Remember about 20 years ago there was a rash of cocaine positives in racehorses in SoCal? Roger Stein was one of the positives, and the other four were big boys. So naturally the officials fell all over themselves to concoct an explanation of how this could have happened. Eventually they chalked it up to grooms having dust on their hands and bridling the horses up, since the positives were in picograms per liter, or else it came from $100 bills that are so prevalent at the racetrack, because they were used so often to snort it. Hmmm...are $100 bills that prevalent among grooms at the racetrack?

I remember Roger printed up T-Shirts that said "Who Framed Roger Stein?" in a graphic like the Who Framed Roger Rabbit movie. He had a form sticking out of his back pocket and was smoking a cigar. He sold them to raise money for a defense fund and I bought one. I think I still have it, as it was a favorite of mine. Just couldn't throw it out.

[KAL]

Not just a vet in Nebraska but something like the President of the state's vet association... nice!

Actually, has been going on for years, at least around the mid-west tracks. Some fairly high profile trainers, (including a KY Derby winning trainer), have at least tried it.

Remarks above concerning making the horse relax and be somewhat more tranquil are given as the primary reason. Unfortunately, I think its use is very similar to the rash of trainers using nasal strips a few years ago... and as Wayne Lukas said, "... I'm not sure it helps, but I don't want to try to explain to my owner why we lost to one with it."

Which leaves one to wonder... are trainers lemmings? Or, as Rokeby's tag-line wonderfully points out... when in Rome...

What the heck... maybe it works... couple shots of vodka would relax me, of course, I'd never want to run 6f afterwards. I do doubt Absolut is the choice... unless they are starting to bottle it in those gallon plastic bottles. If Absolut was the choice, the critters would be drinking better stuff than "their" humans.

[Rokeby Forever]

The King of Saratoga, Fourstardave, always had a bottle of Guiness in his mash. His trainer, Leo O'Brien, drank the other 5 in the six pack for breakfast...waste not, want not.

[majxmom]

The great British mare Pebbles was also a Guiness fan.