Gulfstream to offer furosemide-free races

Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., will offer two races for 2-year-olds in mid-July that will bar horses from using the anti-bleeding medication furosemide on raceday, the track said on Thursday.

The races will be run for maidens at 4 1/2 furlongs, one for fillies and one for males, on July 18 and July 19, according to Gulfstream. Although the condition book for July is not yet out at Gulfstream, each race will have a $65,000 purse, according to David Joseph, a spokesman for Gulfstream, and Bill White, the president of the Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. Currently, maiden special weights at Gulfstream carry $48,000 purses.

The offering of the races fulfills a pledge made last summer by Frank Stronach, the owner of Gulfstream’s parent company. Stronach repeated the pledge to hold the furosemide-free races at a conference in New York last Friday.

Furosemide, which is also known as Lasix, is legal to use on raceday in every North American racing jurisdiction. Stronach, an Eclipse Award-winning owner-breeder, has said that he is opposed to the use of the drug on race day, though his own horses typically run on the medication.

Gulfstream will become the first major track to offer races in which the raceday use of the medication is not allowed since New York lifted its ban on raceday use in 1995. Supporters of a ban on raceday use of the drug have encouraged racetracks and racing commissions to card similar races.

This year, Oaklawn Park in Arkansas offered a 10 percent first-place purse bonus to any horse that did not receive the drug on race day, and Arapahoe Park in Colorado continues to offer a $1,000 bonus to any horse that wins without receiving a raceday administration of the drug.

In Kentucky, the state racing commission earlier this year approved a rule that will allow tracks to card races prohibiting the raceday administration of medication. Officials of Keeneland Racecourse have said they plan to offer two furosemide-free races at the track’s spring meet in 2016, and that they may expand the number of furosemide-free races at that year’s fall meet, depending on how the races are received by horsemen.

“Right now I don’t know if we have a position on it one way or the other,” said White, of the Florida HBPA.