Partial Lasix ban on docket at Kentucky commission meeting

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Committees of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission will consider several proposals next week that would change the state’s medication rules, including a controversial prohibition on the administration of raceday furosemide to 2-year-old horses beginning next year.

The proposal for a partial ban on raceday furosemide use – which would be extended to graded stakes races in 2021 – is being advanced by a national coalition of racetracks and other racing organizations that includes all of Kentucky’s racetrack operators. The coalition announced earlier this year that it would seek the partial ban in major racing states as part of an effort to change medication rules that have been problematic with the public.

The proposal is scheduled to be considered by the Kentucky Equine Drug Council at a meeting on Monday morning. The drug council is an offshoot of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission that forms the first line in any consideration of changes to the state’s medication rules. Its recommendations are typically accepted by the full commission, but the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association remains steadfast in its opposition to any bans on raceday use of the drug, more commonly known as Lasix, which is currently legal to administer in all U.S. racing states to mitigate bleeding in the lungs.

The drug council agenda also includes a number of other items that are being sought in other states to tighten regulations on the administration of painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. Under the proposals, no intra-articular administrations of corticosteroids would be allowed within 14 days of a race, and no non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs would be allowed within 48 hours of a race. Currently, it is legal to administer a single NSAID 24 hours outside of a race.

Those specific rules have already been put in place in California, where a rash of breakdowns earlier this year at Santa Anita fomented intense criticism of the racing industry from some quarters. But the industry at-large is also moving toward those two specific rule changes, and a coalition of racing constituencies in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast announced in September that they would put the new restrictions in place soon. The New York Gaming Commission is also expected to consider the 14-day corticosteroid restriction at a meeting on Monday.

Separately, the commission’s Safety and Welfare Committee is scheduled to meet on Tuesday morning and consider a proposal to require attending veterinarians to sign off on the racing soundness of horses under their care as a condition of entry. That rule has also been put in place in California.

The full commission is scheduled to meet later on Tuesday and approve the 2020 racing dates schedule for Kentucky tracks.