A thoroughbred (TB) is not a natural breed but is a creation of humans (homo sapiens )and therefore will have some shortcomings because the Darwin’s law of ‘ survival of the fittest’ is not fully applicable to him because they are not exposed to the vagaries of nature to survive...

"Finding an American racehorse trained on the traditional hay, oats, and water probably would be impossible,” commented John Scheinman in Washington Post on 27/4/2003… Veterinarians give them drugs to keep them on the track when they shouldn’t be racing.

"There are trainers pumping horses full of illegal drugs every day,” says a former Churchill Downs public relations director in MAXIM (may 2002) “With so much money on the line, people will do anything to make their horses run faster.” The New York Sun opined that because “thoroughbreds are bred for flashy speed and to look good in the sales ring … the animal itself has become more fragile”

R Dutrow, the trainer of Big Brown who won Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes has admitted giving Winstrol which was withdrawn before he ran in Belmont and ended in the rear rather than in front.

Makes me reminiscence… few reminiscences dating back to 90’s of last century!

Long ago- 22 years is a pretty long time in racing parlance, an editorial in ‘The Indian Thoroughbred’ in Jan ’91 gave the names of more than a dozen trainers (some of them dead now) of western India who were ‘offenders’ of drug abuse – more than 100 minor and major violations of the use of prohibited drugs were detected at that time. Again in 1994 the story was repeated and while 10 cases were reported for ‘drug abuse’ in western India after 900 samples were tested; none ( not a single) was tested positive out of 600 samples sent for test from rest of the racing centers(Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, etc.). The only exception was that while all the samples of western India were sent to forensic labs ‘outside’ India; all the samples from ‘rest of India’ were tested in India only! No more comments, because it happened in last century!

Why some (or many?) of the trainers use, with the tacit approval of the owners, these drugs?

More than 1300 in India , more than 35,000 in U.S.A. and if we take into account the worldwide produce more than 1,00,000 thoroughbreds(TB) are born every year and considering the racing life of an average TB as 5 yrs. Every year more than 5,00,000 TB’s compete for a prize money of more than 10 billion dollars at more than 500 racetracks round the year across the world.. But it is not the last word.

Greed and a desire to earn easy money forces human beings to use foul and fair means resulting in the cruel death of Aldyar (to claim insurance money), Phar Lap( poisoned by US mafia) , Ruffian ,Eight Belle and many more TB’s in USA and elsewhere.

As per official estimates USA wagers more than 15 billon dollars, Japan about 11 billion dollars, Australia around 8 billion dollars and all over the world including Europe and Asia more than 80 billion dollars are wagered every year on horseracing. This also includes a conservative estimate of about 2 to 2.5 billion dollar gamble by Indian punters on 8 racetracks, across India where about 3500 runners try to win a purse of about Rs. 70 crore (about 15 million dollars) from more than 3500 races.

Therefore, every year, in the horseracing arena , about 100 billion dollars( including the stakes) of easy money(?) is available for picking by some enterprising, clever, Intelligent ,shrewd gambler from a motley crowd of about one million hard core punters scattered around the world and about 2 million professionals- including syces and helpers… In India about Rs. 70 crores of stakes money and a wager of roughly 2 to 3 billion dollar is available to 10,000 hardcore gamblers and about 20,000 professionals including daily wage earners.

With this background information we can understand that the urge to make money by any means may /will overshadow and overwhelm all ethical moral and correct methods of winning a race and strengthens the opinion of a famous American critic that – horseracing actually has been reduced to a chemical warfare.

But why professionals – including breeders, use drugs on young juveniles?

Though crude form of steroids can be traced to Greek mythology, it was actually to rejuvenate the war weary soldiers of Second World War and the malnourished POW’s and Jews of concentration camp which were primarily given these muscle building, energy giving growth hormones. In 50’s European and Russian athletes started using them . the authorities caught up and banished many of them-the most famous athlete who lost his Olympic gold medal was Ben Johnson.

While some corticosteroids can be used as joint injection for pain all anabolic steroids are banned universally because they artificially increase, concentration of red blood cells ,muscle mass and development, body mass, skeletal structure etc. and enhance temporarily the strength ,endurance speed and stamina thereby giving undue advantage to a thoroughbred over his competition.

Many of my distractors may ask why am I using only USA examples- simply because, they are authentic, well documented, proven and well researched. Our Indian thoroughbred's drug related information is all hush-hush...