Drugging Race Horses: Is the Industry Decadent and Depraved?

This topic would have been right up Hunter S. Thompson’s alley. Horse racing and drugs. A new performance enhancing drug called “Frog Juice” has surfaced in the horse racing world. Great. That is actually what the industry needs: more bad press about drugging race horses. The people from PETA are probably losing their minds right now at the injustice to not only one, but two animals. I can see them making signs to picket with now. Maybe a cartoon of a race horse with a frog as a jockey.

The drug is derived from the skin of a frog that is found in South Africa. It is said that the new drug is 40 times stronger than morphine. The drug is called dermorphin and is a powerful pain killer that makes the animal “hyper”. Craig W. Stevens, a professor of pharmacology, said that “For a racehorse, it would be beneficial. The animal wouldn’t feel pain, and it would have feelings of excitation and euphoria.”

So why would pain killers, and feelings of excitation and euphoria, be good for a race horse? Like any athlete, horses get ailments such as knee, ankle, back and shoulder pains. When they are in pain, they don’t want to run or can’t run as fast. Those pains than start to affect them mentally. Even after their injuries heal, mentally the horse might not want to exert his or herself again because he or she is afraid of getting reinjured. That’s where the feelings of “excitation and euphoria” would come in. The horse would now be pain free and brave as he or she was being loaded into the starting gate.

When Hunter wrote his article "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved", he said he had come to the race “to watch the real beasts perform”. Speaking as someone who has been in horse racing for her entire life, I found that comment brilliant. Sometimes in horse racing it's true: the humans are the beasts, not the horses. Greed, corruption and ego are the dark side of the industry. But just like anything in life, there is the good and the bad. The good side of the sport is hard working, kind, and honest. These are the type of people who would never drug their horse to win a race. That’s the side I’ve always been on, and will always be on.

A link to the New York Times article on "Frog Juice" is below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/sports/horse-racing-discovers-new-drug-problem-one-linked-to-frogs.html?_r=2&hp