Headless Horsemen


Book Description

For fans concerned about the future of horse racing, "a well-told cautionary tale about greed and willful inattention" (Kirkus). "An insider's stunning account of the corrupt practices that threaten both the horses and the game . . . an engrossing read." —Minneapolis Star-Tribune Jim Squires was in trouble. He was in the horse business, an enterprise seemingly intent on committing suicide, led over the cliff by visionless leaders. A clannish group called "the Dinnies" had long refused to share power, as vast overproduction and unbridled greed created a subprime-like bubble in the market. Overpriced animals of dubious quality and drug-enhanced performance on the track were undermining the integrity of competition and ultimately the very breed itself. With its economic model broken, its tawdry sales practices under attack, and its public image in tatters, the sport was overdue for a reckoning. Headless Horsemen is Squires's critique of what is happening to the sport and the animals he loves, as he and a small group of unlikely heroes agitate for a return to fair dealing. For anyone who cares about the soul and survival of horse racing, this book is an impassioned call to arms.




Drugs and the Performance Horse


Book Description

By Thomas Tobin, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky. With a chapter by Richard Heard. With Forewords by H.R.H. Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Ernst Jokl. Written with authority, clarity and a sense of humor, this book contains information on all types of drugs used in horses. The author explains how these drugs act, how they influence performance, and how they cause problems. The five sections of the text deal in turn with the history and basic aspects of drug use in performance horses; the controversial drugs of controlled medication, including phenylbutazone, other nons-teroidal drugs, furosemide, corticosteroids, and anabolic steroids; illegal or banned medications, including all pertinent stimulants, depressants, narcotics, local anesthetics and tranquilizers; the use of vitamins, minerals, fluid therapy and antibiotics; and medication control, with data on the techniques and capabilities of chemical testing, the rule-making process, and legal aspects of rule enforcement. All horsemen, owners, trainers, coaches, competitors, judges and administrators will deem this book the definitive guide to equine drugs.




Interstate Horseracing Act


Book Description




Equine Pharmacology


Book Description

Equine Pharmacology combines highly practical therapeutic guidance with reliable scientific background information to provide a clinically relevant resource. Taking a body systems approach to the subject, the book offers the equine clinician fast access to drug options for a given disease, with additional information available for reference as needed. Logically organized to lead the reader through the clinical decision-making process, Equine Pharmacology is a user-friendly reference for pharmacological information on the horse. The book begins with a general review section presenting the principles of antimicrobials, anesthesia, analgesics, anti-parasitics, foals, fluid therapy, and drug and medication control programs. The remainder of the book is devoted to a body systems approach to therapeutics, allowing the reader to search by affected system or specific disease to find detailed advice on drug therapy. Equine Pharmacology is an invaluable addition to the practice library for any clinician treating equine patients.




Medication and Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Horse Racing


Book Description

Medication and performance-enhancing drugs in horse racing : hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, second session, July 12, 2012.




Spitting in the Soup


Book Description

Doping is as old as organized sports. From baseball to horse racing, cycling to track and field, drugs have been used to enhance performance for 150 years. For much of that time, doping to do better was expected. It was doping to throw a game that stirred outrage. Today, though, athletes are vilified for using performance-enhancing drugs. Damned as moral deviants who shred the fair-play fabric, dopers are an affront to the athletes who don’t take shortcuts. But this tidy view swindles sports fans. While we may want the world sorted into villains and victims, putting the blame on athletes alone ignores decades of history in which teams, coaches, governments, the media, scientists, sponsors, sports federations, and even spectators have played a role. The truth about doping in sports is messy and shocking because it holds a mirror to our own reluctance to spit in the soupthat is, to tell the truth about the spectacle we crave. In Spitting in the Soup, sports journalist Mark Johnson explores how the deals made behind closed doors keep drugs in sports. Johnson unwinds the doping culture from the early days, when pills meant progress, and uncovers the complex relationships that underlie elite sports culturethe essence of which is not to play fair but to push the boundaries of human performance. It’s easy to assume that drugs in sports have always been frowned upon, but that’s not true. Drugs in sports are old. It’s banning drugs in sports that is new. Spitting in the Soup offers a bitingly honest, clear-eyed look at why that’s so, and what it will take to kick pills out of the locker room once and for all.




Animals, Ethics and Us: A Veterinary’s View of Human-Animal Interactions


Book Description

Everyone has a view about animal ethics. Each of us, for example, has an opinion about whether we should eat meat; whether animals should be used for scientific research, or whether the use of animals in sport is acceptable. But very few of us stop to wonder about the basis of our views, or to rationalise them. In this book, Madeleine Campbell aims to enable us to do so, by addressing a series of questions such as: When does animal use become abuse? Why do we treat some animals differently from others? Are there some things which we should never do to animals? And, just because we can, should we? Drawing on her experience as a Veterinarian; a European Diplomate in Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law; a researcher and teacher, and a member of various industry ethical review bodies and of welfare and ethics committees for membership organisations and government, the author takes ethical argument beyond academia and applies it to the question which currently dominates societal debate about human-animal interactions: what (if anything) is a reasonable use of an animal? Animals, Ethics, and Us offers a stripped back, balanced and moderate perspective, based on logical argument, philosophical principles and sound science. It is a thought-provoking read aimed at a broad readership including informed owners and animal enthusiasts, as well as useful a primer for students of animal ethics, welfare and veterinary medicine. 5m Books




A Global History of Doping in Sport


Book Description

From turn-of-the-century horseracing to the monolithic anti-doping attitudes now supported by sporting organizations, the development of anti-doping ideology has spread throughout modern sport. Yet heretofore few historians have explored the many ways that international sport has responded to doping. This book seeks to fill that gap by examining different aspects of sport’s global efforts to respond to athletes doping. By incorporating cultural, political, and feminist histories that examine international responses to doping, this special issue aims to better articulate the narrative of doping. The work starts with the first mention of doping in any sport. It examines not only the first efforts to ban doping but also the athletes who sought performance enhancers. Focusing on specific framing events, authors in this issue examine how history of doping and how it has indelibly marked the sporting landscape. The result is a work with both breadth and focus. From stories of Japanese swimmers to Italian runners to American jockeys, the work spans the range of doping history. At the same time, the authors remain focused around one single issue: the history of doping in sport. This bookw as published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.




Unnatural Ability


Book Description

In a mere twelve months, between May 2020 and May 2021, horse racing's most recognizable face—Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert—had five horses that failed postrace drug tests. Among those was the 2021 Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit. While the incident was a major scandal in the Thoroughbred racing world, it was only the latest in a series of drug-related infractions among elite athletes. Stories about systemic rule-breaking and "doping culture"—both human and equine—have put world-class athletes and their trainers under intense scrutiny. Each newly discovered instance of abuse forces fans to question the participants' integrity, and in the case of horse racing, their humanity. In Unnatural Ability: The History of Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Thoroughbred Racing, Milton C. Toby addresses the historical and contemporary context of the Thoroughbred industry's most pressing issue. While early attempts at boosting racehorses' performance were admittedly crude, widespread legal access to narcotics and stimulants has changed the landscape of horse racing, along with athletic governing bodies' ability to regulate it. With the sport at a critical turning point in terms of doping restrictions and sports betting, Toby delivers a comprehensive account of the practice of using performance-enhancing drugs to influence the outcome of Thoroughbred races since the late nineteenth century. Paying special attention to Thoroughbred racing's purse structure and its reliance on wagering to supplement a horse's winnings, Toby discusses how horse doping poses a unique challenge for gambling sports and what the industry and its players must do to survive the pressure to get ahead.