Bill Casner Q&A cont.

Owner Bill Casner is leading the charge to rid thesport of legal race day medications. While several major
owners have vowed to run their 2-year-olds Lasix free,
Casner races all of his horses without Lasix or bute. A
very successful businessman and one of the mostprominent owners in the sport, Casner is convinced heis doing the right thing not just for the sport but for hishorses. The TDN sat down with Casner recently to get
his take on the anti-Lasix battle, how his horses are
doing without drugs and whether or not the sport isready to go medication free.
TDN: We recently watched Endorsement run in theWhitney without Lasix and win the GIII Texas Mile
without the drug. Tell us more about him and what you
have done with your stable.
BC: All my horses run without race day medicationand that=s been my policy for about a year and a half. It
was a personal decision on my part. I felt like it was in
the best interests of my horses and I feel that long term
it=s in the best interests of our industry to wean ourhorses off race day meds. Times have changed and thepublic is becoming increasingly intolerant of medicationin sports. It is characterized as a therapeutic
medication, but I feel that the side effects of Lasix are
far more detrimental to the horse than any therapeutic
benefits. It is time that our industry became a
medication-free industry.
There are a group of us that we have recruited, agrowing number of owners that have committed torunning their horses without race day medication. The
list includes some of the biggest names in racing,Darley, Juddmonte, Frank Stronach, Claiborne Farm.
We have about 75 owners that have committed torunning their two year olds without race day meds.
TDN: A lot of owners have said that they would liketo race without Lasix, but feel that by doing so theywould be at a competitive disadvantage. By going
medication free, are you at a disadvantage?
BC: Not at all. I feel like my horses are able tocompete more effectively.
There have been some studies done that indicate that
Lasix may be performance enhancing. I think in earlier
times when Lasix was allowed to be given closer torace time, two hours or less before a race, it may havebeen performance enhancing. Over the last few years
the rule has changed and Lasix cannot be administeredafter four hours out. When you give a horse Lasix, you
are inducing dehydration through horses urinating away
many pounds, and that may be considered a weightadvantage.

The fact is, when you dehydrate before an athletic
performance, it is counterintuitive to proper physiology
or optimum physiology for a horse to perform at its
best.
I think any competitive advantage is negated. Horses
experience extreme potassium loss when they are given
a diuretic. Anybody that has ever taken Lasix, and I
have asked a number of people, say it makes them feel
weak, makes them feel bad. What we=ve seen in ourhorses post race is that these horses lose a tremendous
amount of weight. We weigh them the morning after
they=ve hydrated all night long, and horses will lose
anywhere from 35 pounds on up. A bucket of water
weighs 40 pounds and these horses will usually drink acouple of buckets of water from the time they=re cooled
out until the next morning. They=ve consumed 80
pounds of water, yet still they=ve lost 35 pounds on up.
We had one filly last summer that lost 100 pounds.
No one could believe she lost that much weight, so wewalked her across the scales twice to verify. She had
only been administered 3 cc=s of Lasix. She ran in
Chicago and won the race, yet lost 100 pounds.
Trainers in this day and age understand that it takes
anywhere from four weeks to seven or eight weeks torecover from a race. In earlier days, horses ran every
two weeks. That was ideal and that was because they
didn=t have to deal with the metabolic stress ofdehydration combined with the stress of a race. I reallyfeel like my horses are healthier and happier and arerunning well.
TDN: What about your trainers? Was it difficult toconvince them to compete without Lasix?
BC: Eoin Harty trains the bulk of the my horses andShannon Ritter and Bob Dunham train a couple for me.
All of them were very receptive. Eoin had run horses in
Dubai without Lasix and comes from a European
background and understands that horses perform very
well without Lasix. We won the Dubai World Cup withWell Armed and Well Armed ran the biggest race heever ran in his life without Lasix. Eoin was very
receptive to it. In fact, my horses aren=t the only onesin his stable that run without Lasix
TDN: While you may have convinced Eoin Harty thatrunning without Lasix is a plus, the majority of trainers
are adamant that they have to have it, despite theevidence you have provided. Why do you think so many
trainers believe Lasix is vital?
BC: We have a whole generation of trainers andowners that have never run a horse without it. In theirhearts they truly believe these horses cannot perform
without it. They are creatures of habit and they gothrough certain routines before they run their horses
and once they establish a routine that they feel
comfortable with, a routine that they=ve won races
with, they want to keep using that same routine. They
truly believe that a majority of their horses will bleed.

Bill Casner Q&A cont.

We=ve scoped our horses after they run and only asmall percentage havebled. About 10% of ourhorses have bled after
running without Lasix.
One of the contributing
factors, and I don=t haveany science or data to
support this, but wehave seen with thehorses that have bled isthat a common factor isthat we haveadministered butazolidin
the day before. Now,
we don=t run with bute,either. Bute is a very
caustic drug. It=s not
Bill & Susan Casnereven used in human
Benoit photo
medicine muchanymore. It is a drugthat has whole litany of side effects. We have foundthat by removing both meds that our horses are notbleeding and are running very well. Horses will bemoving good and training well, yet trainers will givethem bute in case they have some sort of niggling
soreness. I believe that butazolidin is a medication thatmost horses don=t need.
TDN: The anti-Lasix camp has gained a lot ofmomentum recently. Do you believe that, say withinfour or five years, the sport will actually be drug-free, atleast at the highest levels?
BC: Change generally takes time. You have to takebaby steps. With the commitment the owners have
made, with a group that continues to grow that has
pledged to run their 2-year-olds without Lasix, that is
an important step. It becomes a re-education process.
When an owner asks his trainer not to run on Lasix andthe horse performs well and does not bleed, the trainers
will start to understand that perhaps this isn=t anecessity, that giving a horse Lasix isn=t as paramountas they thought. It will happen. This will be the firstyear the Breeders= Cup will run the 2-year-old races
without Lasix, Kentucky has passed a rule that in 2014
the 2-year-old stakes races will not be run with Lasix.
New York, possibly, will be the next state to follow. As
one state goes, I think they will all go over a period oftime.