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Hi-Ho, Steroids, Away!Why it matters that racehorses are on the juice.

By Daniel Engber
Posted Friday, June 27, 2008, at 3:10 PM ET
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty. Click image to expand.

The great horse-doping scandal of 2008 began last month when trainer Rick Dutrow admitted to giving his Thoroughbreds—including Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown—monthly injections of Winstrol, an anabolic steroid. "I don't know what it does," he explained. "I just like using it." Two days ago, the New York Times reported that Dutrow also enjoys using clenbuterol—a bronchial dilator that's been shown to induce muscle growth in cattle.

Did Dutrow's injections help Big Brown win the Derby? (Racing without the drug on June 8, the horse made a stunning last-place finish in the Belmont.) Could anabolic steroids have pushed the filly Eight Belles to break both her ankles in Churchill Downs? And what about Barbaro's shattered leg?

Mustering obligatory outrage, Congress called a hearing last week to investigate charges of fraud and animal cruelty. Dutrow called in sick for the hearing, but his Brian McNamee moment had already set off a binge of self-criticism in racing circles. The Jockey Club recommended a ban on all anabolic steroids; Big Brown's owners unilaterally volunteered to make their stable steroid-free; and racing officials proclaimed that horse-juicing would be eliminated in a matter of months. Witnesses on Capitol Hill spoke of "leveling the playing the field" and protecting the horses from unscrupulous trainers.

This posturing makes no sense. There's nothing unfair about horse-juicing, and it's not clear that anabolic steroids are harmful to the animals. As with almost every discussion of doping in professional sports, the case for prohibition is based on an unthinking, puritanical zeal for "natural performance" and bogus readings of the medical literature. But in this case, the lawmakers and industry officials happened to use the wrong arguments to reach the right conclusion. In fact, horse racing is the only major sport that should ban steroids from competition.

Before we get to that, let's look at the two standard arguments against horse-juicing: first, that it provides an unfair advantage to certain horses and owners; second, that it endangers the animals.

There's certainly a strong incentive to guarantee the fairness of Thoroughbred racing: $15 billion is wagered on the sport every year. It's clear, though, that anabolic steroids aren't skewing the odds. Every trainer has access to the drugs, and there's no rule against using them. Among the 38 states with horse racing, 28 have no regulations at all concerning anabolic steroids. (That includes the three states that host Triple Crown races.) The remaining 10 states have a partial ban that makes an exception for four drugs—including Winstrol. And in the states with more stringent rules, the prohibitions apply only on race day, not during the months of training that come before. In other words, there's nothing on the books to stop a guy like Dutrow from juicing his horses on a regular basis. Indeed, "most all" trainers use anabolic steroids to help Thoroughbreds recover from their workouts, according to senior track veterinarian Larry Bramlage. If everyone has access to steroids, then how is it cheating to use them?

Plenty of "performance-enhancing" technologies are embraced in horse racing, including many that clearly cause harm to the animals. It's not cheating, for example, to make your horse go faster by whipping its shoulder with a riding crop or to inject it with furosemide, a drug that prevents bleeding in the lungs and may improve racing times. Breeders cross and recross lines to produce animals of freakish proportions, with broad, powerful upper bodies and spindly knees and ankles. A colt that isn't developing properly may undergo a surgical procedure to straighten its legs. There's nothing natural about any of this, but there's nothing "unfair" about it, either.

What about the health problems associated with anabolic steroids? Rick Arthur, the equine medical director of the California Horse Racing Board, argues that they "change the horse both physically and mentally." When the state passed its partial ban in January 2007, Arthur proclaimed that "anabolic steroids allow horses to train harder. Perhaps, too hard. … [E]liminating [them] could very well have a favorable long-term impact on the longevity of horses' racing careers." (PDF)

On the surface, it might seem like more animals are dying in competition than ever before. A sudden (but temporary) spike in the yearly death totals for California racehorses prompted Arthur's concern. Two weeks ago, the Associated Press published a survey that connected the deaths of Barbaro and Eight Belles to a series of shocking numbers about the sport: Thoroughbred racetracks have reported more than 5,000 deaths since 2003, or about three every day.

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Daniel Engber is an associate editor at Slate. He can be reached at .
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty. Photograph of syringe on Slate's home page by Paul Tearle/Stockbyte/Getty Images.
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