Amoss: 'Compromises need to be made' amid Lasix debate

Back in March, amid the temporary shutdown of racing and training at Santa Anita Park, trainer Tom Amoss anticipated “a great experiment” happening in California, where a full ban on Lasix had been proposed.

Why’s that?

“Those of us who think the vast majority of Thoroughbreds bleed, we’re going to find out,” Amoss said, “because now we’ve got a real-life situation in one part of the country where no Lasix will be allowed, and we’re going to see, finally, one way or the other, is Lasix important to racing as far as horses bleeding or not bleeding?

“It never came to pass because things settled down a little bit. Things changed a little bit.”

Eventually, horses racing at Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields were permitted to run on half the previous high threshold for Lasix. While that rule was introduced with a number of other safety protocols, and Santa Anita went more than a month without an equine fatality, a recent run of three deaths in nine days again put the Arcadia, Calif., track back in the news.

RELATE: Why Lasix ban would be a sensible step

Amoss, who recently won the Kentucky Oaks with Serengeti Empress and also serves as a TV racing analyst, was asked for his thoughts on Santa Anita on Friday’s NTRA media teleconference.

In full:

“The California situation is probably a bit mis-labeled, because to me, it’s the situation with racing in America, not just California. And so anyone that isolates it as a California situation…is not paying attention. This is a situation for Thoroughbred racing to recognize.

“I said it immediately after the Kentucky Oaks in the press conference: We’re at a real crossroads here in the United States, and that crossroads is the public perception of what Thoroughbred racing is. If we don’t get our message clearly out that shows that it’s about a love for the animal and we want to do everything we can to protect those equine athletes on the racetrack — if that message isn’t loud and clear from a unified voice in the Thoroughbred industry, I think we’re in trouble.

“And unified is a word that we don’t use much in Thoroughbred racing, because we don’t have it. It’s fractured. I realize that. And it’s fractured, as much as anything, due to medication reform and the things that go with it. I’ve said for a long, long time, I don’t care what they do with medication. They can get rid of it all, but the one thing I know to be important is Lasix.

“I say that as someone who’s been in the industry since I was a kid and has worked on the backside that entire time — as someone who was an assistant trainer in New York when Lasix was not legal — and I watched what we did to try and simulate a shot of Lasix with the Thoroughbreds. It wasn’t always in the horse’s best interest what we did back then.

“But — and this is a big but — even though I’m firmly in the corner of Lasix, I am smart enough to recognize that it’s not just what I think, or what perhaps the majority of trainers think on the backside. It is about what the public thinks, because the issue is not so much Lasix versus no Lasix, although insiders know that that’s the case. The issue has become possibly horse racing versus no horse racing, and that’s when you have to take a step back, and you have to say ‘enough.’

“Compromises need to be made to have the public be a believer in our sport — to be a believer in the people that participate in our sport like myself. Then I’m willing to make that compromise, even though I may not agree with it personally. I’m telling you I don’t agree with it on my experience on the backside for all these years.

“I’m 57 years old. My first job was at age 15 on the backside — always paid attention. I was always trying to learn. I’ve done it all, from a vet assistant, to an assistant trainer, to a hotwalker, to a groom. But once again, I do realize that public perception is everything in our sport as it is in other things.

“It doesn’t take an HBO 15-minute segment for me to recognize that we have a real issue in horse racing, and the sides need to come together. By the sides, I’m talking about Lasix versus no Lasix, because really that’s what it’s boiling down to these days.”