ENHANCERS ISSUE 38_Jerkins feature.qxd 24/05/2012 10:33 Page 2
PERFORMANCE ENHANCERS
The performance enhancer paradox In Europe a gelding is not permitted to run in a Classic or the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe because it is regarded as having an advantage over a colt, while in America a horse can run with a nasal strip in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but not in the Belmont. Unravelling what is a logically acceptable improvement and what isn’t can, therefore, prove to be a minefield. WORDS: JOHN BERRY PHOTOS: HORSEPHOTOS.COM
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HE win by gelding Goldoni in the win-and-you’re-in Investec Derby Trial at Epsom has brought the issue of geldings’ participation in championship races back into focus, as has the emergence over the past 12 months of the gelded Cirrus des Aigles as arguably the best middle-distance horse in Europe. Geldings, of course, nowadays are eligible to run in several Group One races, but the Classics and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe remain closed to them, so Goldoni and Cirrus des Aigles won’t be lining up for what would otherwise have been their obvious main targets. In one sense, it is illogical to bar geldings from championship races, which obviously would only truly fulfill their purpose of identifying the best horses if they were open to all. However, in Europe it is felt that
artificially giving a horse an advantage (by castrating him) should not be part of the preparation for any of the races that matter the most, which means that geldings are barred from competing in them. This philosophy brings us neatly around to the ever-pertinent minefield of which performance-enhancing improvements to a horse are considered acceptable and which are not. This is an area in which it is almost impossible to introduce logical guidelines, because every aspect of training a horse is done with the sole purpose of enhancing his performance. For as long as men have been racing horses, we have been trying to enhance our charges’ performance. Consequently, a constant dilemma faced by the racing authorities has been to decide which performance-enhancing improvements are permissible and which are not. This is arguably hardest as regards
nutrition: naturally, the horse’s only normal nutrients are grass and water, so the differentiation between what constitutes an acceptable, normal ‘non-normal nutrient’ and what constitutes an unacceptable, abnormal ‘non-normal nutrient’ is never going to be an easy one. Dividing nutrients between food and drugs is far from straightforward, with most drugs coming from seemingly innocuous plants anyway. Over and above the debate over what a horse can or cannot eat, the dilemma of what tack can be used to enhance a horse’s performance can be similarly perplexing. Arguably one of the most contentious areas lies around the use of nasal strips, which one might have thought are as an innocuous a piece of tack as one could find. Obviously, the flow of air into a horse’s lungs during a race is of vital importance to him being able to perform to his full
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