Two More Thoughts on the Hearings

Two more thoughts on the recent Congressional hearings. The first is about medical records; the second about the Triple Crown and steroids.

With regard to medical records, a few years ago I was hired by the Lebanon Pennsylvania Veterans Hospital to write their history. Now I know that VA hospitals have come under a lot of attack in recent days and the one in Lebanon, Pa is probably a little better than most, but one thing that is truly astounding about all VA hospitals is the computerized medical record keeping system they have installed across all their facilities. The doctors no longer write orders--they type them into a mobile computer that travels with them as they make rounds. No more mistakes due to unreadable handwriting for starters and these records are entered into a central VA system. That means that a vet who wants to get his/her meds. in Florida, where they go for the winter, can. Or the vet who was displaced after Hurricane Katrina still has access to his/her medical records. Pretty nifty--and I should note, your taxes paid for it.

Still, it astounds me to think that horses do not have medical records that travel with them when they are sold, claimed or passed from one owner, trainer to the next. When you take your dog to Penn Vet for heavens sake, you have to bring his/her medical records and proof of vaccination to even get an appointment.

I know vets keep records. Whey can't they travel with a horse? Or to put it another way, think of what they are hiding. I am not advocating a centralized medical record keeping system for horses--it is violently expensive and who would foot that bill?--but I do think it is a travesty that it is not a requirement of sale that medical records come with the horse.

The second thought is about the impact of steroids on the Triple Crown. For one, can you imagine how the concept of the Triple Crown would have been tarnished if Big Brown, a horse known to be on steroids, had won? Would it have lost its prestige? And how can those states in which the Triple Crown races are conducted permit steroids for just that reason? I think we are moving toward a state wide ban of steroids but I also think there will always be those who push the envelope to see how far they can go before they get caught.

To me the obvious answer is federal oversight and I just hope it happens in my lifetime.