Horse Health & Management
BY DENISE STEFFANUS
RIPLE CROWN hopeful I’ll Have
Another wore a nasal strip for every start
in his seven-race career, in which he
posted five wins and a game second. With
New York being the only state to ban the butterfly
patch worn just above the nostrils, the big question
leading up to the Belmont Stakes (G1) was how the
dual classic winner would fare without his nasal
strip.
I’ll Have Another was scratched from the Belmont with a tendon injury the day before the race,
so we’ll never know how racing without a nasal
strip may have affected his performance. But
Howard Erickson, D.V.M., Ph.D., at Kansas State
University, who participated in the yeoman’s share
of the nasal-strip research, thinks it may have made
a difference.
“It’s hard to say, but it might have,” Erickson
commented. “That horse was trained more for
longer distances … I’ll Have Another might have
had an edge in the Belmont anyway, but I think
the Flair nasal strip might have protected his lungs
and prevented bleeding and improved gas exchange, but we’ll never know that. I think [the
nasal strip] certainly could have improved his
stamina.”
T
How nasal strips work
When a horse breathes in, it creates a vacuum
that both draws in the soft tissues right behind the
horse’s nostrils and may suck blood out of the capillaries of the lungs, worsening bleeding. If the
nasal passages are held open by a nasal strip, the
theory is that a horse will have to exert less nega-
tive pressure (vacuum) on its capillaries to breathe
in.
Ed Blach, D.V.M., one of the developers of the
nasal strip, explained in an interview in 2000 the
significance of keeping the nasal passages open.
“From a physics standpoint in a very simplistic
example, if the airway radius is one inch and it reduces itself by one-tenth of an inch because of the
collapse, the multiplier effect it has on the other
factors calculates to a 37% reduction,” Blach said.
“Basically, you don’t have to affect a significant
measurement difference to have a fairly significant
effect on pressure.”
Not a performance
enhancer
Controversy persists about whether the commonly used diuretic Salix is a performance enhancer. That same question now arises about nasal
strips because of their ability to delay fatigue. Do
they enhance performance?
“It returns them to normal performance rather
than performance enhancement,” Erickson said.
“You have the nasal passages collapsing and
very negative pressure, and that results in
more transmural pressure and bleeding into
the lungs. If you have blood within the lungs,
you don’t have good gas exchange.”
Erickson explained that wearing a nasal strip
enables a horse to run as it would if it were not
bleeding.
“Horses are obligate nasal breathers, unlike
human athletes who can breathe through the mouth
as well,” he said. “So nasal strips are actually more
beneficial for the horse than they are the human
athlete.”
The only racing jurisdiction that bans nasal
strips is the New York Racing Association, which
governs Thoroughbred racing only. Standardbred
racehorses in New York are permitted to wear nasal
strips.
After nasal strips first were introduced at the
1999 Breeders’ Cup in Florida, NYRA already was
casting a wary eye on the new piece of equipment.
Then-NYRA President Terry Meyocks asked racing official Ted Hill, V.M.D., to look into them.
One primary concern was that collapsing nasal
passages may be nature’s way to prevent dirt and
other particles from lodging deep within the
horse’s lungs when it breathes in. Meyocks was
concerned nasal strips might interfere with these
natural defenses by holding a horse’s nasal passages wide open.
“That was on the list of questions we had about
the product,” Hill said. “I think that was discounted
pretty quickly.”
Hill said their key concern at the time was the
manufacturer’s claims of effectiveness without
ample supporting studies. Today, NYRA’s concern
Horse Health & Management in this issue
30 July 21, 2012
Healthy Horse:
Aiding the
healing
process
Farm
Management:
Fewer horses on
same acreage
Product
Spotlight:
For farm and
track
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THOROUGHBRED TIMES
Benoit & Associates
What exactly is a Flair nasal strip?
The Flair nasal strip is a 4x6-inch butterflyshaped patch that is attached over a
horse’s nasal passages about one inch
above the nostrils and held in place by a
special adhesive. The patch material
resembles a cross between cardboard and
duct tape. The strip’s spring tension holds
the horse’s nasal passages open to
maximize air flow
is how to regulate nasal strips. If
they are a highly effective piece of
equipment, as the manufacturer
claims, regulations should require a
horse that races wearing a nasal strip
to wear a strip each time it races. On
the other hand, if a nasal strip does
not significantly affect performance
and therefore does not need to be
regulated, the manufacturer needs to
concede it has no more impact than a
tongue tie or a figure-eight noseband.
“We can’t have it both ways—it
either is significant or not significant,” Hill said.
“What was really the case is that if
we were going to treat nasal strips
like blinkers or a bar shoe, which
have to be announced to the public,
what were we going to do if a horse
came to the paddock and [the nasal
strip] fell off and it couldn’t be put
back on?” Hill said. “Should we disregard it, should we scratch the
horse? That was never resolved. So
we decided we just weren’t going to
allow them.”
Hill said the ban on nasal strips has
not been an issue with trainers, and
until I’ll Have Another’s intention to
run in the Belmont without a nasal
strip, it had not come up for discussion.
“I don’t remember a single trainer
ever coming to me or any of the other
stewards saying they wanted to use [a
nasal strip] or wanting to revisit it. So
it became a nonissue,” he said.
Hill said any horseman who wants
to open the discussion about lifting
the ban on nasal strips needs to petition the New York State Racing and
Wagering Board and NYRA to reopen the discussion.
“We’d be happy to do that,” he
added.
Speaking personally as a veterinarian and not as a steward, Hill said if
he were a trainer or owner, he did not
know if he would use nasal strips, but
he has no objection to them.
“I’m not totally convinced by the
research,” he said.
Pricey strip
Prior to the 1999 Breeders’ Cup,
nasal strip manufacturer CNS Inc.
distributed 4,000 samples of nasal
strips to trainers throughout North
America. About 30 horses went post-
ward in that year’s Breeders’ Cup
wearing the strips, including all
horses trained by D. Wayne Lukas.
After the marketing blitz, nasal
strips went on sale at tack shops for
$60 for a six-pack. These one-timeuse strips continue to fetch from
$10.50 a piece in Kentucky to $13.50
a piece in Florida. While they cost
about the same as four elastic racing
bandages, several trainers who were
asked about the price felt it was too
high for the product, while others felt
$10 was a small price to pay for reducing bleeding and potentially increasing a horse’s stamina.
Nasal strip studies
Researchers at Kansas State University designed four studies to test the manufacturer’s
claims that nasal strips decrease the work of breathing and reduce exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH, or “bleeding”). Additional studies were conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of California-Davis, Michigan State
University, and Kentucky Equine Research. With the exception of the early study at the University of Illinois (researchers there concluded nasal strips had no effect), all studies supported the manufacturer’s claims.
The studies conducted by Kansas State looked at a variety of aspects:
• Researchers compiled statistics for 400 racing Thoroughbreds at Calder Race Course
in Florida. Horses wearing a nasal strip had a win percentage 3.4% higher than horses that
did not wear a strip. Horses wearing a nasal strip also had a 15% decrease in the interval
between races (23 days) compared with the race-to-race interval before wearing a nasal
strip (29 days). The study was published in 2007.
• A small treadmill study of only six Thoroughbreds exercising at near-maximal effort until
fatigue observed how horses fared while wearing a nasal strip alone, while medicated with the
bleeder medication furosemide (Salix) alone, and while medicated with furosemide and wearing a nasal strip. The researchers found that wearing a nasal strip was as effective as administering furosemide when it came to delaying the onset of fatigue.
• Researchers conducted a similar high-speed treadmill study on five Thoroughbreds.
Cells washed out of the horse’s airway (bronchoalveolar lavage) showed that horses wearing a nasal strip bleed less into their lungs. However, the study also concluded, “... there
was no further reduction in EIPH when wearing [a nasal strip] and medicated with
furosemide.”
• Seven horses exercised on a high-speed treadmill with and without a nasal strip
showed horses wearing a nasal strip had a significant reduction in red blood cells recovered
from their lungs.
Studies at other institutions:
• U.C.-Davis: At Golden Gate Fields, 23 racing Thoroughbreds administered Salix four
hours before they raced were divided into horses wearing a nasal strip and those without a
strip. The mean red-blood cell count in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in horses with severe
bleeding was significantly reduced when they wore a nasal strip.
• Michigan State: Six horses with and without nasal strips were exercised on a highspeed treadmill. Horses wearing a nasal strip had a reduced vacuum exerted on their airway
when breathing in, leading researchers to conclude that nasal strips probably reduce the
work of breathing.
• Kentucky Equine Research in Lexington used eight Thoroughbreds on a high-speed
treadmill for its study comparing nasal-strip use and Salix. Nasal strips reduced the work of
breathing, and the researchers concluded that the energy spared by nasal strips could benefit muscles of locomotion.—Denise Steffanus
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THOROUGHBRED TIMES
July 21, 2012 31