Bleeding Horses

[Stables 577]

I understand that many trainers treat horses for viruses by taking large amounts of blood from them. The idea behind this practice is to take out bad blood and replace it with new rejuvenated blood. In one case I heard 10 litres of blood was removed. Horses have between 45 to 55 litres of blood. I find it hard to believe that this amount of blood could be removed without the horse going into shock. Has anybody else heard of this procedure for treating viruses in racehorses. I had thought that we had moved on a little bit in veterinary medicine from medieval procedures such as this.

Edited October 31, 2018 by Stables
spelling mistake

[CosmicBlackie 128]

Hi Stables

When I was involved(20 odd years ago)it was a common practice, and part of the treatment procedure. You’d tie the horse up in a cross tie and a lead to keep their head up and a large needle into the jugular. You’d place a bucket underneath to catch the blood, up to 10 litres. The lead would keep the horse from putting their head down and passing out, you’d watch and make sure it didn’t get to that point. Was it successful? Hard to know in isolation but with drugs etc, part of the routine. Some very experienced vets were involved. Cheers

[Stables 577]

Thanks Cosmic. Did you observe any disasters from this procedure. How long did it take the horses to recover?

[CosmicBlackie 128]

No, no disasters, pretty controlled with the expensive horse flesh involved. I think you let them stand for another 30-60 mins and they just walk off as normal. They’d usually be having a small break anyway after that.

[crustyngrizzly 1,700]

1 hour ago, Stables said:

I understand that many trainers treat horses for viruses by taking large amounts of blood from them. The idea behind this practice is to take out bad blood and replace it with new rejuvenated blood. In one case I heard 10 litres of blood was removed. Horses have between 45 to 55 litres of blood. I find it hard to believe that this amount of blood could be removed without the horse going into shock. Has anybody else heard of this procedure for treating viruses in racehorses. I had thought that we had moved on a little bit in veterinary medicine from medieval procedures such as this.

Sounds like something that the Finnish runner Lasse Viren used to do.

[CosmicBlackie 128]

Hi Crusty, a little.

He was training at altitude and harvesting the blood, storing it, then coming down to sea level he would swap the harvest out with his blood and compete with the high octane in his system

[Lee270744 684]

8 hours ago, Stables said:

I understand that many trainers treat horses for viruses by taking large amounts of blood from them. The idea behind this practice is to take out bad blood and replace it with new rejuvenated blood. In one case I heard 10 litres of blood was removed. Horses have between 45 to 55 litres of blood. I find it hard to believe that this amount of blood could be removed without the horse going into shock. Has anybody else heard of this procedure for treating viruses in racehorses. I had thought that we had moved on a little bit in veterinary medicine from medieval procedures such as this.

Can you find out where they get the rejuvenated blood from?

[CosmicBlackie 128]

Hi Lee

Surely it comes from the horses own bone marrow. When we were doing it, the horse was never topped up with any other blood product, just let nature produce more.

Cheers

[Stables 577]

Yes the horse regenerates its own blood. If blood from any other source was used the horses immune system would reject it

[Lee270744 684]

Sorry, I thought you meant to rejuvenate the blood taken from the horse. And a lot of trainers that got horses from other trainers took precautions and bled them to start afresh not knowing what the other one had given it.

[Stables 577]

You may be thinking of Blood boosting. This is a method where blood is removed, stored and reinjected at a later date thereby boosting the horses red blood cell count. This is strictly against the rules of racing