Doping Racehorses with —- Viagra?

As we all need a dollop of weirdness ere now & again.

Sports  Illustrated is reporting from the CNN website the Italian Mafia was attempting to fix races by doping horses with … Viagra.  This unique application for the legal … um … ‘adult recreational’ drug of choice was – I think it safe to say – unforeseen by the developers and has not been through the standard clinical trials.

Money quote:

“It was not clear how Viagra affected the horses’ speed.”

Gosh.  I am glad we have them professional journalists, with ethics & all that there stuff, to inform us lowly slobs that it is unknown how human sex drugs affect horses.  Whodathunkit?

Second, what the devil?  I mean.  I mean.  I mean.   Who in the their right mind would even think there is a connection between running fast and – you know.  As a researcher and, I hope, a member of the Reality Based Community I tend to support and encourage scientific investigation.   But nude speed trials with some of the experimental subjects in a ‘certain condition’ (ipso phallic?) staggers even my warped imaginaton.  

Certainly the Ancient Greeks perfected the Noble Art of running-around-in-the-all-
together-in-front-of-God-and-everybody but it is my understanding it was not with a rigorous (so to speak) requirement.

But then, perhaps, my education lacks completeness.