To help ensure the world’s top eventing, dressage, and jumping horses feel, look, and perform their best at the Olympic Games, teams of top horse health experts gathered at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Here’s an inside look at the extensive horse-health system operating behind the scenes at the Games.

The veterinary-services team for Paris 2024 numbered around 90 veterinarians, said Göran Åkerström, DVM, veterinary director of the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI).

Olympic veterinarians serve in various specialized capacities. Besides treating sick or injured horses, their roles also include dealing with issues pertaining to biosecurity, transportation of horses to and from the Olympic venue, anti-doping controls, and measuring horses’ limb sensitivity (to catch illegal hypersensitivity measures taken to make jumping horses leerier about hitting obstacles).

“I’m the one that writes the report to the FEI on the Games, reporting all the details of what’s occurred,” said Emily Sandler-Burtness, DVM, Paris 2024 FEI foreign veterinary delegate, FEI Level 4 veterinarian, of Coast Equine Veterinary Services, in Ramona, California. “I stamp the (horses’) passports. It’s a little more of a regulatory role.”

Veterinarian Roles at Olympic Horse Inspections

As foreign veterinary delegate, Sandler-Burtness served as one of four veterinary delegates at Paris 2024. One of this group’s primary duties took place before each equestrian discipline’s competition even began—at the horse inspection.

In any FEI competition, officials do not accept horses into the competition (placed on the start list) until the animals undergo inspection. One at a time, riders lead their horses into the designated inspection area, then trot them in-hand up and down a short track while the veterinary officials and that discipline’s ground jury (the judges) look on.

“We’re looking for a horse that’s fit to do the competition—that’s likely going to be able to complete the competition without further problems,” Sandler-Burtness explained. “We’re looking for a baseline fit to compete in all ways. They’re physically healthy, they’re sound, all of those things. It’s not merely lameness.”

At the Olympics, horses undergo inspection a second time before the final phase of their competitions. For event horses inspected the morning after cross-country, it’s not unheard of to see one start off a bit stiff—and that’s where the ground jury makes a judgment call on “fit to compete,” possibly with input from the veterinary officials.

“Ultimately it’s the ground jury’s decision whether they deem a horse fit to compete or not,” Sandler-Burtness said. “If there are doubts, we have something called a holding box, where another very experienced delegate can have a look at that horse and see, does he have just-a-little-bit-sore feet, or is there a problem brewing that could injure the horse if it moves forward?”

On-Site Equine Veterinary and Farrier Care at the Olympic Games

The Paris 2024 Olympic equestrian venue at Versailles featured a clinic with three treatment stalls and three treatment areas, said Sandler-Burtness. The clinic could handle any needs for ultrasonography, radiography, and endoscopy, and it offered an on-site laboratory.

Should a horse require advanced imaging, such as MRI or CT, the Center for Imaging and Research on Equine Locomotor Disorders (CIRALE) located in Goustranville, stood ready, Sandler-Burtness said.  

The only other issue that couldn’t be handled on site was surgery. “We have a padded stall here if we needed to anesthetize one for a reason,” said Sandler-Burtness. A horse needing colic surgery or fracture repair, for instance, would be transported to the designated referral hospital (the Clinique Vétérinaire de Grosbois in Boissy Saint Léger).

“Anne (Couroucé), our veterinary services manager, has done an outstanding job of recruiting experts in imaging, internal medicine, and surgery,” Sandler-Burtness said.

Two farrier team leaders, both top French farriers, spearheaded the fully stocked forge station with four shoeing bays that could also be used by individual team farriers. In addition, a group of farriers was available on site.

Most nations bring their own team veterinarians and farriers with them to the Games, but not all do. Even for those that do, “we have these specialists to support them should there be any need,” said Sandler-Burtness. “We’re all here to ensure the welfare and safety of the horses. We do lots and lots of preparation and hope that we use none of it.”