There’s something a bit mystical about vaccination. We inject an antigenic material from a tiny plastic cylinder into our horses’ necks and it triggers reactions at the cellular level that prepare their immune systems to fight bugs. So when they encounter another horse that’s shedding virus or bacteria and that horse coughs, sneezes, or smears snot on a common surface, our vaccinated horses are less likely to get sick. Or, if they do become infected, the clinical signs won’t be as severe as they would be if they hadn’t been vaccinated.

I’ve observed that scheduling vaccinations is like clockwork for most of our readersÑit’s simply what we do, especially if we haul to places where groups of horses congregate or if we live in places with mosquitoes or other disease vectors (the latter applying to pretty much all of us)