Recent research indicates that endoscopic examination of yearlings can help determine their eventual racing success. However, researchers also showed that certain abnormalities previously considered to be indicators of poor performance were not predictive of actual athletic performance in the adult horse.

Veterinarians “scope” a horse’s upper respiratory tract to look for any deformities of the soft palate or epiglottis, and to watch the movement of the arytenoid cartilages at rest (the laryngeal cartilages that if not functioning properly can’t move out of the horse’s airway, thus blocking air flow). These assessments have tremendous impact on sale recommendations and selling price.

Investigators in the study were Jim Morehead, DVM, of Equine Medical Associates in Lexington, Ky.; John Peloso, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, a partner in the Equine Medical Center of Ocala, Fla.; and John Stick, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, Professor and Chief of Staff at Michigan State University’s Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences. Other MSU investigators were Frederik J. Derksen, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, Chair of the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences; James Lloyd, DVM, PhD; and Pawin Padungtod, DVM.

The researchers collected information from the endoscopic exams of 427 Thoroughbred yearlings in 1996, and they followed the horses’ racing careers over the next four years. Of the original group, 364 established race records