A horse’s active competition schedule can make managing and treating respiratory problems challenging. | Photo: iStock

Managing respiratory allergies and airway disease in most horses is fairly straightforward: You adapt their environment to be easier on their lungs, and you treat them with corticosteroids and bronchodilators. When tackling these conditions in elite sport horses, however, veterinarians and owners face a few more challenges.

Fe ter Woort, DVM, DVSc, Dipl. ACVIM, of Equine Sports Medicine Practice, in Waterloo, Belgium, reviewed how to best manage respiratory allergies in this horse population during the 2019 British Equine Veterinary Association Congress, held Sept. 11-14, in Birmingham, U.K.

The Challenges They Face

“Modern sport horses are nothing like your average pleasure horses,” ter Woort said, describing several reasons why they’re uniquely at risk of airway