The horse racing industry is continuously working to make the sport safer for all parties involved, and in 2008, the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) mandated the use of synthetic track in an attempt to reduce the number of catastrophic injuries that took place on California racing surfaces. To see if the switch was a success, Rick Arthur, DVM, the equine medical director of the CHRB,

A new fund has been established at the Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (VDL) to help support research related to diagnosing equine dermatology problems. The fund was created in memory of a horse who was euthanized as the result of a minor scrape on his fetlock.

According to a report filed by the New Zealand-based website Horsetalk, Icelandic authorities will discontinue export quarantine protocol for an upper respiratory tract infection that plagued the island nation earlier in 2010. According to the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST), authorities halted the export of horses from Iceland from May 1 to Sept. 14 to prevent the spread of the

The holiday season is once again upon us! Here at our home office in Lexington, Ky., we are fortunate enough to be celebrating a white Christmas this year. Today, we are spending the day with our families (both two- and four-legged!), and we hope you are doing the same. Our goal all year long is the bring you the latest and most informative horse health care information, and we sincerely appreciat

Equine welfare and the growing population of horses needing homes are quickly becoming some of the major challenges that veterinarians face on a daily basis, according to Tom Lenz, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACT, chairman of the Unwanted Horse Coalition, who delivered the keynote speech, entitled “Horse Welfare Wars: When Emotion and Fact Collide,” at the 2010 Annual American Association of Equine

A second horse from New York-based racehorse trainer Chris Englehart’s string has tested positive for equine herpesvirus (EHV) in the wake of a 4-year-old Thoroughbred filly contracting and subsequently being euthanized as a result of the disease.

A Maryland horse rescue has launched a clever fundraising effort that some might say takes the cake. Days End Farm and Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, Md., have teamed up to offer one lucky eBay bidder the opportunity to spend an afternoon with the stars of the Food Network’s hit television show Ace of Cakes, Duff Goldman and Geof Manthorne.

A breeding stallion in West Sussex, England, has tested positive for equine viral arteritis (EVA), according to a report filed by the British equestrian magazine Horse & Hound. The confirmation of the EVA was announced Dec. 8.

“The AAEP feels it’s very important to try to bring vets and farriers together,” said Steve O’Grady, DVM, MRCVS. “The AAEP accomplishes that by providing quality continuing education for both veterinarians and farriers and by bringing farriers and vets to a group of presentations at the convention where they can sit down together and learn.”

After unearthing and examining several equine skeletons in the late 1980s from a stable in the buried village of Pompeii, Italy, researchers believed that they had discovered a new, albeit now extinct, breed of horse. Testing performed roughly 10 years later revealed genetic material for what they thought was an exotic hybrid animal that contained two types of DNA: that of a horse and a …

Two separate research teams have identified the myostatin gene as a crucial indicator of athletic ability in a Thoroughbred’s genetic makeup and are continuing to study the potential of this marker for race distance selection.

A horse died Nov. 23 after a fall in the show jumping phase in the modern pentathlon competition at the 2010 Asian Games, which are currently under way in Guangzhou, China.

Nearly 900 readers of TheHorse.com responded to a poll asking, ” How do you keep your horses’ water in the barn from freezing during the winter?”

Mosquito-borne illness in horses has been a hot topic this summer with several states reporting a record number of positive test results for Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE). According to the USDA’s National Animal Health Surveillance System (NAHSS), this year a total of 228 confirmed EEE cases were reported nationwide as of Nov. 12.

A ribbon cutting ceremony was held Nov. 17 to celebrate the impending opening of the new Lexington Equine Surgery and Sports Medicine, located in Lexington, Ky.

An innovative new organization has been founded to assist horse owners who need help providing feed for their animals. Stamp Out Starvation (SOS) of Horses was founded in October by a group of Georgia equestrians who were all too familiar with assisting malnourished and mistreated horses.