Latest News – The Horse

The National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA) has adopted a position on medication and drug testing that states any changes in policies in each jurisdiction should be enacted only after there is scientific evidence that specific therapeutic drugs shouldn’t be used in racehorses.

The National HBPA supports efforts by the national Racing Medication and Testin

Will spring ever come? I don’t know about where you live, but I’m tired of cold weather, frozen water tanks, and frozen ground that then turns into a muddy quagmire the few days it gets above freezing. This hasn’t made for good training for the young police horses.

They’re growing. Fast. I’m going to try and take them this weekend to get weighed. Got a weight tape from Purina, so I’ll

The structural appearance of the foot is continually being modified by the interactions of the foot with the environment and the environment’s influences on the foot and hoof wall. The term environmental influences includes just about everything that the horse has come into contact with since birth, including the extent of movement, ground surfaces, trimming and shoeing procedures or the lack of

Cribbing, the oral stereotypic behavior in which the horse grabs an object with his teeth while flexing his neck and sometimes swallowing air, has long been suspected as a cause of colic.

Mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in the United States highlighted the need to have all livestock–including horses–identified and easily traced. While some states have required equine identification programs in place now (such as Louisiana), there are grumblings from some horse owners about “big brother” becoming involved in the horse industry.

The identification

Tetanus, or lockjaw, is an often fatal disease caused by the anaerobic (grows in low oxygen conditions)bacterium, Clostridium tetani. The spores of C. tetani are commonly present in the soil and can contaminate puncture wounds, crushing wounds, open lacerations, surgical incisions, and the umbilici of foals. Upon gaining entrance to the body, they produce a powerful

Samuel Johnson once said that, “Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.” This old adage definitely applies to Days End Farm Horse Rescue, a 501(c)(3) non-profit equine rescue and humane education facility founded by Kathy and Allan Schwartz in 1989 and located in Lisbon, Md.
Unfortunately, Days End has outgrown its current property, which is leased to the

“We believe that this technique (MRI) could revolutionize the assessment of certain musculoskeletal lesions of the distal limb,” Mair said. “MRI has many advantages over other conventional imaging techniques. MRI does not use ionizing radiation and provides multiplanar, 3-D imaging capabilities.

If you’ve had equine cases of West Nile virus (WNV) pop up in your county, most of the equids in the area probably were exposed to the disease or even infected by the time those infections occurred. That is why it’s extremely important to vaccinate horses at least two months before the WNV season.

“Ultrasound was the sole means of diagnosis (of pelvic fracture) in 13 horses and was corroborated by nuclear scintigraphy or radiography in the remaining 15 cases,” Almanza said. “Ultrasound was able to provide excellent detail of the bony contours of the fracture sites and was useful in identifying associated muscle tearing and hematoma formation.”

“The results of this study strongly support the use of ultrasound to diagnose soft tissue and bony abnormalities of the entire shoulder region,” Whitcomb stated. She also noted that lesions of the infraspinatus tendon and bursa had not previously been reported, but were found in this study.

Many options for treating equine ailments exist–some are more traditionally performed by veterinarians in some regions, and some are often labeled as alternative therapies and might tend to fall more to non-veterinarians. Who can legally handle the treatments that are not always performed by veterinarians can be a sticky problem, which is compounded by the fact that in the United

A packed room during the AAEP’s Racing Forum held sometimes heated discussions about the facts and nuances of the on-going Racing Medication and Testing Consortium’s (RMTC) attempt to create a uniform medication policy for racing in the United States. Milton McClure, DVM, a racetrack practitioner from Bossier City, La., chaired the session that centered around information presented by Scott

While some forum discussions at the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) annual convention are fairly small affairs, that wasn’t true of the 2003 podiatry forum. About 65 veterinarians and farriers filled the room to discuss diagnostic analgesia, pads, Strasser trimming, ultrasound, and much more.

Tracy Turner, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVS, a professor of equine surgery at the