Latest News – The Horse

Busy training schedules and fears about injury often limit pasture access for performance horses. Prolonged stall confinement, however, can be detrimental to a horse’s attitude. Boredom can lead to destructive behaviors, including weaving, pawing, and ingestion of bedding. Recently, researchers from Southampton and Leicestershire in the United Kingdom, collaborated on a study to examine the

There are limited options for effective treatment of horses with lameness due to chronic laminitis. A common practice involves therapeutic shoeing, which is intended to reduce pain, aid in healing, and help return the horse to activity. Recently, researchers from Texas A&M University examined four types of therapeutic shoes to determine their effectiveness at rapidly reducing pain and

Because of the demands of competition and sales, following the natural reproductive cycle dictated by Mother Nature often doesn’t fit into man’s breeding program. While Mother Nature’s time frame stipulates that the mare should be receptive to the stallion in late spring/early summer to produce a foal when the grass is green and the weather is warm, man, as steward of the horse, often has

Now is the time to make improvements to your pastures in order to have the best and most nutritious grazing for your horses next spring. A well-maintained pasture also offers a practical and economic break for you, as well. Through pasturing, your feed and supplement costs are likely to be reduced, particularly if you have a mature, idle horse, or a mare in the early stages of gestation. Plus

When feeding horses at pasture or in large paddocks, it can often be a challenge to make sure each horse gets his share of the feed, while reducing waste and feed contamination. Management is the key to successfully feeding horses in a group setting, minimizing social stress and nutritional problems.

I purchased my horse a year ago knowing he had some aggression problems. He is great around people, just not around other horses. Unfortunately, when he attacks, he goes for the throat just behind the jaw line.

My yearling Standardbred colt has been diagnosed with a dentigerous cyst by the veterinarian. Can you possibly give me some information on this type of cyst?

I just read your excellent article “The Latest on Laminitis by Karen Briggs. Is laminitis an inheritable disease? What about founder?

I think we have seen over and over again that it is beneficial to stress the bones of a horse when they are most adaptive. This optimal adaptive period would seem to be when the horse is still in an active growth stage. We have all seen many cases where a certain type of injury (e.g., apical sesamoid fractures in foals, coffin bone fractures in foals, etc.) can be tolerated at an early

On the list of injuries a horse might acquire, “popping a splint” is considered, at most, an inconvenience that requires laying the affected horse off his normal routine. However, when it keeps happening, that little inconvenience can become a major nuisance and perhaps a surgical problem.

Old Friends, the Kentucky-based operation that hopes to give the public access to visit retired Thoroughbred stallions, could open its doors at Afton Farm near Midway, Ky., as early as next March.

Ray Paulick, editor in chief of The Blood-Horse and executive vice president and editorial director of Blood-Horse Publications, has been selected as the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ (AAEP) equine industry representative on the group’s board of directors. His term will begin during the AAEP’s 49th Annual Convention in New Orleans, La., November 21-25, 2003, and run

The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) recently released a brochure about vesicular stomatitis (VS) for the horse owner. VS is a contagious disease that afflicts horses, livestock, wildlife, and humans. Although the virus that causes VS is rarely life-threatening, it can have a significant financial impact on the horse industry because symptoms resemble those of foot-and-mout

The West Yorkshire Police in the United Kingdom have made a public appeal for new horses for the unit, according to a report in the online edition of Horse and Hound. This is the third time the force has requested “gift” horses, and this request follows budget cuts and a number of retirements of police mounts.

West Yorkshire Police horses are used for high-visibility patrols,