Jay Merriam, DVM, and Adrienne Otto, DVM, freeze a sarcoid off a horse's ear as part of the Equitarian Initiative to provide care to animals in rural, developing nations. © Courtesy, Julie Wilson, DVM

When you travel in many parts of the world, it’s striking how many horses, mules and donkeys you’ll see toiling in the same traditional jobs that have existed for centuries: pulling plows, tending herds, hauling produce to markets and in many cases providing the only transportation their owners have. Most are working side by side with people in impoverished conditions.

If you love horses, as I have since I was a small child, scenes like these fill you with a mixture of emotions. It is gratifying to see how much people care about the horses, donkeys and mules they rely on so heavily. Losing an animal to injury is a significant setback; it can mean the difference between earning enough to live on, or not, and even a one-day lay-up for an animal could mean a catastrophic loss of income. And yet it also stings to notice animals with open sores, swollen joints or overgrown, cracking hooves who must continue to toil so that their owners can survive.

I first witnessed scenes like these as a 6-year-old, when my father worked at the American embassy in Madrid and we traveled through rural regions of Spain. As I grew older we spent more years abroad in places like Thailand and the Philippines. The cross-cultural experiences there brought more glimpses of the plight of people, and their animals, living in severe poverty.

As a high school student in the Philippines, I participated in community service projects in remote areas, one of which delivered medical care to indigenous people. After watching human surgery in a cinderblock schoolhouse with no roof, I knew I could stomach surgery on animals and become a veterinarian.

These experiences also nurtured a dream I’d had since those early years in Spain. Just as groups like Doctors Without Borders organize doctors and nurses to hold health clinics in underserved areas, I wanted to bring veterinarians to similar clinics to aid hard-working animals in places like these. These clinics would not just address the horses’ and donkeys’ immediate needs, they would also teach owners better techniques for ongoing care and nutrition. Not only would the animals’ daily lives get better, but they’d be able to work longer and more efficiently, which would improve the people’s lives as well.

But it takes an overwhelming amount of time, organization and commitment to bring about programs like these. I continued to nurture the thought as I went to school. Once I’d received my veterinary degree and specialty training in internal medicine, I was fortunate to be invited to lecture in many countries. The travel reinforced my interest in providing equine education and health care internationally. Wherever I went in Asia, Africa or Latin America, I saw horses, donkeys, mules and people in need.

Finally, a few years ago, after years of looking for a viable way forward to act on my dream, I found a large group of like-minded veterinarians, and together we created Equitarian Initiative. This nonprofit group trains veterinarians to provide health services and owner education in very poor areas, and in 2010 we launched our first successful workshop, where we treated more than 800 animals in Veracruz, Mexico. Here’s how it came about.

From idea to reality
My dream of building an organization like Equitarian Initiative finally began to take root in 2007, during the annual convention of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP), when Joe Bertone, DVM, DACVIM, of Western University of Health Sciences organized an informal meeting of veterinarians who had worked with international nonprofit organizations. We talked about our experiences and discussed the challenges of providing sustainable help to these very deserving horses, donkeys and mules. We all shared the goal of creating a new vehicle for action.

We had people present who could describe their work with several groups worthy of emulation:
• The Mongolia V.E.T. Net, a non-governmental organization that grew out of the Christian Veterinary Mission’s work to educate equine veterinarians in Mongolia.
• Project Samana, a group sponsored by the Massachusetts Veterinary Medical Association that cares for large and small animals and provides ongoing owner education in the Dominican Republic.
• Heifer International, a leading charity that provides livestock and education to impoverished families around the world to help them improve their nutrition and generate a sustainable income. I served on the board of directors for this group, and I also shared experiences from my teaching efforts in Latin America.

All of these groups are doing transformative work, but the need for more help is still so great in so many places around the globe. We all wanted to do more. Jay Merriam, DVM, of Project Samana coined the word “equitarian” to define the spirit of veterinarians and others interested in humanitarian work that benefits working equines: An equitarian is one who serves horses, donkeys and mules with compassion and whose only reward is their improved health and welfare.

Our next step was to catch the interest of the AAEP leadership and other members. At the 2008 AAEP convention, Merriam and I led ourfirst Table Topic on equitarian work. To our delight, it was standing room only, and a follow-up half-day program at the 2009 AAEP convention drew another large audience. Clearly, many North American veterinarians were interested in this kind of work, and more than a few were eager to find a way to get started.

So we had plenty of volunteers lining up. Now what? One of the speakers at the 2009 meeting was Mariano Hernandez Gil, DVM, an amazing young Mexican veterinarian who spoke about a program caring for the equines who haul garbage and recycling at the huge dump in Mexico City. This program partners students from the veterinary college in Mexico City (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, UNAM) with support from The Donkey Sanctuary (DS), a British charity, to provide much needed health care and owner education. The veterinary students gain valuable skills, both in social service and in hands-on training with the animals.

At the time of his presentation, Hernandez Gil was expanding that outreach program to serve poor villages in the state of Veracruz on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. UNAM’s agricultural research station has dormitories there and routinely houses students from the veterinary college. Mobile teams of veterinary students and faculty members come to each participating village for one day of work every six months.

To be effective, the program requires cooperation with the village leaders, who are responsible for encouraging the local animal owners to participate and letting them know when and where the veterinary team would be working. The DS/UNAM team also works in conjunction with a second British charity, World Horse Welfare, which trains local people to become farriers and harness makers, to provide these services to the animals at each village.

As he concluded his talk, Hernandez Gil offered a brilliant suggestion: Perhaps interested American veterinarians could spend a week with his program in Veracruz. The experience could serve as a training ground for starting other international programs. This was a terrific opportunity, and we immediately began investigating how we could make it happen.

Now we just had to raise funds. We put together a grant proposal to the AAEP Foundation to help subsidize the cost of ground transportation in Mexico. We were incredibly excited when we learned we had gotten the funding. More help came from the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association, which offered to provide five travel stipends for recently graduated veterinarians. We then had just a few short months to spread the news to veterinarians about the opportunity, coordinate volunteers and organize the trip.

Then we kept our fingers crossed that this area of Mexico would remain safe and that we would attract the number of veterinarians we needed to make the trip worthwhile.

Hands-on help
Finally, everything came together, and in October of 2010, 27 equine veterinarians from the United States and Canada arrived in Veracruz, Mexico, for the first Equitarian workshop. There, we joined a team of Mexican veterinarians, veterinary students, farriers, harness makers and social workers to learn about both structuring community assistance projects and delivering basic equine health care in rural villages.

Each day began with classroom discussions to learn how to provide veterinary care effectively under field conditions. Once in each village, we’d have to practice a fast and targeted form of veterinary care, with no x-rays, no blood tests, no running water and no chance for follow-up visits anytime soon. We also had some discussions on cultural sensitivity: Understandably, many of the owners could be persuaded to spend time and money on ongoing care only if the treatments would increase the animal’s utility.

After class, we piled into vans and continued the discussions on the way to that day’s clinic. We would visit four villages in four days, and each location was in a different ecological and agricultural zone, ranging from the coastal plain to mountainous coffee farms. Each region presented unique medical challenges, and the animals’ work ranged from hauling coffee beans or milk cans to herding cattle.

When we arrived at our first clinic, my colleagues and I were dumbstruck at the huge number of animals assembled. Already villagers and local farmers had lined up with more than 100 donkeys, mules and horses, and others were still coming.

The veterinary students, who had arrived before us, had set up eight different aid stations on the village soccer field. One station served as an intake site, where each animal was briefly assessed to determine his needs, and the owner was given a list of the other stations he needed to visit to receive appropriate care. The services provided included: surgery, lameness care, farriery, harness fitting and repair, internal medicine/reproduction, parasitology/nutrition and dentistry. A horse trailer served as the supply center/pharmacy.

After the initial chaos as we got started, the clinic settled into a pattern of steady work. Many of the animals needed dental work and hoof trimming. Too many were thin and had saddle sores. Some were absolutely loaded with ticks.

I was the lead veterinarian for the internal medicine station along with my Mexican friend, Maria Masri, DVM, PhD. At our station, we saw dozens of cases each day, with a wide range of medical issues, including vampire bat bites, pasture-associated heaves, sand midge skin disease, bursitis due to parasitic infections, sarcoids, moon blindness and weight loss due to poor nutrition, poor dentition and parasites. The surgery station performed castrations, hernia repairs, wound debridements, sarcoid removals and more. All of our participants rotated among stations, spending half a day at each over the four days.

All in all, the workshop was a rousing success. Over the four days, we saw a total of 835 animals. What’s more, we’d all learned a lot, and we were buzzing with ideas on how to improve the process in the future.

A number of the Equitarian workshop participants began thinking about planning projects in other areas with horses, donkeys or mules in need. Could local contacts, community support and funding for travel and supplies be identified? Were veterinarians and horsemen in other areas interested in both education and improving the health care of the working animals?

Looking forward
Additional positive results of our workshop came quickly. Two veterinarians, Adrienne Otto, DVM, from Sullivans Island, South Carolina, and Mario Lopez, DVM, from Toronto, Ontario, successfully began a second project in an area of Costa Rica that Otto was familiar with.

One participant, Angela Gebhart, had been an undergraduate at the time of the workshop, and when she returned home, she inspired her faculty and classmates at South Dakota State University to begin similar projects on the Native American reservations in the Dakotas. Following through on one of our suggestions for improvement---to better engage all of the curious children who inevitably gathered to watch us---Gebhart created a donkey and horse health coloring book in Spanish with the help of her local 4-H group. Then she persuaded her former Girl Scout troop to both bind the coloring books and donate crayons for the planned 2011 Equitarian workshop.

Elated by the workshop’s success and continuing impact, Merriam and I reported back to our pleased AAEP supporters. We applied to the AAEP Foundation for funding to hold a second workshop in Veracruz. This time, however, we offered to become an independent nonprofit organization that would handle registration and all the logistics for our work. The leadership of the AAEP and AAEP Foundation concurred and again generously provided a grant.

And so Equitarian Initiative was born as a nonprofit organization in October 2011. The second workshop in Veracruz went even better. This time, more than 80 veterinarians, students and educators made the trip, and more than 1,000 animals were treated. Since then, a second successful trip to Costa Rica was completed as well as a new project for cart horses in Honduras. We recently completed our third workshop, this time in Santa Cruz, Tlaxcala, Mexico, and we’ve begun planning new projects in Guatemala and South Africa.

Our dream to find a way for American veterinarians to learn how to provide education and service to the very needy working equines in the world is coming true. Together we’re creating a network of veterinarians with a common goal and spirit of sharing experiences with others that will only grow in the years to come.

Click the link below to access a downloadable, printable PDF.

BCS: What Body Condition Scores Mean, ©EQUUS

If you are a horseman, chances are you are extremely conservative. I do not mean this in the political sense of liberal and conservative, but in the literal sense that you are disposed to preserve existing conditions. You have very good reasons for this conservatism when it comes to the welfare of your horse. The penalties for change without contemplation can be severe, and your horse pays the penalty with his health and soundness if you are wrong. If wisdom is the anticipation of consequence, then we all labor to be wise when it comes to our horses, ­because they trust us so completely with their well-being.

Looking back over my career, I find I have always been resistant to fads and changes in the horse world. Some fads, ­especially when it comes to apparel, do little harm to our horses, although bling says something about the rider’s need for attention rather than the attention she should pay to her horse. Other fads are more abusive (rollkur comes to mind) and some, like the now outmoded use of a true interval system of conditioning (short bursts of maximum exertion), injure horses with sickening regularity. Unlike humans, horses do not self-monitor their own soundness. If you ask a good horse to gallop until he is exhausted, he will cheerfully injure himself for you. Modern eventers may speak of using an interval system to condition their horses, but what they really mean is they use an intermittent system of exercise and conditioning.

Although conservatism has its benefits, we must always be open to improvement in the care and training of our horses, ­especially when that change is supported by scientific research. I am speaking of two topics I have discussed previously: the use and abuse of tight nosebands in dressage and the unsafe and unsteady galloping ­position that has crept into our teaching.

One Noseband for All?
Nosebands are one of my many irritants when coaching. For example, flash nosebands are ubiquitous in the eventing world. Almost every horse I see is wearing one. Flash nosebands are inherently ill fitting—a flash is basically an inefficient figure-eight noseband—so they are invariably overtightened, causing a pronounced indentation in the flesh of the nasal bone and, occasionally, small sores on the lips. In addition, these nosebands can interfere with the horse’s normal swallowing mechanism, producing the very resistance they are intended to cure.

I can’t decide which irritates me more: overtightened nosebands or the mindless application of equipment, regardless of whether it is suitable for this horse at this stage of training. Not every horse in the eventing world needs or goes well in a flash noseband. Yet when I ask riders whether they have tried other nosebands, or even no noseband, they look at me as if I had just stepped down the ramp of the mother ship. Obviously, it has never ­occurred to them to try something else. ­After all, everybody tacks up their horses this way, so it must be correct. Sigh.

In the past, I have spoken out against the use of overly tight nosebands on pragmatic rather than scientific grounds. My reasoning was that both the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) and U.S. Equestrian Federation rules consider it a good sign when a horse softly chews the bit, and judges reward this behavior during the dressage test with favorable marks. A good working definition of classical training is that we do not ask the horse to do anything he does not do in nature. Clearly, strapping a horse’s mouth shut is unnatural and will not produce classical results in terms of acceptance of the bit, softness of contact or self-carriage. Naturally, we want the best possible score for our horses, but by cranking the noseband as tight as possible, we actually prevent them from accepting the bit correctly.

Given all this, you can understand that a recent series of articles at www.eurodressage.com got my attention and led me to scientific studies regarding the effect of tight nosebands on equines. The researchers’ findings—that tight nosebands are abusive to horses—are not surprising. However, new scientific knowledge means that we now can prove something that was merely alleged in the past.

If our current practices are proven to be abusive, even unintentionally, then we must immediately adopt new practices based on the latest findings. What surprises me is that this is not happening: Riders and trainers are not changing their practices in response to new information. We do things a certain way because we have always done them this way and it is too much trouble to learn new techniques. This attitude is prevalent in the horse world and is a huge barrier to improving the health and training of our horses.

Eastern Kentucky University’s Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue Training course (TLAER) was held March 30-April 1, 2012 at the university’s Richmond, KY campus. The exceptional schooling opportunity, co-sponsored by Eastern Kentucky University and nationwide roadside-assistance company USRider, brought back TLAER innovators Drs. Rebecca and Tomas Gimenez, who have spent 15 years designing the 30 hours of classroom instruction and hands-on training that aims to teach firefighters and emergency responders the safest and most efficient techniques to save oversized animals in catastrophic situations. “What we’re trying to change, what we want people realize, is that there is a safe way to do this both for the victim and the rescuer,” said Tomas. According to Rebecca, the course also aims to “show students that you can do many of these techniques with very simple stuff,” such as basic items found on most fire trucks like webbing, straps, hoses, and ropes.

“In many accidents, horses and large animals are often injured further or even killed by use of incorrect rescue techniques,” noted USRider General Manager Bill Riss, stressing the importance of the training.

The Gimenez’s course differs from other large-animal rescue training in its use of live victims in the hands-on lessons. Torque, an Appaloosa gelding and Ariel, a paint mare, are 9-year-old rescue horses trained to lie down on cue and to be dragged and lifted to safety on a regular basis. “This is a tremendous class,” said student Gary Larson, who works with the Sheriff’s posse in his small county in Minnesota. “To work with the live animals as opposed to dummies makes all the difference. I’ve raised five kids through horse shows and hobby riding,” Larson added, “and there’s hardly an example that [they’ve used here] that I haven’t encountered.” Larson was also gathering nearly 500 photos during the course for other members of the Sheriff’s posse to access for reference.

The course teaches students basic backward and forward drags, the use of sedation in rescues, and more intricate water and mud extractions. On Saturday, March 31, the students took part in one of the most difficult and dramatic rescue effort: A vertical lift of a horse from a recessed area.

EQUUS Magazine: From Orphan Foal to Solid Citizen

If you’re like 99 percent of horse-show competitors, you don’t dope your horse. But you can’t help gulping when you hear those words—it’s like being called to the principal’s office in junior high. Did you or your trainer make a mistake? Are you in trouble?

The USEF regulations for drugs and medications can seem complicated, and changes this year may affect you. In this article Stephen Schumacher, DVM, chief administrator of the USEF Equine Drugs and Medications Program, explains the changes and tells you how to make sure you stay on the right side of the rules.

The goal of the USEF program is to protect horses from abuse and maintain a level playing field, so no competitor gains an unfair advantage through chemistry. And it’s working, Dr. Schumacher says. Of the 10,000 to 12,000 horses that the USEF tests annually (not a huge number, considering how often horses compete and the number of disciplines that the federation oversees), anywhere from 50 to 100 may test positive in a given year—1 percent or less.

“The low rate of positives doesn’t mean the program isn’t needed,” Dr. Schumacher says. “The numbers are low because the program is there—deterrence is its main effect. We would rather educate than adjudicate.”

Education starts with understanding what is and isn’t legal. It’s all spelled out in the USEF Rule Book.

Read All About It
General rules 401 through 413 outline the procedures for testing and enforcement and explain in general what is and isn’t permitted. These rules are carefully (and sometimes densely) worded but definitely worth the read. Anyone who signs an entry form at a USEF-recognized show needs to understand them because that person (usually the trainer, acting as the agent of the owner) has the primary responsibility for making sure the rules are followed. The separate “2012 Guidelines for Drugs and Medications,” available on the USEF website or in a pamphlet from the federation, provide a roadmap for staying out of trouble.

The rules allow different breeds and divisions to adopt different standards for permitted medications; endurance horses, for example, are subject to strict “no foreign substances” requirements. Here we’ll focus on the rules and guidelines that apply to hunter, jumper, eventing and dressage ­divisions. These rules don’t give you a list of every substance that is and isn’t allowed, although they do mention some specifics. New drugs are always being developed, and there will always be a few people willing to try new ways to gain an advantage.

To cover all cases, the rules classify substances based on their actions and uses. Permitted substances, which are not regulated by USEF, include vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, dewormers and most antibiotics (except procaine penicillin—penicillin is OK, but procaine is a local anesthetic that can linger in the horse’s system). They can be given to a horse at any time, including at a competition. Other drugs are sorted into two groups, restricted and forbidden.

Restricted Substances
These drugs can be used for therapeutic reasons—that is, to treat an injury or disease—but they’re subject to strict limits on the amount of the drug or its metabolites (breakdown products) that can be in blood or urine at the time of competition, as set out in Rule 410. They include the muscle relaxant methocarbamol (Robaxin), the corticosteroid dexamethasone (Azium) and seven nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs: phenylbutazone, flunixin meglumine (Banamine), ketoprofen (Ketofen), meclofenamic acid (Arquel), naproxen (Equiproxen), diclofenac (Surpass, a topical) and firocoxib (Equioxx). Theobromine, a metabolite of caffeine and related substances, is also in this category; the limit is just enough to account for any the horse might get through diet.

You should know:

• The “2012 Guidelines for Drugs and Medications” provide detection times for restricted substances, to help you judge when blood and urine levels are likely to be within legal limits. For example, if your horse breaks out in hives and you give him oral dexamethasone at the dosage listed in the guidelines, his blood levels should be OK in six hours.
• The times listed in the guidelines are recommendations, not rules, and the drug clearance times vary with dosage rates, the form of the drug and how it’s delivered. If your horse tests over the limit, he’s in violation whether or not you followed the guidelines.
• Compounded medications (made up to order by compounding pharmacies) call for special care because ingredients may vary more than they do in manufactured drugs.

New this year:

• Only one NSAID can be present in a sample; previously the rules allowed two. “This is probably the most significant change this year,” Dr. Schumacher says. The change, which took effect December 1, 2011, was made to end the potentially harmful practice of “stacking” these drugs.
• With just one NSAID allowed, detection times have been reduced from seven days to 72 hours for these drugs. If your horse has been getting two NSAIDs, you need to stop one of them at least 72 hours before competing. Only one can be administered in the 72 hours before a competition, and that one must be within the limits set by the rules.
• Although only one NSAID is allowed, there’s a new emergency provision for therapeutic use of Banamine (flunixin meglumine) for colic or eye problems, conditions for which this drug is particularly helpful. Suppose your horse was given phenylbutazone before a competition and you stopped the drug to allow for the recommended withdrawal time. Then, at the show, he colics. Under the new rule, he can have Banamine—a single dose, limited quantity—and return to competition in 24 hours. “Under the old rules he couldn’t have Banamine unless he waited seven days to compete, so the change is an improvement.” Schumacher says. “The caveat is that you must have a veterinarian administer the drug and submit a medication report to show officials.”
  ]]> http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/understand-the-usef-equine-drug-testing-rules/feed/ 0 http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/readers-react-letters-about-star/ http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/readers-react-letters-about-star/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:30:02 +0000 jpreble http://www.equisearch.com/?p=48687
  
  Sue Copeland, author of "This Horse Life"

  I was very angry reading your column in the October issue. Why would anyone think that horses are put on this earth to further their own ambitions, and at what expense? That poor horse (“Star”) was abused just like any other abuse case. I would have a hard time being friends with someone with such utter disregard for their animal, even though she was led by a trainer to do this. We, as horse owners, have such an awesome responsibility for keeping these animals safe and looking out for their welfare, even if it means having to put our own ambitions in second place.
  -Andrea Wayne

  I read “Poster Girl” in the October issue with interest and sadness. I hope people rethink their attitudes toward routine drug use. I do wish you’d included the Appaloosa Horse Club as one of the groups with drug testing in place.
  -Anne Farden

  Thank you for your column on drug testing. “Patty” (“Star’s” owner) said “the lack of drug testing killed my mare.” Competitors who’ve been informed of the risks of drug use have to accept the consequences of their actions along with the blame when something goes terribly wrong, as it did in this situation. Even with drug-testing rules, there will still be those who try to get around it, and the horse will still pay. For those who justify using drugs to prevent cruelty to their sore horses, does this sport, no matter horse’s age, cause soreing of the horse? If so, doesn’t that make the sport in and of itself cruel? Or, could it be the push to win futurities, in more than just cutting, an extreme motivator of cruelty?

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  I am aware that for many of these people, winning competitions can make or break their business, because this is their livelihood. It doesn’t justify a win-at-all-costs attitude. I imagine it has become even harder to win and still stick to your principles without cheating. I’ve bragged a lot about reining horses and how broke they are.  A friend recently told me that his time working for big wigs proved to him that there are a lot of drugged horses out there at every show. Lately, I don’t know what to think—when I get excited watching a good run, is it real or not?
  -Anonymous

  Regarding “Poster Girl” in October’s issue, she had to write this as sick joke, right? One cannot possibly be sincere in writing an article outlining an owner who knowingly allows drugs to be used on her horse, the horse is damaged beyond repair from the use of those drugs, and then complains that the reason the horse was ruined was because some third party did not drug test her horse? “Patty” knew what she was doing, and she did it to win. Unfortunately, her horse had to suffer the consequences for her irresponsibility and selfishness. The only reason we need drug testing is to stop irresponsible owners like Patty from torturing their horses in the name of winning.
  -Margie Conner

  Let me start out by saying that I am 69 years old and have not had horses of my own for a very long time. No doubt, I’m ignorant of much that is intrinsic to keeping horses today. Perhaps I don’t even know enough to comment intelligently on your column. But it’s all about our love for these animals and treating them as they deserve, isn’t it?

  How often I’ve thought how much we’ve learned over the years to improve our treatment of our wonderful companions; how much better their lives are now. Then I read something like “Poster Girl,” and I have to wonder.

  I recently looked through some old photo albums and laughed at the pictures of my 4-H horse club; what a ragtag group of humans and horses alike! We relied on each other for advice and improvement. But even as teenagers, we knew that 2- and 3-year-olds were babies, and we treated them accordingly. And if a particular activity caused our horses pain, we didn’t do it! Even though many of us were younger than 12 when our parents gifted us with our horses, it was with the understanding that we were responsible. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have received them.

  “Patty” sounds part and parcel of so many in today’s society: the instant gratification; ends justify the means; I’m not responsible, it’s someone else’s fault crowd. As “Star’s” owner, she called the shots. It would have been different if she had been ignorant of what she was doing (though hard to understand how she could’ve been) but she was totally aware. She was willing to play the odds with a horse she claimed to love. And “Star” paid the price.

  Your sister publication Practical Horseman stated in a recent article that over 40 horses have been killed in the last few years in eventing, and an equally shocking number of riders. Yet the printing of these terrible statistics brought (probably expected) letters of “Yes, but there’s danger in everything you do and I’m not going to change just because...”  Am I not seeing the whole picture? Isn’t this all about winning?

  A close friend and I were recently reminiscing about our childhood, a time when we leapt upon our horses’ bare backs and spent the day alone with them, exploring, playing, and just having fun. I know I’m glad I grew up when it seemed that nothing could get better than that.
  -Pat Hufford

  After reading your October 2011 column on drugs, I really have to wonder what people are thinking. Is winning so important that you have to kill a horse to get there? I have been to lots of events in the last few years. My daughter has done speed events at rodeos and horse shows, and she was well on her way to winning the all-around event, when her horse came up lame. We have an excellent vet here in our area, and at his advice she took six weeks off because the horse could be permanently lame if she didn't have the time to rest.

  I think it should be mandatory that all horses are drug tested before any event. If your horse is so sore that he can’t run a set of barrels or poles or can’t run out of the chute for a roping, then the horse needs rest or maybe needs to be retired. I’ve seen horses put down at events because the owner didn’t have a clue what the drug that was used to help the horse compete would do.

  All events, whether rodeos, NBHA barrel races, or even just a simple local horse show, should be drug testing the horses before and after a competition. The horse industry, along with the arenas and saddle clubs where the events are held, need to wake up before it is too late.
  -Name Withheld in Missouri

  I don’t mean to sound harsh, but “Patty” is 100 percent responsible for what happened to her horse, not the trainer or the association. She made the choice to put the drugs in the horse. Yes, event-sanctioning associations need to be testing, but ultimately the owner needs to take full responsibility. In this world today everybody is taught to blame somebody else for whatever happens in their lives. “Patty” okayed the drugging of her horse, regardless of the reasons, so she’s completely responsible. We only learn from our mistakes when we can own up to them. I hope she can learn.
  -Karen Albright

  ]]> http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/readers-react-letters-about-star/feed/ 2 http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/horse-abuse-and-point-of-view-blindness/ http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/horse-abuse-and-point-of-view-blindness/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:17:59 +0000 jpreble http://www.equisearch.com/?p=48588 Do you think for yourself, or let others think for you? We all want to believe we think for ourselves. But our thought process is constantly being filtered by the preexisting beliefs and prejudices that form our point of view. Those beliefs come in large measure from our cohorts—the people we identify with. our clan, our tribe. our friends and associates.

  I believe that’s why, in the horse world, one person can see abuse where another sees a legitimate training method.

  Abuse is a topic of growing concern. This is partly because the demands of some sports—especially at the highest levels—are putting pressure on trainers to go to extremes to be competitive. Extremely slow movement, as in Western pleasure. Extremely dropped heads, as at the end of a sliding stop in reining. Extremely draped reins, requiring Stepford-mount submissiveness on the part of the horse.

  Pointing Fingers
  The other reason for growing concern about abuse is the fact that the world is changing, aided and abetted by social media. Things that happen at point A are instantly relayed to points X, Y, and Z.

  Twitter helps start a war in Egypt, for example.

  And people whose sensibilities about animals may be different from our own are observing our handling and training methods, and sharing what they see. Videos posted on the Web and going viral are the most obvious way this happens. And the frequency of this tactic appears to be increasing.

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  The POV of people who take such actions will, of course, shape their feelings about what they see. But so, too, does our own POV shape how we “hear” their complaints.

  Let’s turn it around for a moment. Probably no one reading this column would disagree that placing tacks into the soles of a gaited show horse’s feet to make it step higher is abusive. Yet there clearly are trainers who feel they must do this sort of thing in order to “be competitive.”

  It’s easy for us to point a disapproving finger at such an act, because it seems so clearly wrong, and because it’s not part of our own horse-world culture.

  It’s much harder to feel the same disapproval when the action in question relates to something that is part of our own horse-world culture.

  That’s how POV muddies the issue.

  The Cop-Out
  I wrote an article for the November 2004 issue titled “Training? or Abuse?” In it, I listed examples of measures that “most horsemen can agree are, by definition, abusive.” These included excessive jerking on the reins or the lead shank. Excessive whipping or beating. Excessive spurring, especially when it causes bleeding and/or “spur dents” (indentations in the cartilage between ribs).

  As I pointed out in the article, it’s not that trainers who use these methods—or the owners who pay their fees—consciously approve of abusing horses. I truly believe they do not. It’s that their POV makes these methods “seem” not to be abusive to them.

  Add in the pressure to win big-money purses, the natural one-up-manship among trainers, and the willingness of judges to allow standards to slip, and before long, extremes become the norm.

  Then new extremes are needed.

  Only now, there are more and more people who are willing to object publicly, via YouTube and other social media, to these extremes.

  A common response when they do is that these are “animal-rights activists” who don’t understand the sport in question and who put animals’ rights above our own rights as owners.

  To me, that’s a cop-out. It’s not a question of rights per se—ours or the horses’. It’s a question of humanity. If we want to think of ourselves as decent human beings, we should be concerned about not causing a horse to suffer, physically or mentally. Period.

  ]]> http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/horse-abuse-and-point-of-view-blindness/feed/ 3 http://www.equisearch.com/horses_riding_training/thoroughbred-tattoo-letter-age-chart/ http://www.equisearch.com/horses_riding_training/thoroughbred-tattoo-letter-age-chart/#comments Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:26:07 +0000 Stacey Nedrow-Wigmore http://www.equisearch.com/?p=40984 We all wish from time to time that our horses could talk and tell us about their past experiences, hoping the information would help us work through training issues. With many off-the-track Thoroughbreds, you can look into their pasts through Jockey Club registration papers that come with them. If you don't have your OTTB's papers, with include his racing name, however, you may find some helpful information under his top lip—in the form of a tattoo. With his tattoo—and even if it's only partially legible—The Jockey Club Registry can help you learn his racing name. With that, you can get his race record, pedigree and sales information.

  One piece of information you can find out right away is what year the horse was born by looking at his Thoroughbred tattoo letter. The tattoo is a letter followed by five numbers. (Thoroughbreds older than 25 years old may only have four numbers.) The letter corresponds to the horse's birth year. Here's a handy Thoroughbred tattoo letter age chart to help you figure out what year your Thoroughbred was born. The alphabet starts over every 27 years, so a horse with an "A" tattoo might have been born in 1971 or 1997.

  A	1971	1997
  B	1972	1998
  C	1973	1999
  D	1974	2000
  E	1975	2001
  F	1976	2002
  G	1977	2003
  H	1978	2004
  I	1979	2005
  J	1980	2006
  K	1981	2007
  L	1982	2008
  M	1983	2009
  N	1984	2010
  O	1985	2011
  P	1986	2012
  Q	1987	2013
  R	1988	2014
  S	1989	2015
  T	1990	2016
  U	1991	2017
  V	1992	2018
  W	1993	2019
  X	1994	2020
  Y	1995	2021
  Z	1996	2022

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  To find out how to identify a Jockey Club-registered Thoroughbred, see the August 2011 issue of Practical Horseman magazine.

  ]]> http://www.equisearch.com/horses_riding_training/thoroughbred-tattoo-letter-age-chart/feed/ 0 http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/health/prevent-horse-barn-fires/ http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/health/prevent-horse-barn-fires/#comments Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:37:21 +0000 Stacey Nedrow-Wigmore http://www.equisearch.com/?p=21700 Horse barn fire—it’s every horse owner’s worst nightmare, and it comes true too often. Fire happens in top-of-the-line new barns as well as creaky old ones. And once a horse barn fire starts, experts say, you have at best eight minutes to get horses out. After that, even if they escape, smoke inhalation may end their useful careers.

  For all those reasons, prevention of horse barn fires is paramount. Yes, you need to make and practice an emergency plan in case a horse barn fire ever does happen. But even more, you need to scour your barn for fire risks, correct them, and keep them corrected.

  To help you, we’ve consulted four experts, all experienced horsemen. Californian Tim Collins is a technical equine-rescue specialist with the Santa Barbara Humane Society and an adviser to Santa Barbara-based Equine Evac, which responds to fires, floods, and earthquakes. Ken Glatthar’s Lake Tahoe Security Services, Inc., based in Reno, Nevada, does fire investigations and is developing a special unit to work with large equine operations on preparedness. Besides his regular veterinary practice at North Carolina’s Southern Pines Equine Associates, Dr. Jim Hamilton serves on the Moore County Emergency Response Unit. And Lieutenant Chuck Younger of the nearby Southern Pines Fire and Rescue Department not only teaches horsemen about fire safety but teaches firefighters to work with horses. All four experts present emergency and fire-response talks and/or workshops to special-interest groups and the public.

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  Prevention
  First, get rid of those fire hazards. Store hay away from the barn. All our experts stress this point—because hay that’s been baled damp can build up internal heat and ignite all by itself.

  If you must store hay in your barn, at least be sure to . . .

  Store hay carefully. “Store the minimum you can,” says Chuck, “maybe five to ten bales, preferably at ground level, away from electrical lights.” (His own brother lost a new barn after a hay supplier carelessly stacked bales up to the ceiling—where one made contact with a fluorescent light.) Leave a gap between bales, advises Tim, to let moisture dissipate. And install a smoke detector or heat detector above the hay.

  Check hay frequently. About a month after hay’s been delivered, Ken says, “break open a bale. If it’s very warm to your hand inside, it’s probably been put up too moist and is getting ready to combust. Check every bale; any that’s hot, move out of the barn.”

  Make “No Smoking” the rule. Post signs outside and inside, and enforce them, with friends, family, and everyone else. “I’ve seen it too many times,” says Chuck. “The farrier comes to shoe your horses; he takes a break and lights up. You have to insist on no smoking—be­cause one stupid mistake and that’s it.”

  Protect wiring. Rodents love to gnaw on the coating around wire, so encase all wiring in metal conduit; secure the conduit to the structure so horses can’t pull it out. “Give your horses play toys,” says Ken, “so they leave the wiring alone.” And regularly check that the conduit’s in good shape, especially at junctions or turns.

  Protect lights. Cover every bulb with a metal or plastic cage so a rearing horse can’t hit and break it.

  Break up bedding. When you muck, urges Tim, move the bedding around to break up the compaction caused by your horse’s normal walking in his stall. Fire won’t spread as fast through loose bedding.

  Get flammables out of the barn. Check every jar and bottle and spray in your tack room, wash stall, grooming tote, and tack trunk. If the label says “flammable” (and it will on lots of things, from liniment to linseed oil), store that item away from the barn if you possibly can; at least store it in a fire-resistant container (a metal box, for instance). For the same reason, park your gas-powered mower and gas can elsewhere. And remove half-empty cans of paint; gas can build up in them and ignite.

  Clear out clutter—the odds and ends that accumulate in feed- and tack-room corners can provide fodder for a spreading fire. Clear your barn aisle, too; if you must store tack trunks and electric fans and your grooming vacuum there, at least put them all on one side of the aisle, providing a wider passage for getting horses out.

  Sweep clean. Regularly sweep the aisle clear of loose hay and stray bedding and manure that could land on something hot—such as the muffler of a truck you’ve backed in to unload—and start smoldering.

  Knock down cobwebs—they’re highly flammable.

  Bust dust. Get rid of the dust that builds up in space heaters, on heat lamps, and around your water heater. Use an air compressor or leaf blower (when no horses are in the barn to breathe in the dust), or take equipment down to the gas station to be blown clean, especially before you put it away for the summer. Clean smoke detectors, too—dust can trigger false alarms.

  Use caution with extension cords. “We’d prefer not to see them,” says Chuck, “but with horses you have extension cords. Use the heavy-duty industrial-rated kind—and as soon as you finish, unplug the cord and put it away.” Don’t hang extension cords on nails, he adds; abrasion eventually breaks down the rubber coating.

  Ken warns, “Don’t lay an extension-cord connection right in front of your hay pile, where hay can land on it and dust can get in between the plug and receptacle.” If current arcs between the cords, the resulting fire “can smolder for hours, then break out in the middle of the night.” He adds, “What we call ‘electrical’ fires are not as prevalent as people think. Usually there’s another causal agent involved: something flammable in contact with the electricity.”

  If you’re building a barn, all our experts agree, install enough outlets that you’ll never need an extension cord. The cost is relatively low; the safety return is high.

  Handle heat with care. Your tractor, your truck, your clippers, your tack-room heater—anything with a motor or a heating element that warms up with use—needs to be kept away from hay, bedding, and flammables at all times, checked on carefully until it’s cooled, then put away safely.

  Clear brush. Keep the ground around your barn clear of ornamental plantings and weeds; either could spread a fire. Trim back brush everywhere—including, says Tim, under low bushes; undergrowth can die back to become instant kindling. Clear fallen trees and branches.

  Put your manure pile at a distance. Ma­nure is flammable; in hot, dry conditions, says Ken, it can spontaneously combust—and burn for a very long time.

  Think you’ve made your barn hazard-free? Good. Now, says Tim, ask somebody unfamiliar with the place to walk through and help you spot the safety risks you’re too used to seeing. Even better, says Chuck Younger, have a member of your fire department do the walk with you.

  Build for Safety

  Install a fire wall. Gypsum drywall is noncombustible. If you wall your tack room with it and the space heater in there catches fire, says Jim Hamilton, the fire won’t get through for about two hours, increasing the chances you’ll find it and put it out before it spreads. If your barn roof is metal, vent it. People think of metal as fireproof, says Ken Glatthar, “but a metal roof contains heat. Unless there’s someplace for that heat to escape, it hits the metal roof, travels sideways, and hits a wall or a beam; if that wall or beam isn’t on fire yet, it will be.” The solution: Install turbines on the roof. (Costing $15 or $20 apiece at build­ing-supply stores, they look like little domed turrets.) When hot air inside or a breeze outside hits the turbine’s blades, they spin, drawing that hot air up and out. “They make a little noise,” he says, “but the tradeoff in safety is worth it.” Add exits if necessary. “If your barn is bigger than six stalls,” says Ken, “with a tack room in the middle, consider giving the tack room a door to the outside and making that and the door from the aisle wide enough for evacuation. Then if fire starts at one end of your barn, instead of having to run horses sixty feet from that end to the other end, you can get them out in thirty feet.” If a paddock’s only exit is into the barn, set a gate in its outside fence so you won’t have to take a horse back through the barn to evacuate him. Install a farm-panel electrical box to put your well on a separate power circuit from your barn. The fire department will shut off power to the barn when it arrives, says Ken; with the farm-panel setup, you’ll still be able to operate your pump. Lacking this, at least have a portable sump pump (also called a ditch pump) on hand.

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