Author Archives: Dr. David Ramey

For decades, horse owners have been regularly deworming horses—with an almost messianic zeal—under the general rationale that all parasites are terrible and horse owners must do everything that they can...

In my experience, people spend a lot of time worrying about things that they can do to keep their horse(s) in the best health possible.  Of course, that’s completely understandable;...

You’ve subscribed to seven horse-related magazines. You have a regular subscription to a supplement delivery service. When your horse takes an off step you automatically think that he might have...

You have a performance horse.  He’s not performing as you had hoped or expected. His form is flawed. His piaffe lacks panache. His elan has elapsed. He slides have slid. And half...

If you’ve been around horses for any length of time (usually measured in minutes), you’ve probably heard that a horse needs X-rays (hopefully, it wasn’t yours).   And while you...

I wish that discussions about vaccines were easy. It would be great to have this sort of vaccine equation: Horse + vaccine + (reactions x 0) = no disease Otherwise...

Although southern California is a pretty balmy place in which to keep a horse, not everyone is so lucky.  Fortunately, while wintertime means that people are breaking out the down...

Question: “A couple friends and I were talking about all the horses we’ve trained and ridden throughout the years and comparing their characteristics and personality traits, etc. We were wondering if...

Among the more common injuries besetting equine athletes are injuries to the various tendons and ligaments of the legs. In fact, they’re so common that some have even earned the...

I have never been satisfied just going out and working on horses. I mean, I really love working on horses, but I always thought that my obligation—to horses, to my...

I ran across a thought-provoking article in the November 2014 edition of the human medical journal, Pediatrics. ASIDE: Yes, I have other things to do. The article is called, “Overdiagnosis:...

I will be the first to admit that I am really glad that I am practicing on horses in modern times, as opposed to just about any other times. For...

The horse’s foot is so important that they’ve even come up with a cliché about it. You know, “No foot, no horse.” Yada yada yada. But, as another cliché goes,...

I have had the opportunity to conduct a lot of presale/prepurchase exams. You know, the exam that you’re almost obliged to schedule prior to making one of the most important...

I think that it was somewhere in the late 1980s that I first heard that horses got stomach ulcers. It was interesting—curious, actually—to find out that horses had ulcer problems...

There’s something really sweet that you might want to consider putting on your horse’s wound. Literally:  sweet. You may have some in your kitchen—honey. Honey is being investigated for its...

Dogma has always been a curious phenomenon to me. In the horse world, people often get dogmatic, from the “best” way to feed a horse, to the “proper” way to...

One of the hardest decisions that a horse owner will ever have to make is deciding when a horse’s time is over. I want to talk to you about it....

What with all of the products out there to help “support” your horse’s gastrointestinal system, I thought it might be fun to share some thoughts and research with my friend...

Here’s something about which I get calls all the time. Say you come out to the barn and you find that your horse has a bit of swollen leg. You...