Category Archives: Health

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...

Key points: Cervical (neck) osteoarthritis is a potential source of pain and poor performance in sport horsesResearchers examined cervical x-rays for 104 jumping horses during the 2018 winter circuit in...

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...

Fall is here! Along with pretty colors and the holidays, the season brings new airborne allergens. Did you know that allergic responses in horses are cumulative and that a response...

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...

Summer has arrived, and with it comes hot, humid temperatures. Toasty summer days aren’t merely a discomfort for horses, they can be downright dangerous. Heat stress, or the more serious...

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...

"Respiratory health is essential to performance," stresses Dr. Emmanuelle Van Erck Westergren of Equine Sports Medicine Practice in Waterloo, Belgium. The prominent veterinarian and thought leader spent 15 years engaged...

It’s summer, aka the sweatiest time of the year. Hooray! And while sure, there are things to enjoy (like swimming, ice cubes, and air conditioning), outdoor activities such as barn...

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...

Electrolytes. Not just a running joke in the movie Idiocracy, electrolytes are an incredibly important part of maintaining vital functions in your body. Certified athletic trainers and pro athletes swear...

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...

Most of us have probably come to accept that flies are a fact of life on the farm. Sure, there are ways to combat them for a while, but it...