Tag: Horse Care

Five months ago, Kaitlynn Buchholz didn't know if her recently-retired Thoroughbred Jaguar Ridge was going to survive the week.

Buchholz, who is based at her Ha'Penny Farms in Aurora, Mo., got a call early one morning that her Thoroughbred Makeover hopeful had come in from the field bleeding profusely from one foot. No one ever figured out quite how, but he had managed to slice his heel bulb with a cut that wrapped around to the inside of his hoof and went as deep as the coffin joint.

It was a chaotic scene, and since he'd incurred the injury overnight, it was impossible to know how much blood the gelding had lost already. Amazingly though, Jaguar Ridge (fondly known as “Jaggy”) was sound on the limb and nonplussed by the hubbub. Though he probably hadn't been through anything quite so dramatic before, Jaggy had by that point seen a lot in life – he is 14 years old and retired after 99 starts, mostly in his native Illinois. Buchholz said it's not in his nature to fret much, which probably helped him in this scenario.

Buccholz loaded Jaggy onto her trailer and rushed him to Pine Ridge Equine Hospital in Glenpool, Okla., which was the closest facility that could accommodate his emergency.

“Pine Ridge was like, 'When can you get here?' and I said, 'I'm three hours away,' and they said, 'Well, drive fast,'” she said. “I'm standing there in the surgery room and the surgeon sticks his finger in the wound and says, 'This is really bad. He said he'd seen horses with this kind of injury before and none of them had lived, and did we want to euthanize him?

“I was like, 'No. Whatever it takes.'”

It took two surgeries and ten days of hospitalization. Since a joint infection was a major risk, surgeon Dr. Andrew McClain opted not to close the wound up immediately to avoid trapping an infection inside the joint. Instead, he put a catheter into the wound and flushed it with corticosteroids for five days before performing a final lavage and closing it up.

McClain warned Buchholz that the outcome was anything but certain; the horse would need a long rehabilitation and even after that, they'd be lucky if he was pasture sound. If there were any complications at all, Buccholz said, she was told it would be too much for the horse to overcome. At the first sign of lameness during those early weeks, she was prepared to accept that she may have to euthanize.

To everyone's surprise, Jaggy never took an off step. At his recheck a few weeks after the injury, veterinarians asked Buchholz what her ambitions were for the horse. She said she'd do anything he was capable of doing. They advised she give him two months off, start him under saddle, and see how far they could get. She got on for her first ride post-injury in early August.

“He was literally a saint,” she said. “I didn't lunge him, I just got on and he was like, 'Cool, what do you want to do now?'”

The Makeover had been a longtime ambition for Buchholz. She has come to the event as a spectator since 2019, dreaming of the day she could bring a horse herself. Buchholz acquired Jaguar Ridge privately after he had proven the wrong match for a younger rider. Most of her barn is off-track Thoroughbreds.

“I took him to one show before here,” she said. “He's taken it all in stride. He's never told me no. I've always said if anything feels off or weird with him, we'll back off; we'll stick to dressage, do whatever he needs. He's game for whatever I want. He's literally perfect. I was supposed to sell him, and I'm not going to. He's mine forever.”

When Buchholz and Jaguar Ridge arrived in Lexington, she guessed they had completed maybe 20 rides together since he resumed under-saddle work in August. Makeover competitors could begin the retraining process formally at the start of the year, so while many had ten months of consistent work going into the event, Jaguar Ridge had two. Still, he stood quietly in between his flat and jumping portions of the show hunter event, with one leg cocked and his eyes slowly closing in the autumn sunshine, as if he'd done it all before.

They had their own fan club following them to competition in both the show hunters and dressage – Buchholz had family that flew in from out of state, a client that made the ten-hour drive from Missouri to help her on the grounds.

Jaguar Ridge and Kaitlynn Buchholz competed this afternoon in Show Hunters. Jaguar Ridge is a 2008 gelding by Cactus Ridge and retired in May 2021 from racing with record of 99-18-10-10 and $157,972 making him the oldest entry in this years #TBMakeover. pic.twitter.com/vniNg9BX64

— Retired Racehorse Project (@RRP_TBMakeover) October 12, 2022

“We have the best support group ever,” she said. “This is the dream team. And the dream horse.”

Though they finished out of the top ten in both their disciplines, Buchholz said she was proud of their effort. For many competitors, the simple act of completing ten months of retraining and the subsequent competition is more than enough of a reward. And for Jaggy and Buchholz, it's just the beginning.

The post From The Brink Of Death To The Thoroughbred Makeover, Jaguar Ridge Is Everything To His Rider appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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For decades now, people with an interest in horse racing have had opinions about furosemide, commonly referred to by its trade name of Lasix or Salix. Even now, as its use has been gradually pushed back farther from race time, theories abound on why trainers use it, and how (or whether) it should be used.

But floating about amongst all those opinions are sometimes misconceptions, including one we've heard repeatedly at the Paulick Report – that furosemide is used as a masking agent to cover up illegal drug use in post-race testing.

Dr. Rick Sams, former laboratory director at LGC Science, said that under current regulations, that just isn't possible. Here's why.

First, a biology lesson

To understand how furosemide does its work you need to understand the basics of the kidney. Kidneys are responsible for filtering the blood that travels through the body and sending some elements out to the bladder for excretion through the urine.

As part of this process, blood encounters a membrane called a glomerulus, which has large pores. The pores allow small things like electrolytes, drugs and their metabolites to pass through it; larger things like proteins and red blood cells get caught in the filter and are sent back through the body. Small things may (or may not) get sent through a tubule and become part of the horse's urine.

A few different factors determine how a molecule is directed – and this is where the biology gets interesting from a drug testing standpoint. Ever wonder why we take both blood and urine from a racehorse after a race? It's because different drug molecules (or drug metabolite molecules) have different chemical properties that guide how the glomerulus reacts to them. Some of them mix well with water while others don't; most carry varying degrees of chemical charge (ionization), depending upon their makeup.

Highly ionized drugs readily cross the glomerulus but those molecules aren't reabsorbed into the body along with water because they are too polar. More of them end up in the urine than return to the body, which means drugs that have a high ionic charge will probably have higher concentration in urine than in blood if you test a horse after administration.

Other drugs that pass through the filter end up split pretty evenly between reabsorption from the filtrate into the bloodstream and going out into urine, so if you test the horse for one of those substances you may find a similar concentration in each medium. Still others may bind to plasma proteins, making them less likely to be filtered so a post-race drug test would find that drug in much higher concentrations in blood than in urine.

What has this got to do with furosemide?

Furosemide does its work by creating a rapid diuresis, or flushing of water from the body, after administration. Its impact is quicker after intravenous administration, but its effect is shorter; intramuscular administration produces a slower onset and slower diminishment, but for either administration we're talking about a matter of just a few hours after administration.

Once the furosemide ends up in the horse's blood and passes through the glomerulus, it binds to chloride transporters in the renal tubules. Suddenly less chloride is reabsorbed from the tubules, and that triggers a flushing out of fluid from the renal tubules, increasing the volume of urine the horse produces.

While that horse is suddenly sending a lot more water into the bladder, its urine is becoming very dilute. Dr. Sams said some drugs and their metabolites may be found at concentrations 50 to 200 fold less during peak diuresis than they would have been in urine produced under normal conditions.

“I remember testing those samples in the late 1970s, early 1980s, and the samples we received looked like water,” he said. “There was no color whatsoever.”

Furosemide has a short half-life though. Horses will begin urinating within minutes of administration, with peak diuresis coming at 15-30 minutes after administration. The total diuretic effect lasts for about two to two and a half hours. By the end of that, the urine has become more concentrated and is nearly back to normal.

Of course, the disruption of the usual urine formation process has a ripple effect – some drugs that would have normally been reabsorbed into the bloodstream may not be as extensively reabsorbed during diuresis because there is no “driving force” for reabsorption from dilute urine. This can mean they are excreted in the dilute urine when under normal circumstances, they would be reabsorbed and remain in the body longer.

So furosemide may be an effective masking agent, but only for some drugs, right?

Not quite so fast.

In those wild early days of furosemide use, Sams said there was very little guidance to veterinarians about how much of the drug a veterinarian should give a horse and when if they were trying to prevent EIPH. In the beginning of its use in horses, the drug wasn't Food and Drug Administration-approved to treat that condition in horses, and so the drug company couldn't legally offer advice on how to give it to a species it wasn't approved for. Some veterinarians gave horses 500 milligrams in a dose, while others gave 250 milligrams. Some did intramuscular shots while others did intravenous, and still others did a combination.

“Veterinarians were just using whatever dose they thought worked best,” he said. “Some of them thought more would be better than less.”

In the very beginning, pre-race administration wasn't regulated the way it was now. Treating veterinarians could give the drug themselves (while now many states require it to be given by a third-party veterinarian) and they could give it whenever they liked, as long as it was pre-race. Sams remembers some practitioners sticking furosemide needles in horses in the paddock.

As drug regulation evolved, its use became more standardized. The 250 mg dose became standard over the 500 mg dose. Sams remembers that at one point you could give that dose two hours pre-race.

Four hours was the standard for many years. That window, Sams said, was enough that the drug, when given as directed, would be finished with its flushing effect.

The horse's body is designed to regain balance pretty quickly, so once that initial diuresis is complete, Sams said the kidneys go back to behaving the way they did before – and urine concentration goes back to normal quickly, too. The minor amount of dilution happening at four hours isn't enough to hide drugs from modern testing methods, according to Sams.

Within the past several years, several states made moves to push back furosemide administration even farther, to 24 hours pre-race. By that timeframe, Sams said any dilution effect is certainly gone.

“I don't hear laboratory personnel bemoaning the fact that furosemide is interfering with their ability to detect other substances,” he said. “That went away with the regulation that began being used in the mid-1980s.”

So does that mean it's not a performance-enhancer?

Sams can't go that far. Peer-reviewed research has shown, convincingly in his view, that horses treated with furosemide do exhibit improved performance over those who don't, but that's probably due at least partly to the weight loss that comes with fluid loss during diuresis.

Of course, races in which all horses are getting furosemide at the same time in the same manner could presumably be level playing fields where all runners have roughly similar advantages over non-treated runners.

So, do pre-race electrolyte jugs do anything?

If you've read about oral supplementation of electrolytes as a means of getting horses to drink more water, you know that there's some debate about whether it works to actually change the salt/water balance in a horse's body. With all the flushing out happening in a horse who's just been given furosemide, is adding those elements in an electrolyte jug given the day before a race really going to help?

“It's a prudent thing to do,” said Sams. “The kidneys maintain homeostasis of the electrolytes quite well, so if you give an excess in that jug, they'll just go out in the urine. And homeostasis will be restored by the electrolytes in the jug.”

And then there's TCO2

Sams said there's an important impact on furosemide that doesn't get talked about a lot – the results of TCO2 testing.

When furosemide binds to binds to the chloride ion transporter, more sodium and potassium ions are excreted in the urine. That's because sodium and potassium are positively-charged and would normally pair up with negatively charged chloride ion. The other positively-charged ion that would normally be hanging around, binding to chloride to offset its negative charge, is a hydrogen ion. When furosemide increases chloride ion excretion some hydrogen ions are also eliminated in the urine as a means of maintaining electrical neutrality.

That means the pH of the blood increases a little bit. This pH increase is attributed “metabolic alkalosis” and in the drug testing world, it can confuse things.

“From a physiologic point of view, the effect is identical to giving sodium bicarbonate,” said Sams. “So the administration of furosemide to a horse creates a state of metabolic alkalosis that is dose-dependent … furosemide administration can give rise to an increase in pH, an increase in total carbon dioxide (TCO2) that looks like milkshaking.

“I'm convinced that some of the laboratory reports for excess TCO2 are not due to the administration of sodium bicarbonate but due to the administration of furosemide.”

This effect could vary by dosage or by individual, but we don't know exactly how.

When analyzing a sample, Sams prefers to match the TCO2 sample with data showing that horse's sodium and potassium concentrations in the blood. If the result came from milkshaking, sodium will be significantly higher than normal; if it didn't, sodium should be normal and the chloride is low.

Unfortunately, Sams said, testing protocols aren't uniform on this. When international drug testing standards were developed abroad for TCO2, they didn't call for a look at these ions, because in other countries furosemide use isn't taking place as close to a race.

What about the calcium connection?

Those looking for a simple explanation for fatal raceday orthopedic injuries may have perked up at the mention of furosemide inhibiting reabsorption of chloride ions, flushing out positive ions like sodium and potassium. Calcium is also positively-charged, and some human research suggests that furosemide can impact bone health because of its tendency to affect calcium.

Sams cautious against appropriating those human studies to horses, however.

The human studies were done on an aging population which is therefore 1) more prone than the average person to bone health issues and is also 2) likely to be taking the drug every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Horses aren't being exposed to it as often, which makes sense because humans taking it are usually trying to treat a chronic issue like high blood pressure.

“In those patients, electrolyte imbalances can occur,” he said. “And it has some long-term effects on bone metabolism. But who are the persons who are getting furosemide treatment? They're usually older people who may be frail or debilitated anyway.

“I haven't seen any evidence for effects of infrequent, periodic use in horses. And those are healthy horses.”

So, where does this leave us?

It's probably true that furosemide, given in its modern form, isn't helping anyone hide significant drug use, and it isn't likely causing long-term damage to a horse's bone formation. It seems likely that under the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, its administration could be backed up farther from the standard four hours pre-race that many states are used to now. It remains to be seen whether the drug will accomplish its purpose – reducing EIPH – with a longer withdrawal timeframe.

The post Lasix Mythbusters: Drug Masking, TCO2, And Impact On Racehorse Breakdowns appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The California Horse Racing Board voted unanimously in favor of new restrictions on equine joint injections at its regularly-scheduled meeting on Oct. 20.

The new rule is aimed at reducing the number of different injections a horse may get into the same joint in a short span of time. It would require a horse who receives more than two injections into the same joint within 60 days to be placed on the veterinarian's list, and thus unable to race, for 30 days.

The rule will apply regardless of the substance administered, and will therefore include regenerative and biological agents including IRAP and PRP, as well as medications like corticosteroids.

“We've had horses who have had as many as 10 or 12 injections in the same joint,” said Dr. Greg Ferraro, chairman of the CHRB. “We don't feel that's medically sustainable or pertains to the welfare of the horse.

“Basically what we feel is going to happen is if you've put two injections in a joint and you're thinking about doing a third you're not going to do it under this legislation because you know you're going to be on the vet's list … we're hoping this will eliminate the factor of multiple injections. It's fair and it's in the best interest of the horse.”

CHRB equine medical director Dr. Jeff Blea hopes the rule can shift the philosophy of practice around lameness work.

“This rule encourages people to do diagnostics, and continue doing diagnostics,” he said. “They are expensive, I understand that, but it's similar if you go to a doctor and he writes you a prescription for physical therapy. He says in two weeks you're going to get to this point; at two weeks, you've reached that point, you don't go to the next level until you're evaluated. You don't want to be injecting that third time unless you've evaluated to see if the horse actually needs injecting.”

Ferraro also emphasized that part of the premise of this rule is that when it comes to intra-articular treatments, more is definitely not better.

“I just want to point out that each time you inject a joint with an agent, the amount of effectiveness goes down, it doesn't go up,” he said.

Commissioners acknowledged that there are two potential snags with such a rule — out-of-state runners and claiming horses. There will be no exemption for a horse shipping in for a race who has previously based in a state that does not have a similar rule, which means commissioners are keen to educate trainers who may come in for races like the Breeders' Cup so they do not end up shipping ineligible horses.

The other challenge will come with claiming horses. While intra-articular joint injections should be reported to the commission as part of routine medical record disclosure, that disclosure isn't necessarily passed on to a claimant who may unknowingly give a horse a third injection in the 60-day timeframe and thus make the horse ineligible to run. However, the new connections will be able to check to see whether a claimed horse had previously been on the vet's list for the shorter periods of time associated with prior joint injections.

California Thoroughbred Trainers executive director Alan Balch spoke up in support of the rule. He pointed out the rule will be subject to a 45-day notice prior to enforcement, which should give people time to acclimate to the change.

“One thing I think I'd add as a benefit to this rule is the optic that multiple joint injections, month after month in the same joint is a bad optic and it needs to be addressed,” said Blea. “When you see the horse injected multiple times, that's a red flag for people on the [veterinary review] panel; that's not fair to the horsemen or the horse, but protecting the horse, this rule will do just that.”

The post CHRB Passes New Restrictions On Joint Injections, Warns Out-Of-State Trainers Need To Pay Attention appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have discovered a method for in vitro fertilization in horses, resulting in the birth of three healthy foals. 

Assisted reproduction in horses is often the method of choice for a variety of reasons, including preventing harm to the mare during breeding. Prior to this breakthrough, traditional in vitro fertilization (IVF), where a sperm fertilizes an egg in a petri dish, had been attempted for horses but was not successful, despite repeated attempts at manipulation. 

Dr. Katrin Hinrichs, professor of reproduction at PennVet, and her colleagues have created a conventional IVF technique that has resulted in a 90 percent fertilization rate, with 74 percent of fertilized eggs resulting in blastocytes – a mass of cells that develop into the embryo and placenta. 

The techniques don't require extensive training or equipment, Hinrichs says, so more veterinary practices may be able to offer the service. 

In the past, other assisted reproduction techniques have been employed with little success. These include injecting a single sperm into an egg and extracting an oocyte from a mare, surgically placing it in a recipient mare and then inseminating the recipient mare. Utilizing the recipient mare was invasive and expensive; the technique wasn't feasible for many mare owners or veterinarians.

Key research for the breakthrough was done by Dr. Matheus Felix, now the chief embryologist in the Penn Equine Assisted Reproduction Laboratory. Sperm must undergo physiological changes to fertilize an egg. Felix tried a specific medium for incubating the sperm as well as a longer-than-normal incubation period to see if that might help the sperm fertilize the egg – and it worked.  

The research team perfected the technique, finding that pre-incubating the sperm for 22 hours in the specific medium, then adding oocytes to the medium for three hours, led to a 74 percent production of blastocytes. Thus far, three foals have been born from this process. 

There is still room for improvement, Hinrichs notes, saying that this method worked well only for fresh sperm; frozen sperm did not have the same results. Additionally, the medium must be precise, so variations may compromise the fertilization success.

Read more at the Pennsylvania News. 

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