Tag: Horse Care

Lillipad, an 11-year-old Thoroughbred mare, was presented at a breeding sale in Washington, but was labeled barren and went unsold. A friend of Jillian Fallon of Reno, Nevada rescued Lillipad after the sale and sent her to Fallon's ranch. While the trailer ride to Reno was uneventful, her condition deteriorated shortly after arrival.

Fallon noticed that her respiration, heart rate, and temperature were all elevated to dangerous levels. A local veterinarian performed an ultrasound at the ranch and diagnosed her with pleuropneumonia, having found fluid build-up in and around both lungs. Medications administered onsite helped bring Lillipad's vital signs down closer to normal levels, but it was clear she needed further treatment, so Fallon brought her to the UC Davis veterinary hospital the next morning.

“I was hesitant to put her through another long trailer ride considering her condition,” Fallon said. “But after all we went through, I'm glad we went to UC Davis.”

Lillipad would remain hospitalized for three months culminating in a shocking surprise for her owner and care team.

She was treated extensively for severe pleuropneumonia for many weeks, including management with fluid drainage through multiple chest tubes and a thoracotomy, aggressive antibiotic therapy, and intense supportive care by a dedicated team of students, technicians, residents, and faculty members in the Equine Internal Medicine Service.

Throughout all of this, Lillipad was not responding as well as could be expected, and she lost a significant amount of weight – except in her abdomen. To be certain of all possible scenarios, her care team performed an ultrasound and could not believe what they discovered.

Lillipad, previously deemed barren, was pregnant!

They also found evidence of hemorrhaging into her abdomen as a consequence of the pregnancy. The Equine Reproduction Service examined Lillipad and found the foal to be of proper size with a good heart rate. However, Lillipad was still critically ill, and it was unknown how her illness and its complications would affect the continued growth and health of the unborn foal, as well as her ability to have a normal birth. Luckily, it was known that this would be her fourth foaling, so the medical team felt more confident she could handle the birth if she and the baby were healthy enough.

Thankfully, Lillipad's hemoabdomen stabilized quickly and her pleuropneumonia continued to slowly improve over the next two months, and she was transferred from the hospital's Large Animal Clinic to the layup services at the UC Davis Center for Equine Health for a few weeks before returning home. There, she was checked regularly regarding the progress of her pneumonia, thoracotomy incision sites, and the viability of her foal.

She was discharged in January 2022 with about two months remaining of her very high-risk pregnancy, with the continued risk of foaling prematurely. Because of these risks, it was recommended that Lillipad return to UC Davis for the birth if she carried the foal to term. In the event that she would need surgery, had difficulty during labor, or started hemorrhaging again, time would be of the essence and immediate intervention would be needed.

Lillipad did very well at home, gaining weight and finally starting to act like a spirited mare with a zest for life. Fallon returned her to UC Davis for foal watch in March, where she continued to improve and was off all medications before the big day. On March 27, she experienced a quick, uncomplicated birth and delivered a healthy filly.

“Lillipad was a difficult case and involved the dedication of everyone on the Equine Internal Medicine Service, as well as multiple technicians and students,” said Dr. Emily Berryhill. “She is a perfect example of the collaborative nature and extensiveness of our care at UC Davis. This success showcases that dedicated teamwork between our clinical staff, our clients, and our referring veterinarians can result in a positive outcome, even with many ups and downs in between. We are grateful to Ms. Fallon for entrusting us with Lillipad's care.”

Lillipad and her filly, LP's Sunny Miracle, or Mira for short, were able to return home a week later. Currently, Lillipad and Mira are healthy and happy at their forever home with Fallon in Reno.

The post Thoroughbred Survives Severe Case Of Life-Threatening Pneumonia; Gives Birth To Healthy Foal appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Joint inflammation and osteoarthritis (OA) are common issues in competition horses. These conditions often lead to decreased performance and lameness.

Veterinarians can treat OA via joint injections, which involve placing drugs directly into the joint capsule. Some drugs commonly used include corticosteroids, polysulfated glycosaminoglycans, and hyaluronic acid. Biologic therapies like platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and stem cells can also be used. 

Vets determine which drugs to use and how often to administer them based on their clinical experience; this is often guided by anecdotal evidence rather than scientific findings. This lack of direct comparisons between treatment options means there are no guidelines for how often a joint should be injected – or for which treatment is best. 

The AAEP surveyed its membership in 2019 to better understand how vets were administering joint injections. The results were presented at the 2021 AAEP Annual Convention. Dr. Gustavo Zanotto of Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and Dr. David Frisbie, of Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine co-authored the study. 

The survey had 407 vet respondents, many of whom worked with Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racehorses, as well as Warmbloods. The duo determined that nearly 75 percent of vets were concerned that treating equine joints too frequently would damage the articular cartilage. 

The majority of vets said that the joints can be injected every 6 months, while 30 percent said that the joints can be injected every 3 months. 

Triamcinolone and methylprednisolone were the drugs most often injected into both high- and low-motion joints, respectively. Nearly three-quarters of the vets believed that triamcinolone contributes to laminitis, though there is no research to support that this drug increases laminitis risk in healthy horses. 

Over 55 percent of vets said they used an antibiotic when injecting joints, an increase since a study asked the same question in 2009. The main reasons treating veterinarians cite for antibiotics use is poor environmental conditions and the use of corticosteroid injections. This is concerning as the veterinary field continues to battle antibiotic resistance, Zanotto said. Currently, there is no evidence that corticosteroid joint injections increase the risk of infection or that the environment in which joints are injected contribute to infection.

Though joint injections are common, there is a lack of evidence-based guidelines regarding their frequency or recommended doses. 

Read more at Veterinary 33. 

The post Nearly 75 Percent Of Veterinarians Concerned That Frequent Injections Could Cause Joint Damage appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Victor Cooley, Canada's 1996 Champion Three-Year-Old Colt and Queen's Plate winner, was euthanized today at Old Friends, the Thoroughbred Retirement farm based in Georgetown, Ky., where he has been pensioned since 2014. The gelding was 29.

According to attending veterinarian Dr. Ashton Broman, Victor Cooley suffered an acute onset of neurological symptoms coupled with other pre-existing conditions.

Bred in Ontario by the Begg family's Windways Farm, the son of Cool Victor out of Willow Flight, racked up numerous accolades in his six seasons on the track.

At three, he captured the prestigious GR1 Queen's Plate at Woodbine, helping him earn the title of Canada's Champion Three-Year-Old Colt. Racing under the silks of Windways Farm and conditioned by Mark Frostad and later Malcolm Pierce, Victor took the GR1 Vosburg at Belmont Park the following year as well as the GR2 Commonwealth Breeders' Cup Stakes at Keeneland, where he equaled the track record.

The gelding earned a final win at Fairgrounds in 2000 and then retired from racing with 13 wins from 39 starts and career earnings of $1.320,475.

He remained at Windways until the farm closed in 2014 and was then sent to Old Friends along with Windways's other accomplished gelding, El Brujo.

“We bred him, foaled him, and broke him at our farm,” said Windways Jeff Begg, “Victor wasn't an easy horse to deal with –he was really a handful, but he was our first big horse and really took us to a different level and took us everywhere,” Begg continued. “For such a quirky horse, nothing really phased him. He didn't care, he took his form to any track he went to.”

“Victor was as tough a retiree as he was a racehorse,” said Old Friends's President Michael Blowen. “In his racing days he didn't leave anything on the track, and he didn't leave anything on the table here, either. I wish all of the owners were like Jeff and his wife Annabel,” Blowen added. “They came two or three times a year to visit him, always with a bag of peppermints. They continued to care for him long passed his racing days.”

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Equine veterinarians can help protect their clients' broodmares and unborn foals from nocardioform placentitis (NP) with new disease guidelines published by the American Association of Equine Practitioners. The AAEP's Nocardioform Placentitis Guidelines present the clinical features, risk factors, treatment, control measures and more for a form of bacterial placentitis that can cause abortion, stillbirth, or delivery of a weak premature or term foal.

NP was first diagnosed in central Kentucky in the mid-1980s, and its occurrence since has varied from sporadic cases to outbreak years in the region. Outside of Kentucky and the United States, NP has been reported primarily as isolated cases and rarely as outbreaks. The suggested window from exposure to clinical signs is generally three to five months. In addition, there is a strong association between weather conditions during mid- to late-pregnancy and increased occurrence of NP, specifically exposure to low rainfall and high temperatures during August and September in central Kentucky.

“The insidious nature of NP makes the early diagnosis and onset of treatment rather challenging in clinical practice,” said guidelines co-author Dr. Igor Canisso, Associate Professor of Theriogenology at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.

Attempts to create experimental NP infection have been unsuccessful, limiting evidence-based assessment of therapy efficacy. Currently, mares suspected to have NP based on ultrasonographic lesions are usually empirically treated with antibiotics (e.g., sulfa, doxycycline, or gentamicin), anti-inflammatories (flunixin or firocoxib), steroids (altrenogest and/or estrogens) and supporting medications (pentoxifylline and vitamin E).

Dr. Canisso co-authored the Nocardioform Placentitis Guidelines with Dr. Maria Schnobrich, shareholder and theriogenologist at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital; Dr. Carleigh Fedorka, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Kentucky's Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center; and Dr. Barry Ball, who recently retired as the Albert G. Clay Endowed Chair and Professor in Equine Reproduction at the University of Kentucky's Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center.

View the Nocardioform Placentitis Guidelines or save them to your mobile device as a PDF file here. Besides Nocardioform Placentitis, AAEP guidelines for 23 additional equine infectious diseases can be found here.

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