Eastern tent caterpillars have begun to hatch, with the first detections in Southern Kentucky last week. According to entomologists in the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, the caterpillars, which can cause foal losses, are expected in Central Kentucky by this or next week and Northern Kentucky a few days to a week after that.
After spending about nine months as eggs in masses on twigs of wild cherry and related trees, the first tiny eastern tent caterpillars of the season are now leaving their eggs, said Jonathan Larson, UK extension entomologist. The egg hatch normally occurs at 50 percent bloom of forsythia, the interval between first and full bloom of the common spring-blooming plant.
The larvae are among spring's first active insects and are well-equipped to cope with Kentucky's erratic temperature swings. Egg hatch occurs over several weeks in early spring. This increases the chance for survival in case of late freezes. The caterpillars grow and develop when the temperature is above 37 degrees F. Their preferred food plants are wild cherry, apple and crabapple, but they may appear on hawthorn, maple, cherry, peach, pear and plum as well.
When mature, the 2- to 2.5-inch long, hairy caterpillars have a habit of wandering from their host trees to seek protected areas to spin their cocoons, or to seek additional food if their natal tree becomes defoliated. At such times, they may crawl along fence lines and into pastures.
Consumption of large numbers of caterpillars by pregnant mares caused staggering foal losses in the Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome outbreak of 1999-2001. MRLS can cause early- and late-term foal losses or weak foals. UK researchers conducted studies that revealed horses will inadvertently eat the caterpillars when present in pastures and feedstuffs. It is the caterpillar hairs, specifically the cuticles of those hairs, that embed into the lining of the horse's alimentary tract. Once that protective barrier is breached, normal alimentary tract bacteria may gain access to and reproduce in sites with reduced immunity, such as the fetus and placenta.
If practical, farm managers should move pregnant mares from areas where wild cherry trees are abundant to minimize the chance of caterpillar exposure. The threat is greatest when the mature caterpillars leave trees and wander to find places to pupate and transform to the moth stage.
Eastern tent caterpillars are also a nuisance to people living near heavily infested trees. The nests and defoliation are unsightly, and the caterpillars may wander hundreds of yards in search of protected sites to spin cocoons and pupate.
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“Managing ETC in small ornamental trees, such as flowering crabapples, is easy,” said Daniel Potter, UK entomology professor “Just wear a pair of grocery store plastic bags like mittens, climb a stepladder, pull out the tents, turn the bags inside out to 'bag' the caterpillars and stomp them. Pruning out nests in ornamental trees sounds great, but in reality, by the time they are noticed, they're often in branch crotches where pruning will compromise the symmetry of the tree.
“Spraying the flowering fruit and decorative trees preferred by the caterpillars can be a bee hazard – and with some products, a label violation – because the trees are in bloom with bees visiting them at the same time eastern tent caterpillars are active,” he said.
According to Potter, caterpillar management around horse farm paddocks comes down to keeping pregnant mares away from infested trees and either removing or not planting preferred host trees near paddocks. Additionally, controlling the caterpillars with insecticides may be warranted in some settings. That may require treating tall trees that are difficult to spray.
For the latter scenario, professional arborists treat via trunk injection. Products labeled for eastern tent caterpillar control include Tree-äge and TreeMec (emamectin benzoate), Inject-A-Cide B (Bidrin), Abacide 2 (abamectin) and Lepitect (acephate). Applicators should read and follow all label instructions. All of the aforementioned injectable products are labeled for use on horse farms.
For farms that are interested in prevention over the winter months, Larson recommended farms search for and destroy egg masses before they hatch.
“Egg masses can be seen over the winter, they look like sparkly, pyrite gum wrapped around twigs and branches,” he said.
For more information about how to assess trees for egg masses, the UK Entomology publication, Checking Eastern Tent Caterpillar Egg Masses, is available here.
Researchers at Saskatchewan's Western College of Veterinary Medicine are investigating whether excessively long umbilical cords, or cords with more twists than normal, affect the health of a live foal.
Equine umbilical cords are typically between 20 and 24 inches long and have four or five twists. Cords that are excessively long or twisted can restrict fetal blood supply and cause health issues for the foal – or death.
The scientists are seeking participants via social media and providing information is easy: horse owners need only fill out a few surveys and provide images they've taken with their phone. Owners of pregnant mares can enroll in the study here.
After the mare foals, the owner takes a picture of the umbilical cord and measures its length. They then provide info about the mare, how the foaling went and the foal's health at birth online.
Two more surveys are requested to be completed at days seven and 30 of the foal's life. The researchers are looking for anything unusual regarding the foal's health. Responses will be categorized into infectious and non-infectious conditions and bacterial or viral infections versus congenital conditions.
The scientists hope to identify common patterns and create an “umbilical cord index” that takes the number of twists in the cord and divides it by the cord's length. These numbers will be compared to established reference values to determine whether there are any connections between umbilical cord data and foal health.
Learn more about the study and how to enroll, here.
As the importance of Thoroughbred aftercare continues to grow, racetrack owners are finding all kinds of new ways to support their former runners as they move into second careers. This year, Kerr Racing and St. Patrick's Racing Stable, which is the nom de course of Oliver Keithly and Mellissa Perrin-Keithly, have found a somewhat unconventional way to help their runner Epigrammatist find his next steps in life.
Perrin-Keithly posted on Facebook earlier this month with the offer of a scholarship for a rider interested in taking Epigrammatist to this year's Thoroughbred Makeover.
“We had talked about this a year ago, that maybe we should try to give someone else the chance to go to the Makeover,” said Mellissa.
The couple has experience with the Makeover, with Oliver having taken Smugglers Hold to the polo discipline at the event in 2016 and Mellissa competing in dressage that year with One Time Richie. Mellissa also took St. Patrick's Racing graduate Shanghaied to the event's competitive trail discipline in 2019 as a training team with her father-in-law, “Pop Pop.”
The Keithlys were both riders and competitors before they were racehorse owners, with Mellissa focusing on dressage and both riding polo horses.
“It actually started because we had a horse we adopted from CANTER Ohio named Smugglers Hold and I did the Makeover with him,” said Oliver. “We liked the racing part, but were never involved in it. She did English and I did polo, and that's all we were really about. Then I said, 'Let's get into the racing part,' and we went in full bore.”
They launched St. Patrick's Racing Stable in 2018 and aftercare was always a central part of the equation for the stable's racing and breeding operations.
“We wanted to do things our way, take care of the horse from Day 1 until they were 20 years old, 25 years old,” said Oliver. “We wanted to set the horse up for a life beyond racing, because there's more to a horse's life than just racing.”
As such, Mellissa says they have worked to find private placements for their horses at the end of their race careers, and retire horses with their second careers in mind. It's not an easy task from their base in Maine, where winter weather limits the length of the season for many riders, and where there isn't the same vibrant hub of OTTB devotees that there is in Central Kentucky.
This year, Mellissa's plate was already full with the plans she had for her own dressage season and she knew she wouldn't be able to take a horse herself, but Epigrammatist found himself in need of a new job.
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The couple are both quick to chuckle that about how the 5-year-old gelding they co-own with fellow Maine resident George Kerr didn't exactly light the track on fire. He has two wins from 23 starts and earnings of just over $23,628 for trainer John Rodriguez. When the son of Soldat bumped his leg in the stall and needed some time off, it seemed to his owners like it was time to call it a day.
“If he got down to a claiming price that was lower and someone took him, we wouldn't feel right about that,” said Oliver.
Epigrammatist came back to the St. Patrick's base in Maine for his rehabilitation, which gave the Keithlys a chance to get to know him hands-on. After a few weeks of turnout, they were delighted with his sweet demeanor and believed he would bring joy to an amateur or a professional rider looking for a Makeover project.
“He got the nickname 'Crush' because all the women would come around the barn and say 'Who's that?! He's pretty!'” said Oliver. “At the track, John Rodriguez was our trainer at the track and his nickname was Hickory because that horse would go out and try, and was rock solid all the way through.”
Epigrammatist in his racing days. Photo courtesy Mellissa Perrin-Keithly
Although he wasn't particularly fast, Mellissa said Epigrammatist was always interested in running farther – to the point he would keep loping after the gallop out, sometimes proving difficult for experienced jockeys to pull up – which makes her think he could make an eventer.
Mellissa's experience with the Makeover had taught her that the time-limited nature of the event can put a lot of pressure on riders who have made it their big goal. Horses are only able to attend once, and can't be restarted earlier than the December prior to their October competition. The goal of the program is to highlight the versatility of the breed by demonstrating how much progress a horse can make into a second career in a limited time.
Different competitors approach the event in different ways. Some make it a first-year goal with a long-term equine partner; many professionals use it as a chance to prepare and market a sales prospect whose resume is boosted by having completed the process; still other riders enjoy the training challenge and try to take a horse through it in multiple years.
For all of them, there's expense involved with training the horse, entering any shows or clinics they may do in preparation, and the veterinary work that can often pop up with any horse in an athletic endeavor. For riders who like to take project horses each year, there's also financial risk in taking one on who could come up with an illness or injury that negates their ability to be ready by October. Then, there's the expenses with the event itself – entry, stabling, travel, and hauling, which can feel like a strain just as the anxiety of the competition is landing.
St. Patrick's is offering a trainer the chance to help out with those event expenses. Its scholarship would also give the trainer a safety net for the horse – if something isn't working out, he can always come home, so they won't be stuck paying board on a laid-up OTTB who can't make the journey unless they want to. Depending on the situation, there's the possibility the scholarship recipient could become the horse's owner after the Makeover.
“We wanted to take the pressure off of somebody, that now they have this horse and now on Oct. 18 [the end of the Makeover] I don't know what I'm going to do with it,” Mellissa said. “It could be a situation where then that horse goes home with someone, it sits for a few months, and then someone has to start all over again.”
“It's just a good way for our small farm to make sure the horse has the best chance in life after racing, and hopefully other connections might think this is a good idea.”
It has become more common in recent years for racing connections to retain ownership of a horse well into the retraining process, either as a way to ease the transition to a more responsible home, or to get more enjoyment out of a horse in a new context.
Mellissa's deadline for scholarship applicants closed last week, and she will soon begin a Zoom interview process to find the best fit for Epigrammatist. The most important thing she'll be looking for: an interest in bonding with a special horse.
“One of the questions we asked on the application was, 'Can you give us an example of a human/horse connection story that has touched your heart?' and you already can tell who is there and who isn't,” she said.
“Not only did we get some really good applicants, but we got some really good feedback from people who are hands-on with the Retired Racehorse Project, so I was very happy about that,” she said. “If we can help somebody be involved in this and make somebody's dream come true, that's really what we're going for.”
Possibly one of the most unsettling things a horse owner can experience is lifting their horse's hoof and noticing something which does not belong there.
That was the story on Christmas Eve for Ken Murray, when he picked up one of the hooves belonging to American Cream Draft Horse mare Claire and discovered the head of a nail.
“It was one of those things, she was fine one day and the very next day she was limping,” he said. “I checked her and thought, 'Oh this isn't good.' It could not be in a worse place.”
Murray and his wife, Anne, removed the nail. Murray said that when he didn't see a huge amount of blood or fluid come out, he knew the nail had pierced a structure, and that the puncture had self-sealed, keeping the infection deep inside the foot.
“We knew it was somewhere between bad and terrible,” he said.
The couple has operated Workhorse Ranch and Olde Tyme Carriage Company in Boyd, Texas since the 1990s, so draft horses are at the heart of their lives. Ken Murray had previous experience as a mounted patrol officer, while Anne grew up riding and bred spotted drafts and mules. Now, they provide horse drawn carriages for weddings, funerals, quinceañeras and other events, and also bring drafts to various educational and historical preservation events in the area.
Claire is owned by MerEquus Equine Rescue and Sanctuary, a Maine-based organization dedicated to the survival of the American Cream breed and ended up at Workhorse Ranch as a foster horse. American Creams have been a particular source of fascination for the Murrays. According to MerEquus founder Kerrie Beckett, there are less than 400 registered American Creams living in the world today. The breed is the only draft breed to originate in North America, and is characterized by a smaller height than most other drafts, along with a trademark cream or gold coat and amber eyes.
It's never good news when a horse steps on a nail, no matter where the nail enters the hoof. When the Murrays brought Claire to Dr. Alyssa Doering at Cutting Edge Equine Hospital, they had their worst fears confirmed. Doering said that usually, veterinarians don't advise owners to remove objects from feet on their own because it can make it difficult for the vet to later figure out where the object may have damaged the foot. In Claire's case though, Doering thinks the Murrays did the right thing, and she had no difficulty figuring out that the nail had gone straight into the navicular bursa – the one place you really, really don't want it to go. Doering said the mare's prognosis at that stage was bleak.
“These cases just don't do well,” said Doering. “I gave her less than a 20 percent chance of living initially just because the infection was so bad in the navicular bursa.
“We know that synovial structures don't respond well to sepsis in general, but the navicular bursa is especially bad because it's a difficult area to access to adequately flush it.”
The Murrays conferred with Beckett, and the three agreed – they had to try to bring the mare back from the brink of euthanasia. There was their sentimental attachment to her, of course, but there was also the breed to consider. Claire was carrying an American Cream Draft foal, so there were two members of a very small population at risk.
The reason objects piercing into hoof structures can be so dangerous is that they often carry bacteria with them. In Claire's case, an infection had already begun around the puncture in the navicular bursa, and Doering had to worry about whether bacteria could travel through Claire's body to other structures, which would almost certainly negate her slim chances of survival. The infection was likely to take some time to resolve even if it could be contained, and 1,700-pound Claire was non-weightbearing in the foot where the nail had been, so Doering was also concerned about supporting limb laminitis. This can occur when one limb is injured and the horse must put significant extra weight on the opposite limb, which can gradually disrupt the blood flow in the soft laminae that attach the hoof wall to the foot, resulting in tissue death and extreme pain.
Doering had other concerns specific to Claire's breed, too.
“Anesthesia in draft horses is always difficult,” she said. “They just don't recover as well as smaller breed horses and they have a published higher risk of complications such as myopathy, neuropathy, and weakness getting up. We had every factor working against us.”
Doering decided the greatest risk to Claire was the possibility of sepsis, and determined her first priority had to be the infection. Each day for nearly two weeks, she flushed the navicular bursa with Claire under anesthesia and gave local and systemic antibiotics while working with orthopedic farrier Brad Bridges to provide support to the uninjured foot. She also used Pro-Stride, an autologous conditioned plasma with PRP and IRAP on the first day, which was designed to reduce scar tissue that could cause permanent damage in the bursa.
“I was able to use radiographic [imaging] to place the needles, and that worked surprisingly well,” she said. “I was not excited to try it, but it worked.
“When I had her under anesthesia the first day, I actually drilled out the needle tract to encourage drainage. I don't love drilling into the sole, because the soft tissues can prolapse through that hole, but I knew if I didn't get the mare comfortable we were risking support limb laminitis and we were going to lose the mare.
“Every time we were flushing her, I tried to avoid going into the tendon sheath because we don't want even one bacteria going into the tendon sheath itself, which is why we did it x-ray guided to avoid contaminating other structures.”
Claire's hoof after Day 1, with the drilled-out hole visible in her frog. This shoe was fitted with a hospital plate to protect the area from any contaminants while leaving it easily accessible for treatment. Photo courtesy Cutting Edge Equine
When Doering became concerned that subsequent rounds of anesthesia may be too much, she was able to sling the impacted foot and do a local nerve block to flush it with Claire sedated but awake.
It was a long road. Claire was in the hospital for weeks, and then required round-the-clock care when she returned home.
Three months later, the nail hole through her foot has completely closed, the infection is gone, and Claire is sound at the walk. She's a little stiff at the trot and Doering is still keeping an eye on both feet to make sure they remain supported in the coming months, but her future is once again bright.
“It was hard for us to stay optimistic but we knew we had to try,” said Doering. “Any equine surgeon can tell you a case like this sucks. We don't ever want to see something like this come in. The cards were stacked against us from the beginning. Because the owners were on board financially and emotionally, I was able to do my job and do everything I thought was necessary to give her the best chance. You get emotionally involved in these cases.
“This job can be so hard, and I don't think anything we do as equine surgeons is easy but when you have a success with one like this, that's what gets you up in the middle of the night for the next one, that's what keeps you coming back to your job – that feeling of knowing even when it's a very difficult case, you can still make a difference.”
To the delight of all the humans involved in the case, Claire delivered a healthy filly in late March in an easy foaling at home.
Ken Murray with Claire and her new foal. Photo courtesy Cutting Edge Equine
The filly is sired by a registered American Cream, so the Murrays expect she will be accepted by the registry too, provided that she develops in accordance with the breed standard. It may seem unconventional for a rescued mare to continue a career as a broodmare, but MerEquus is dedicated to preserving and growing the American Cream breed, so getting another foal on the ground is core to the group's mission.
For Beckett, another American Cream in the world is cause for celebration as someone who's had a long-running love affair with the breed.
“They're very affectionate,” said Beckett. “They're in your pocket, they want to please, they want to learn. They're very individual. I've had Thoroughbreds, Quarter Horses, Belgians and these horses are just so unique. They are so gentle and sweet.
“I started with one, and now I have 15.”
Ken Murray was especially thrilled the foal was a filly.
“When you're talking about a rare, endangered breed, you don't grow the breed with stallions, you grow it with fillies and mares,” he said. “That's why it became so important for us to do everything we could for this mare.”
Perhaps surprisingly, Murray said that far from going sour from her intensive treatment, Claire seems to have benefitted from the extra handling.
“Before, she wasn't a kind mare,” he called. “She was fine, but she wasn't a real people horse. She wasn't real loving or anything like that. Her ground manners were ok, but she wasn't friendly. Through this whole process, she has become the sweetest horse you can imagine. Towards the last several weeks of her treatment I could go out in the pasture and not even put a halter on. It was a complete transformation in this horse's personality. By the grace of god she said, 'These people are taking care of me.'”
