Tag: Horse Care

Thoroughbred Charities of America (TCA) announced Tuesday that grants totaling over $821,000 were awarded this year. 75 organizations were approved for a grant including 45 aftercare organizations, 20 backstretch and farm worker programs, six equine-assisted therapy organizations, three Thoroughbred incentive programs, and one research organization. Grant recipients can be found on www.tca.org. Over the last 33 years, TCA has awarded more than $26 million in grants.

TCA's 2023 grants to aftercare organizations were bolstered by support from Hagyard Equine Medical Institute's Race to Give online fundraising campaign. Last year's Race to Give raised over $35,000 for approved organizations.

“Thanks to our generous donors, we are thrilled to be able to award grants to 75 organizations working tirelessly on behalf of Thoroughbreds and backstretch and farm workers,” said Erin Halliwell executive director of TCA. “We are so proud of the impact our grantees make and we are pleased to support their work.”

Grant applications for the 2024 grant cycle will be available in mid-January.

TCA's mission is to fund and facilitate the support of Thoroughbreds and the people who care for them. TCA distributes grants to several categories of Thoroughbred-related nonprofits including rehabilitation, retraining, rehoming and retirement organizations; backstretch and farm employee programs; equine-assisted therapy programs; and research organizations.  Since its inception in 1990, TCA has granted over $26 million to more than 200 charities. TCA is the charitable arm of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA).

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Thoroughbred Daily News, in conjunction with the Consignors and Breeders Association (CBA), has an ongoing series that addresses what sales X-rays can show and their impact on success on the track. 

Trainer Wesley Ward detailed what he feels is important when buying a horse to race – and what is not.

One piece of vet work Ward will not negotiate on is scoping. The horse has to scope “fine,” with no airway abnormalities. 

When Ward buys yearlings, he forgives a lot of the issues people seeking to resell consider death knells, like OCDs or chips. A lot of the horses he has purchased would not have passed vet exams as yearlings or 2-year-olds, he noted. 

He works around any issues by tailoring training programs to any veterinary issues a horse may have. If a horse has issues, he doesn't train them very hard and his riders are all under 110 pounds. He's also adds in a lot of jogging to get the horse fit.

Ward also has success with his homebreds. He focuses heavily on allowing the horses to be horses as they grow, with minimal human interaction and a near-constant outdoor lifestyle. Though the foals do get petted so that they are not afraid of people, there is minimal handling until the foals are weaned. 

Once weaned, the horses come into the barn for about a week, leaning to wear a halter and walk before being turned back out. When they turn one, the horses begin swimming – more for the mental component than the fitness component, Ward explained. Then they're turned back out until September when breaking begins. 

Breaking in Kentucky is a group affair, with two or more horses being worked together. Once the horses ship to Florida, they learn to do things on their own.

Dr. Tami Gillon x-rays all of Ward's horses to check for issues. If a joint issue is found, Dr. Wayne McIlwraith will often clean it up. Though sometimes Ward may wait up to a month for McIlwraith to come see the horse, the extended time away from work and stall rest helps the horse's joint calm down before the surgery.

Read more at Thoroughbred Daily News.

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Multiple recent studies have shown that horses can distinguish between the human emotions of anger and joy, but few have focused on whether horses can discern between happiness and sadness. The National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) in France, the University of Tours in France and the University of Turku in Finland, worked together to create a study to determine whether horses could also distinguish between these human emotions.

The researchers were particularly interested in learning whether horses could react to sadness, which is a low-arousal emotion; horses most often react to higher-arousal emotions like joy or anger. Lead researcher Dr. Plotine Jardat, of the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, also wanted to determine if the horses could associate vocal and facial cues of human sadness. 

The team used 28 horses for the study, each wearing heart rate monitors as their actions were recorded. The horse faced two screens playing two different videos: one shows a happy person and the other a sad person. A voice was played at the same time, sounding happy or sad. The horses spent longer looking at the sad photo that was paired with a happy voice. The research team reported that this indicates that horses can link human faces and vocal inflections showing the same emotion of either happiness or sadness. They studied the mismatched photo for longer as it was confusing for them.

The horses were more attentive to the happy video, looking at it for longer, more often, or more rapidly than at the sad-person video. The horse's heart rates increased when they heard a happy voice and decreased when they heard a sad voice, as well. 

Study results show that horses are able to discriminate between visual and auditory cues of human happiness or sadness. They are more attracted to happy faces. 

The scientists suggest that more research is needed to understand how horses perceive a range of human emotions, including sadness. They would specifically like to determine whether horses can differentiate between sadness and other negative emotions and if sad human expressions can influence equine behavior.  

 Read more at Equine Science Update. 

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David O'Connor, U.S. Olympian and Chief of Sport for US Equestrian, leads a new three-part Learning Center series on providing a good life for horses.

O'Connor, a decorated Olympian, is no stranger to US Equestrian. O'Connor represented the USA for 20 years as an athlete, earning individual gold and team bronze medals in eventing at the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics and a team silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics. O'Connor joined the USEF team in his current role in October 2022. He is responsible for working with the executive team on the overall international and national sport support of the Strategic Plan initiatives including sport integrity, education, and equine and human safety and welfare. Additionally, he provides oversight of the international and national sport operations, ensuring that the sport department's short-term and long-term strategic plans align with USEF's priorities. He also focuses on strengthening relationships with stakeholder groups, such as the USOPC, FEI, and USEF's Recognized Affiliates.

In the first video, David provides an overview of social license, what it means, and how important it is for horse sports to be understood and accepted by the public as a positive experience for horses. In the second video, David explains how to create a good life for horses during competition and training. And in the third video, David shares how to ensure horses live a great life outside of competition. By demonstrating compassion and an understanding of horses mental and physical needs, we can ensure our horses live their best lives and that equestrian sport is sustainable and understood by the general public for years to come.

Check out the first video, and you can find video two here, video three here:

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