Tag: Horse Care

Study Finds Many Horses Show Pain-Related Behaviors During Saddling

A horse that fidgets in the crossties, pins his ears or swishes his tail may be trying to say something — that he's not enjoying tacking and he's not looking forward to the ride ahead. A horse that exhibits other behaviors—some not necessarily seen as “angry”–may be trying to say the same thing. 

Drs. Dyson, Bondi, Routh, Pollard, Preston, McConnell and Kydd studied 193 horses from 11 different locations to discover what their tacking up and mounting behaviors meant. The horses were used for both pleasure and competition, and were ridden by both amateur and professional riders. 

The research team designed a protocol that tracked 64 abnormal behaviors for tacking up and 30 abnormal behaviors for mounting. These included things like biting, fidgeting, pinning ears and swishing tails, as well as head tossing, staring, sticking out the tongue, licking and nose rubbing. 

The team studied the horses for eight minutes, then completed a systematic palpation of where the saddle sits and the surrounding areas to detect sensitivity. 

Ten abnormal behaviors while tacking was the most common number seen, though one horse displayed 33 abnormal behaviors (out of 64). The most common behaviors included a reluctance to open the mouth for the bit (16.8 percent); chomping on the bit (67 percent); head tossing (12.4 percent); and avoiding the bridle (10.9 percent). The majority of horses stared (61.1 percent) or turned their head back while being bridled (56.5 percent).

Abnormal behaviors during mounting ranged from none to 12 (out of 30). The most common behavior was fidgeting, with tail swishing (17.1 percent), chomping on the bit (16.8 percent); stretching out (14 percent); yanking down on the reins (12.4 percent); and tossing their head (10.9 percent) seen most often. Nearly 8 percent of the horses had to be held while the rider mounted. 

The researchers concluded that many of the behaviors the horses exhibited during tacking up and mounting are abnormal, meaning they differ from the behaviors a horse exhibits at rest. These behaviors typically indicate that a horse is stressed or in pain, possibly from oral issues, tack or work. The team also found that 78.2 percent of the saddles used had the potential to be painful and compromise performance. 

The researchers concluded that owners should be aware of these abnormal issues and possibly investigate their underlying causes.

Read more at HorseTalk New Zealand

Read the full study here.

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Researchers, Veterinarians Still Learning About The Capabilities Of Sensors To Detect Injury In Racehorses

In recent years it has become clear to veterinarians and researchers studying injury rates in racehorses that serious injuries probably don't happen out of the blue. Major injuries are now commonly believed to be the result of minor injuries going undetected until they accumulate or worsen. One of the reasons those minor issues can easily go unseen is that the first defense for soundness monitoring for most horses is still a visual exam from a trainer or veterinarian or an assessment from a seasoned rider. Horses are very good at compensating for minor problems however, and small changes in their movement can often be imperceptible to the human eye.

Some experts are hopeful that sensor systems may help pick up what the human eye cannot. At a special virtual edition of the annual Tex Cauthen Memorial Seminar held on Jan. 24, several veterinarians provided updates on research into the use of data from systems like the Lameness Locator and StrideMASTER on the racetrack.

So far, the consensus seems to be that both systems provide veterinarians useful information but they're still learning how to contextualize that information.

Dr. Abigail Haffner presented data from a recently-concluded study at Thistledown Race Course which is still being analyzed. Researchers placed Lameness Locator sensors on horses and watching them jog about 25 strides in hand. The Lameness Locator uses sensors on the horse's head, pelvis, and right front pastern which contain accelerometers and gyroscopes. Together, the sensors develop a sense of the horse's “gait signature” or its normal way of going.

The study measured 73 horses weekly over several weeks, with a total of 1,663 exams performed. The horses were selected based on voluntary participation of their trainers, which also meant that horses dropped out of the study for reasons that weren't always known to the study team – like whether the horse had left the barn because it was claimed, or because it had developed an injury and been sent for lay-up or retirement.

None of the horses in the study suffered fatal injuries.

What Haffner and her team learned was that the process of using the system in a practical, racetrack setting is pretty easy – each reading takes three to four minutes and the sensors were simple to apply correctly.

She is hopeful the data may tell her more about how good the system is at noticing changes that were indicative of impending injury. Due to conformational differences, horses may not always move in a perfectly symmetrical way without an injury actually being present, which can sometimes complicate lameness exams.

Dr. Kevin Keegan, professor of veterinary medicine and surgery at the University of Missouri, said he's hopeful for the system's potential to help horses, but does admit it has limitations.

When used for these repeated measurements over time, the Lameness Locator is best at showing existing asymmetries of movement and changes to the horse's movement — but it can't tell you why those asymmetries exist.

“We are measuring a clinical sign, not a disease,” said Keegan “You can define lameness as a movement that's different from normal … lameness may have many causes, but the cause we're most interested in is physical pain.”

Read more about the Lameness Locator in this 2020 Paulick Report feature.

If it's put on a horse who already has mild underlying lameness, it will show areas where the horse's body travels asymmetrically but the interpreter won't know if that's a horse's pain-free, normal way of going or if there's an underlying problem.

A horse demonstrates the bonnet portion of the Lameness Locator, which has a sensor at the poll to detect head movement

Bilateral lameness, or lameness occurring in two legs at a time, is even more difficult to capture with the human eye than lameness in a single leg. Keegan says it's possible for the Lameness Locator to detect this, although it is more challenging. Many people assume that a horse will swap weight evenly between the left and right limbs in a bilateral lameness to avoid pain, but it's usually not that precise. Keegan said that sooner or later, the sensors are going to pick up changes in the head and pelvic movements that will point to that swapping.

The process of studying systems like this one has also shown veterinarians that the current way of doing pre-race lameness exams can be less than ideal. Horses are walked or jogged without a rider on board, and can often be fractious, which interferes with their movement. Keegan pointed to Mongolian Groom as a classic example of the variability you could have between multiple exams conducted at the barn versus on the track. He believes a sensor on the ill-fated colt during a jog on the track may have provided a different set of information than the vet checks the horse passed at the barn before the 2019 Breeders' Cup Classic.

Dr. Bronte Forbes, veterinarian with the Singapore Turf Club, said the Lameness Locator has been used in that country to assess poor performers post-race, helping officials flag which ones need further assessment.

“If you're going to consider using this technology as a regulatory tool, everyone has to buy into it,” Forbes said.

Horsemen really believed in the technology in Singapore, Forbes said, and would sometimes request a reading if they had a horse they were worried about.

Still, Forbes said, he has concerns about the best way to work the technology into a regulatory system. He worries that a pre-race use of the technology could lead to a liability issue if it records asymmetry that the trainer or veterinarian believes is just a horse's gait signature, and the horse subsequently breaks down. Likewise, if a horse breaks down in a jurisdiction where the technology is used post-race, many people may have legitimate questions as to why it wasn't used as a screening tool.

Also, Forbes agreed with Keegan, the sensors provide information, but not context, and veterinarians must be aware of the difference.

“It's a measure of asymmetry, and there is no line in the sand currently that determines whether that horse is lame or whether that horse is going to sustain an injury or not – and that's especially true for a one-off assessment of the horse,” he said. “We've all seen very sound horses injure themselves and lame horses not injure themselves. I think we'll establish a welfare level of 'It's not acceptable to send this horse out there.'”

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Thoroughbred Makeover Diaries Presented By Excel Equine: Dressage As Relationship Counseling For An OTTB And Her Human

My wife gave me permission to cheat on her during the holidays.

In fact, she facilitated it.

You see, before Ashley became my wife on July 23, 2020, she was my trainer for learning to ride horses. I took my first lesson with Ashley on May 30, 2015, and immediately fell in love with eventing on OTTBs. A few years later, I fell in love with her.

Ashley has remained my trainer, and, in some ways, the trainer-student relationship can be trickier than husband-wife. For Christmas and Hanukkah, Ashley arranged for me to take dressage lessons with other trainers.

As I've started to move up the eventing levels, my Achilles' heel has been dressage. That's the first discipline in eventing based on the movement and rhythm of the horse on the flat that sets a rider's initial score. After dressage, penalties can be accumulated for jumping or time faults in the cross country and stadium jumping phases.

I've placed in the ribbons in three of my last four events, even while moving up from the Beginner Novice level where the jumps are at a maximum height of 2-feet-7 to the Novice level of 2-feet-11. I've always been at or near the bottom of the standings after dressage. 11th of 16, 11th of 18, and 10th of 11. However, after clean jumping rounds in cross country and stadium jumping, I've improved those placings to 7th of 16, 6th of 18, and 5th of 11.

“His jumping has progressed so much, and dressage is what's keeping him out of the top placings,” Ashley wrote when she reached out to four different trainers in the area. “He is finishing on his dressage score; it's just a bad dressage score.”

“Dressage is the ultimate expression of horse training and elegance,” the FEI, the international governing body for equestrian sports, describes on its website. “Often compared to ballet, the intense connection between both human and equine athletes is a thing of beauty to behold.”

How is this achieved?

 

What your riders are trying to remember as they enter the dressage court to compete? Is there anything you would add?

Posted by Dressage Instructors Network on Saturday, January 9, 2021

 

That's 23 things! And we haven't even gotten to the actual movements in a dressage test, like a 20-meter trot circle, a free walk across the diagonal, or a serpentine. How am I supposed to “just relax”?! Not cool, Dressage Instructors Network.

Dressage serves as a foundation for proper riding that can apply to any equestrian sport. Putting in the hard work to establish a foundation will pay dividends in the long run for building a relationship, whether it's with horses…or humans.

Simone Windeler, The Elegant Rider 

My first dressage lesson in this experiment Ashley arranged with other trainers was with Simone Windeler on Dec. 27.  Simone arrived at our farm promptly for our 2:15 p.m. lesson, walked into our arena as I was finishing warming up my chestnut OTTB mare Sorority Girl (Jockey Club name: Grand Moony), and zipped up her blue “The Elegant Rider” puffy jacket with the same confidence that Superman would have used to put on his blue suit, ready to save the world — or in this case, me.

The author with Simone Windeler

Windeler's credentials also happen to match the aura she exudes as a dressage superhero. Classical German training. Graduate studies at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. Board member for the Rocky Mountain Dressage Society. Well-respected judge for dressage and western dressage. Windeler judged dressage tests of mine at the Mariah Farms schooling show series that represented my very first horse shows in 2016.

Windeler began our lesson by asking me to ride around the arena at the walk, trot, and canter to assess. After about five minutes of just observing, she called us into the middle of the arena. Her diagnosis: I ride with tension that inhibits my ability to communicate effective signals and cues for what I would like my horse to do. The tension affects my mare's ability to develop a proper frame and rhythm, and that ultimately will limit our ability to reach our full potential together.

Although Windeler was focusing on my dressage, her diagnosis applies my life in general.

So, Windeler went to work on me. We focused on breathing exercises and balance exercises. My hour lesson was ridden almost exclusively at the walk, with a few minutes of trot at the end. Nothing fancy, but instead focusing on how a solid foundation helps build a strong house and not a house of cards.

Windeler walked either next to or right behind Sorority Girl and me for most of our lesson. She helped me become less tense by having me follow a breathing technique of taking in multiple breaths through the nose and letting out that number of breaths plus one additional one through the mouth. She helped me become more balanced by having me imagine that the sensation of my two seat bones touching the saddle was like squeezing two pieces of whatever fruit I imagined. Then, based on my assessment of where those two pieces of fruit were positioned in relation to my body and the saddle, we adjusted my position.

It was all subtle, but so is riding a chestnut OTTB mare, where one slight shift in weight can make a big difference for the horse.

“You think you're leaning forward, but you're really just straight,” Windeler said during one of our better trot circles toward the end of the lesson.

Windeler helped build me up to a position that, while feeling different for me, was actually better for the partnership with my horse. My mare showed her appreciation for my ability to be a better partner.

Sara Storch, SS Equestrian

“That's a great wife; I wish my husband took dressage lessons,” Sara Storch said as our lesson on Jan. 12 at 2:30 p.m. began.

Now, I'm definitely a believer that these dressage lessons have more to them than just dressage.

Storch is a high-level dressage rider, recognized by her earning United States Dressage Federation bronze and silver medals. She trains at Happenstance Barn in Parker, Colo., and the four-mile drive there from our farm represented the first time I've ever driven Ashley's truck and trailer. Now that's some serious trust by my wife.

The lesson with Storch was about building a toolbox and pulling out certain tools to address situations that come up during our riding. What was educational and encouraging for me is that none of these tools force a result. Rather, they are actions that guide the horse toward the desired outcome.

Sorority Girl looks slightly skeptical of Horowitz's lesson from Sara Storch

For example, one was giving my reins, which encourages the horse to seek contact and round into a proper frame. I had been trying to force the contact and frame by pulling on the reins. Another was using the inside leg during a transition to guide the horse's body to steady contact on the outside rein.

My mare, whose name of Sorority Girl accurately represents her approach to being told what to do, responded positively to the signals I was giving. You can't actually force a 1,000-pound animal to do something they don't want to, such as when one of my favorite horses, the legendary Australian sprinter Chautauqua (hyperlink: ), ultimately refused to leave the starting gate in the final race of his career. So, what's more effective is figuring out how to build a relationship and take action together as a team.

Kim Wendel, Kim Wendel Eventing

Up until this point in my dressage lesson medley, my two lessons had been with dressage-specific trainers, meaning that their equine focus is dressage. However, dressage is just one piece of the eventing puzzle, and sometimes it's an overlooked one.

“When I was riding in the lower levels, I felt like [dressage] was something we had to do before we jumped, and it was a little bit of a burden,” Kim Wendel, my next trainer, said. “As time has gone on and I'm able to do some of the more interesting or technical moves, then I feel like I really start to enjoy dressage as its own discipline.”

Wendel has risen up the eventing ranks with her 2011 grey Thoroughbred gelding, Happily Twisted, whom I announced in his lone racing victory on Aug. 2, 2014, at Arapahoe Park in Colorado. Although she has more than three decades of riding experience, Wendel only began eventing in 2010. After buying Happily Twisted off the track in 2016, the pair has risen as high as the CCCI 3* level with goals of higher in 2021.

“For better or worse, he's my creation and I'm his,” Wendel said about how her relationship with “Happy” is more like family growing up together.

When Wendel came to our farm on the morning of Jan. 13, we spent about 10 minutes before our lesson engaged in a quasi “Dressage Anonymous” meeting where we shared about how we've come to appreciate dressage more through our struggles with it. On the other hand, non-horse people have an easier time appreciating what happens when a horse soars over a 3-foot jump than lengthens their stride at the trot, although the latter can actually be more difficult to achieve.

A lesson with Kim Wendel

“Dressage is kind of like the part everybody fast forwards when watching the [Kentucky Three-Day Event],” Wendel said. “When you splash through the water, wow, everyone likes the photo on Facebook, but then you put up a picture of you doing a nice half-pass, you get half the likes because it's not as dramatic.”

It's similar to how it's easier to define a couple's relationship by how they are at parties or on vacations around the world than how they are cleaning the house, or, in the case of Ashley and me, feeding horses and mucking stalls.

Wendel's lessons focus heavily on foundation.

“The beauty in it is knowing the details, but that's a hard sell,” she said. “For me, the biggest thing is we all want to be better riders. In order to be better riders, we have to affect our horses positively. In dressage, in learning how my riding affects the horse's balance is a really big one.”

During our lesson, Wendel's focus for me was on how I could impact my horse's balance — from front to back, back to front, side to side, going to the left, and going to the right. She showed me how subtle movements — like opening my hand to the inside, giving the inside rein, and more — can make a big difference.

“She's super because as soon as you pushed your hands forward, she relaxed,” Wendel said during one part of the lesson.

Ryleigh Leavitt, RTL Eventing 

With my final lesson in this series of four with Ryleigh Leavitt on Jan. 22, I realized that all of the trainers were giving me similar advice but saying it in different ways.

“As a guy, I'm glad I'm hearing the same thing several different ways because now it will sink in about how important it is,” I joked, getting a laugh out of Leavitt, as well as my amused wife, who has appreciated the effect these lessons are having on me.

Leavitt is a native Coloradan now competing at the highest national eventing level, Advanced, aboard her 2007 bay Dutch Warmblood gelding MoonLight Crush.

“You want to look like you're sitting there looking pretty and making the horse do everything because that's the goal of dressage to show off the training,” Leavitt said. “You're doing a lot, but you're not showing it.”

Relationships with horses—and humans—are hard to build. When Ashley and I were married, our officiant joked, “You may now salute your bride,” and with that, I entered the dressage arena of marriage.

 

 

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Justify, American Pharoah Halters Up For Auction To Benefit CASA Of Lexington

CASA of Lexington has secured a “triple crown” of horse halters from legendary racehorses, which are up for auction as part of the nonprofits 2021 Bourbon and the Bayou virtual gala. Horse halters worn by Triple Crown-winning Thoroughbreds Justify (2018) and American Pharoah (2015) are available to bid on now on the virtual event's website, BandB2021.givesmart.com. In addition, a halter is up for bid that was worn by California Chrome, who won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in 2014.

CASA of Lexington's Bourbon and the Bayou event is scheduled for the evening of Feb. 12, the “Fat Friday” before Fat Tuesday. Normally a sold-out gala at Lexington's prestigious Carrick House, this year, the event has gone virtual and will be free to attend over Zoom.

Attendance is not required to bid on silent auction items like the horse halters. The auction went live Friday, Jan. 29, and bids close on all items promptly at 9 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12. Winners of many of the biggest auction items will be announced live shortly after 9 p.m., on the Bourbon and the Bayou Zoom event and via Facebook Live on CASA of Lexington's Facebook page.

“Anyone interested in these champions' halters – or any of our other amazing items – can bid online from any location right up until the auction closes,” said Melynda Jamison, CASA of Lexington Executive Director. “This year, we're also auctioning a week-long rental of a seven-bedroom beach house in Jamaica, autographed Kentucky basketballs and much more. The best part is 100% of the proceeds go to help CASA of Lexington advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children in central Kentucky.”

More information about the event, which includes a bourbon tasting experience led by a sommelier with Distilled Living, is available at BandB2021.givesmart.com. Anyone wishing to attend and purchase a bourbon tasting kit to enhance their experience is encouraged to do so quickly before supplies run out. The Justify halter is item 308; the American Pharoah halter is item 309; and the California Chrome halter is item 310.

CASA of Lexington's trained and supervised volunteers advocate through the family court systems in Fayette, Bourbon, Woodford and Scott counties to ensure all victims of child abuse and neglect are safe and thrive in a permanent home. Learn more at casaoflexington.org, by calling (859) 246-4313 or by emailing info@casaoflexington.org.

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