Tag: Horse Care

A recent study using 20 Marajoara and Puruca horses, which are semi-feral breeds that live on Marajó, an island in Brazil. These horses eat only native grasses grown in low-fertility soils; they have no mineral supplementation and their hooves are not cared for by humans in any manner. 

Dr. Bruno Dondoni Malacarne, from the Marion DuPont Equine Medical Center at Virginia Tech, and other researchers were curious how the weather cycles on the island affected the horse's hooves. During the rainy season, the horse's hooves are often submerged and don't get worn down; as the season transitions to summer and the dry season comes on, the soil becomes hard and wears down the hooves. The scientists were interested to learn whether the cyclical weather allows the horse's hooves to maintain themselves in a healthy manner.

They compared 12 semi-feral horse hooves to the archived lamellar tissue of eight Mangalara Marchador horses that were stalled and fed high-energy diets with lots of non-structural carbohydrates. The semi-feral horses had body condition scores of between 5 and 6; the domesticated horses had body condition scores of between 8 and 9. 

The domesticated horses received twice their maintenance requirement in digestible energy over 5 months. Half their daily energy requirements came from concentrate and the other half from forage. The scientists fed at this ratio as excess feed and confinement are common in domestic equine management in Brazil. 

Preliminary findings revealed that the semi-feral horses had healthier hooves than the horses managed in stalls and overfed; the domesticated horses had lesions in their lamellar tissue, which is consistent with the initial stages of laminitis. 

The scientists said that although the sample size was small, the results show that semi-feral horses have very different lamellar characteristics than the horses that were stalled and intensely managed. 

Read more at HorseTalk. 

The post Study: Stabled Horses Don’t Have Better Hooves Than Their Semi-Feral Counterparts  appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company (CVFC) is selling a “Buy-Back” foal on SportHorseAuctions.com to benefit the Chincoteague Museum's ongoing fundraising efforts to save Chincoteague, Virginia's Beebe Ranch, the ancestral home of Misty of Chincoteague and the Beebe family. The proceeds from the winning bid of this Buy-Back foal will go towards the purchase of the famed Beebe Ranch. This Chincoteague Pony is a donation to be turned back to the herd and will remain the property of the CVFC and is tax deductible.

The auction of this pony will be an ONLINE ONLY event. Bidding will open June 9 and run through June 14. The auction will be hosted by SportHorseAuctions.com, owned and managed by longtime Chincoteague auctioneer, Tim Jennings, and his wife, Cathy.

After 100 years, the Beebe family, of Chincoteague, Va., need to sell the ranch. The demands of maintaining the ranch plus the desire to use the funds to help their aging family is certainly a good enough reason to sell. Everyone appreciates all they have done to preserve the remaining 10.3 acres of the ranch. This property is where Misty spent most of her life, and the original home still stands. The Beebe family has reached out to the Museum of Chincoteague in the hopes that the museum could acquire the property and maintain it as the ranch.

First published in 1947, Marguerite Henry's beloved children's novel Misty of Chincoteague has captivated generations of horse lovers. What some may not know is that the novel, while fictional, was inspired by the real-life Beebe family of Chincoteague, Virginia, from whom Marguerite purchased the real Misty from as a weanling. A decade later, Misty returned to the Beebe Ranch to live out the rest of her days, and her descendants still live on the property today. Breyer first introduced a model of Misty in 1972, and her foal Stormy followed shortly after in 1977.

Prospective buyers will need to go to the auction website and create an account. They will then need to request a bidder's number to bid. Please visit the website at SportHorseAuctions.com for more information.

The SportHorseAuctions.com team produces North America's Leading Online Auctions for Horses. The management team pioneered internet auctions for horses and has produced nearly 80 Internet Auctions since 2012 boasting a high seller of $226,000.

Tim and Cathy are the industry's most experienced show horse auction managers. Our team managed more than 380 live horse auctions selling over 80,000 horses since 1978. Tim's previous firm, Professional Auction Services, was the largest show horse auction company in the world, by number of horses sold for 15 years.

Link to the auction page https://internethorseauctions.com/auction.php?aucid=499

Other ways to donate to help Save the Beebe Ranch

Donate on the Chincoteague Museum Website: Specify Save the BEEBE RANCH

Donate on GoFundMe

The post Chincoteague ‘Buy-Back’ Foal Up For Auction; Proceeds Used Toward Saving Famed Beebe Ranch appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), which governs international horse sport, has created an Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission (EEWC) focused on improving equine welfare for horses. This committee has made science-backed recommendations that the FEI encompasses as a “zero-tolerance” policy that punishes wrongdoing toward horses both inside and outside the show ring. It also recommended engaging with the public and educating them about equine welfare to safeguard the public image of equestrian sport, reports The Horse.

Additional EEWC recommendations include eliminating the requirement for spurs and double bridles in any discipline, as well as establishing noseband-tightness checks based on scientific evaluation. 

These recommendations come on the heels of a survey seeking ethical opinions about competition horses from 42,000 people from 14 countries; 28,000 of these responses were equestrians of varying levels. The remaining responses were from people with no connection to the equine world. 

Overall, the EEWC found that:

•  67 percent of the general public and 50 percent of equestrians surveyed felt that horses probably don't enjoy participating in competition. 
• 67 percent of non-equestrians felt that horse welfare standards were not adequate or could not be provided for within equestrian sport. 
• The public was more concerned with equine safety and welfare than human safety and welfare. 
• 75 percent of equestrians were concerned about public opinion of horse sport. Interestingly, this varied by response: 87 percent of equine vets were concerned about public opinion while just 53 percent of FEI board members were.

Six focus areas were made by the EEWC from these responses: 

• Training, riding, tack and equipment
• Signs of physical and emotional stress
• Accountability, enforcement and knowledge of equine welfare
• The horse's life beyond the competition ring
• People's competitive drive and treating the horse as a means to an end
• Health problems that could render the horse unfit to compete that might get masked with medications and modalities

The EEWC believes that addressing these areas will help ensure adequate equine welfare and protect horse sport's social license to operate, meaning that the public feels that there is an “ethical right” to ride and compete horses. 

Read more at The Horse.

The post Governing Body Of International Horse Sport Begins Process To Raise Equine Welfare Standards  appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Further to its launch of its vision, A Good Life for Horses, and 24 recommendations made to the FEI and international delegates at the Sports Forum in Lausanne in April of this year, the FEI's Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission [EEWBC] has launched a new survey of equestrian stakeholders to hear their views on how they feel about the proposed approach to safeguarding equine wellbeing.

The 24 recommendations outline actions the FEI should take to demonstrate leadership, trustworthiness, transparency, proactivity and openness to independent evaluation.

For instance, the FEI is asked to:

• 'Publicly commit to defining, promoting and ensuring a Good Life for horses as the fundamental tenet of the FEI Equine Wellbeing Strategy'. (Recommendation 2)
• 'Adopt a transparent and evidence-based approach for assessing the impact on horse welfare of new and existing items of tack and equipment in training and competition'. (Recommendation 8)
• 'Require mandatory collection and publication of comprehensive lifecycle information and injury statistics for horses involved in sport'. (Recommendation 16)
• Ensure that all FEI stakeholders commit to the 'FEI Equestrian Charter'. (Recommendation 17)
• 'Empower officials to ensure welfare is paramount, through improved mandatory training and ongoing professional development, greater support for ensuring effective enforcement and more accountability for achieving high standards of individual horse welfare at all times at an event. (Recommendation 21)

The survey — which is offered in English, French and Spanish — welcomes responses from anyone involved in horses by June 22, 2023. The questions include:

• Do they agree that horses can live a Good Life when involved in sport?
• To what extent they feel the 24 recommendations made by the Commission would make a real difference to the welfare of the sport horse if adopted by the FEI?
• Whether respondents would be happy to pledge to the FEI's proposed new Equestrian Charter, requiring all FEI athletes to affirm their awareness of the responsibilities that come with using horses in sport, around understanding its welfare and behavioural needs, and “respecting the horse as a sentient creature capable of feeling both positive and negative emotions”?

The survey also points to the Commission's proposed detailed Strategic Approach to help ensure 'A good life for horses,' through use of six strategic enablers; evidence, education, engagement, effective regulation, enforcement and empowerment.

“We were delighted with the extremely positive response to our recommendations made at April's Sports Forum,” says EEWBC Chair Professor Natalie Waran. “The equestrian community understood that we can only demonstrate how seriously we take the responsibility of involving horses in sport with top-to-bottom engagement across the equestrian community, and a desire to act in the best interests if the horse.”

“The use of the word 'sentient' in the Charter is deliberate because it highlights that horses feel negative and positive emotions such as fear, stress, pain, contentment and pleasure, as well as the responsibility we all have for ensuring that equestrians understand the responsibility they have for how their horse feel. Animal sentience is recognized in law in many countries, and to ensure good welfare, we all need to understand what that is, why it's relevant and why it matters to the horse.

“The EEWB Commission advocates evidence-based decisions to safeguard horse welfare, but also cautions that whilst existing and ongoing work to identify robust indicators for practical equine welfare assessment is important, where research may not yet be available or is inconclusive, we should 'err on the side of caution' by applying a precautionary approach where there may be a welfare risk to the horse”.

To complete the survey by June 22, 2023 please use these links:

Link to the Spanish version: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z9275QB

Link to the English version: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RH6WC8C

Link to the French version: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QYVN9XV

The post FEI-Appointed Equine Ethics And Wellbeing Commission Launches Survey To Gauge Reactions To Welfare Proposals appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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