UC Davis school of veterinary medicine

New California Veterinary Emergency Team To Coordinate Training, Response

University of California, Davis, leaders, veterinarians and California legislators unveiled on Tuesday a new emergency program to help rescue animals in disasters. Called the California Veterinary Emergency Team and administered by the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, the program will support and train a network of government agencies, individuals and organizations to aid domestic animals and livestock during emergencies.

California is providing $3 million a year for the California Veterinary Emergency Team, under legislation authored by Sen. Steve Glazer and incorporated into the state budget recently signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The program will be modeled after the UC Davis-led Oiled Wildlife Care Network, created in 1994 to mobilize volunteers and professionals to rescue and treat shorebirds and other wildlife that are injured during oil spills.

“We want to create a robust, coordinated effort statewide to help animals during disasters,” said Michael Ziccardi, director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network and executive director of the One Health Institute. “The California Veterinary Emergency Team will bring together state and county agencies and organizations charged with emergency response to help them organize, train and adopt best practices.”

A primary goal of the new California Veterinary Emergency Team is to increase response capacity and help standardize disaster response across counties, bringing together disparate and fragmented groups. Currently, the California Animal Response Emergency System, or CARES, within the California Department of Food and Agriculture is charged with managing evacuation and care of animals during emergencies. They also work with community animal response teams and nonprofit organizations.

“Recent wildfires have overwhelmed the state's ability to safely evacuate and care for household animals and livestock,” Sen. Glazer said. “Twice in the past five years we have had to call on Texas to send an emergency team to assist. That puts not just animals at risk but also increases the danger for residents and first responders if people stay behind fire lines because they fear their animals will not be cared for. We need this new team to help train, coordinate and lead the hundreds of volunteers who are eager to help. Our goal is a team that is ready to respond anywhere in the state with a mobile command center, a clinic if necessary, and the veterinarians, equipment and medicine to get the job done.”

The California Veterinary Emergency Team would be available to mobilize response to disasters anywhere in California, operating under a memorandum of understanding with the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the Office of Emergency Services. Between disasters, the team would recruit, train and drill volunteers, conduct research, and train veterinarians and veterinary students on best practices in shelter and emergency medicine.

UC Davis has provided leadership in veterinary disaster response through its Veterinary Emergency Response Team, Wildlife Disaster Network partnership formed with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and its Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital disaster patient care. UC Davis VERT and hospital teams typically triage, evaluate, treat and/or rescue more than 1,000 animals in the field in every fire. During the 2018 Camp Fire alone, the teams helped more than 1500 animals, including 70 that were brought in for treatment at the hospital.

“The funding of the California Veterinary Emergency Team provides unprecedented resources that will bring multiple partners across the state of California together to enhance recruitment, coordination, and training of volunteers, veterinarians and veterinary students in best practices in disaster response and sheltering of animals in disasters,” said Michael Lairmore, former dean and distinguished professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Lairmore said the university is committed to working with partners across the state to ensure that the California Veterinary Emergency Team program is successful. Developing the California Veterinary Emergency Team is expected to take some time. It's anticipated the program will be in an organizational phase during this fire season.

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Ferrin Peterson Moves Tack To Laurel, Hoping To Pick Up Momentum From Summer

Starting Friday, the latest chapter in the intriguing story of practicing veterinarian and aspiring jockey Ferrin Peterson will be written at Laurel Park.

Peterson, 28, is named in two of nine races when live action returns to Laurel Jan. 15. The California native has the call on One More Nightcap for trainer Patrick McBurney in Race 5 and Spanish d'Oro, trained by Hamilton Smith, in Race 9.

First race post time is 12:25 p.m.

Maryland is the latest stop on a road that over the past few years has taken Peterson quite literally around the world. After quarantining as part of COVID-19 protocols, she began galloping horses Jan. 9 at Laurel.

“One of the nice things about Laurel is that it is year-round racing and that it is so centralized to so many tracks. So if I could take off here and make this my base, I'd be happy to,” Peterson said. “Who knows? We'll see what happens.”

Peterson comes to Laurel by way of Aqueduct, where she rode during the fall meet that ran Nov. 6 to Dec. 6. Though the trip didn't produce the on-track results she had hoped, Peterson came out richer for the experience.

“At Aqueduct they weren't allowing jockeys on the backside in the morning, and so I knew it was going to be a reach getting my business going there but I really wanted to go for it and try,” Peterson said. “They kept thinking they were going to open up the backside to jockeys but as COVID has continued delaying things, it seemed like it was pretty impossible to start business there with not being able to represent myself and see people face to face. So, I decided to make the move.”

Peterson said it was Ramon Dominguez, the Hall of Fame jockey who came to prominence in Maryland in the early 2000s, that first planted the seed of relocating to the Mid-Atlantic. She is represented by agent Simon Purdy, who also has the book for Weston Hamilton, the 2018 Eclipse Award winner as champion apprentice.

“I heard a lot of good things about Maryland for a while and always really admired their turf racing. When I was at Aqueduct, Ramon Dominguez had become a mentor of mine and so he told me if I ever considered moving to another track he would really recommend Laurel,” Peterson said. “He said it's so well-respected and it's very central to the other racetracks, which was one of the main reasons I moved to the East Coast in the first place and ideally, when covid's over, be able to ride six, seven days a week.

“People were explaining to me that the best way to do that is to get your business going at Laurel,” she added. “It really started with Ramon saying that and then I met Katie Davis in the jock's room at Aqueduct and she was speaking so highly about Laurel and the opportunities there and the horsemanship of the trainers.”

Peterson made her professional debut in February 2018 at Golden Gate Fields, riding while studying veterinary medicine at UC-Davis outside Sacramento, located about an hour north. She finished the year with 10 wins from 144 mounts at places like Del Mar, Golden Gate, Fresno and Oak Tree at Pleasanton.

“It was quite the challenge, with the commute and the work and everything. It was pretty crazy and pretty sleep-deprived, but I just had so much joy doing that,” Peterson said. “It just really kept me grounded in school to be able to keep riding and keep doing something that I was so passionate about. It just felt so right.”

Peterson, who served an externship in Japan touring Thoroughbred training centers, rehabilitation facilities and farms and attending the Nippon Derby as part of her undergraduate studies at Cal Poly San Luis Obisbo, had five wins from 96 mounts in 2019.

“As school started drawing to a close, I'd been just a part-time jockey for the last two years and I thought, 'Well, I've been able to keep my business going being my own agent and doing it part-time,' but it was pretty unheard of,” Peterson said. “That's what made me think, 'What would happen if I actually did this full-time and had an agent?' That's what I decided to pursue, and I've never regretted it.

“Even with the hard times like Aqueduct slowing down, that doesn't faze me because I know that's just what jockeys have to go through,” she added. “So, I'm happy to push on and make it happen.”

Perseverance paid off for Peterson in 2020, winning 50 races from 335 starters with more than $1.6 million in purse earnings. Though she began the year as an apprentice, she lost the bug during a Monmouth Park meet where she finished second in wins to perennial champion Paco Lopez, 51-42, and won her first stakes race, the Sept. 12 Mr. Prospector, aboard Share the Ride.

Peterson followed up with eight wins during the three-week Meadowlands at Monmouth meet in October, tying Jose Ferrer for second in the standings.

“That was very exciting, and then to back it up with a second at the Meadowlands,” she said. “I was very happy with how my summer went and I'm hoping to just kind of continue the momentum.”

Before she launches her veterinary practice full time, Peterson is determined to pursue a riding career that has been a goal since she rode English style and dressage growing up in Roseville, Calif., and attending high school in Oakmont, where she set the school pole vault record.

“I just didn't know growing up how to become a jockey and how to get connections at the racetrack. It was during vet school when I chose that avenue so I could become a racetrack vet and still work in horse racing,” Peterson said. “I started making connections. I was working at a Thoroughbred farm doing their [reproductive] work and breaking babies in the morning, and then I was able to get an exercise rider's license and started going to the track. That's really how it took off.

“I've been working part-time as a vet. I just want to be able to keep my skills up. I have enough time and flexibility with that. It's still something I'm very passionate about, the medicine side of it,” she added. “But, really, my whole life growing up I wanted to be jockey. Now as an adult, riding horses is my greatest passion in life. That's what I want to pursue first and foremost and have the veterinary medicine support on the side, too.”

Though she has yet to ride her first race at Laurel, Peterson said she already has a good feeling about her newest opportunity.

“Even just meeting the trainers for the first time, they're very welcoming,” she said. “They kept saying as long as you have a good work ethic, people give people a shot here. So, that was really encouraging to hear.”

Notes: Trainer Hugh McMahon registered a pair of victories Sunday with Instigated ($4.20) in Race 3 and Southside Warrior ($4.20) in Race 5 … Southside Warrior and Swirrlie Shirlie ($4.40) in Race 7 were both ridden by apprentice Alexander Crispin, who has at least one win on all six race cards to start 2021 with five multi-win days and 16 wins overall … There will be carryovers of $2,514.51 in the 20-cent Rainbow 6 (Races 4-9) and $445.99 in the $1 Super Hi-5 (Race 2) when live racing returns Friday, Jan. 15. Multiple tickets with all six winners in Sunday's Rainbow 6 each returned $49.22.

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Santa Anita PET Scans Allowing Horsemen To ‘Assess The Response Of An Injury’ Over Time

The equine Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner pioneered by the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, in collaboration with LONGMILE Veterinary Imaging, is now in heavy use at Santa Anita Park in Southern California. In just over six months since the installation in December 2019, with the financial support from the Stronach Group, more than 100 scans have been performed with the “MILEPET” (Molecular Imaging of Limbs in Equids), the PET scanner specifically designed to acquire images on horses without the need to lay them down.

Overall, 65 different horses were imaged with the scanner, with several horses imaged multiple times, several weeks apart. In total, images of 186 front ankles, 28 hind ankles, 16 knees, and 11 feet were acquired. As shown by these numbers, the front ankles are the main area of interest, as these are the joints most commonly involved in severe injuries in racehorses.

The first objective after installation of the scanner at the racetrack was to complete a study, funded by the Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation, aiming at assessing the value of PET for identification and follow-up of ankle injuries. The study called for 24 horses with signs of fetlock injuries to be imaged three times with the PET scanner, with follow-up scans six and 12 weeks after the initial scans. All 24 horses have now been enrolled, and over half of these horses have completed all three scans.

All scans were successful, providing very interesting preliminary results.

“The PET scans provide very precise information about the injury,” said Dr. Mathieu Spriet, associate professor of diagnostic imaging at UC Davis and lead veterinarian on the study. “With a classic 'bone scan,' we usually can associate the injury with one of the bones of the ankle, but with the PET, we can really localize the abnormality to a specific area in a bone.”

This is of particular importance, as injuries to specific areas of the ankle bones are known to predispose horses to catastrophic breakdown.

Another benefit of the PET scan is the ability to see changes over time.

“As we have repeated scans six weeks apart, we have seen marked improvement on many of the injuries following treatment and rest, whereas other injuries remained active,” continued Dr. Spriet. “Being able to assess the response of an injury is very helpful to decide the course of action: deciding whether a horse needs more time off, a different treatment, can go back to the track or should be retired from racing – these are very challenging decisions to make for the veterinarians at the track. The PET images have provided objective data to support these decisions.”

In addition to the 24 horses in the Grayson Jockey Club study, more than 40 horses have been scanned at the request of their veterinarians. Horses were sent in by 14 different veterinarians coming from 26 different trainers, demonstrating how broadly the technique has already been embraced by the Santa Anita racing community.

As a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner was also installed at Santa Anita Park earlier this year, another on-going study, supported by the Oak Tree Foundation, aims at comparing PET and MRI findings in the ankles of racehorses. Twenty horses have been enrolled in this study with preliminary results demonstrating the complementarity of both techniques to provide the best assessment of various injuries.

Another study, supported by the Dolly Green Research Foundation, has recently started. This study aims at monitoring horses who are resuming training after being laid-up due to ankle injury. The goal is to assess the ankle on a regular basis to be able to adapt the training, if early signs of injury were to recur.

“It is very impressive how much has been accomplished and how much we have learned in the last six months, thanks to the support of key partners and the hard work of the technical staff and the veterinarians at Santa Anita Park,” said Dr. Spriet. “We have been able to establish this new technology as a reliable, high-precision diagnostic tool for racehorses.”

It is likely that the knowledge about PET will keep growing quickly. In addition to the different on-going studies at Santa Anita Park, this technology is now available outside of California, as a MILEPET scanner has just been installed at New Bolton Center, the equine veterinary hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. There are also on-going efforts to secure the funding to install another MILEPET at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Center, where it would be available for racehorses from Golden Gate Fields and for sport horses across Northern California.

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