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Welfare Articles
The challenge of transport - the practical considerations for transporting horses
Short-distance transport of racehorses is, as every trainer knows, almost always of very little consequence. The only significant exceptions are the “bad travellers” that may or may not respond to repeated exposure to transport and a patient approach.
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Backstretch Welfare Programs
The office with the best view at Churchill Downs will close April 15. Some would say it is the best office, period. No, it isn’t an executive suite whose occupant is leaving. It is, instead, the office of the Lifestyle Program of Churchill Downs.
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Stress and the Thoroughbred - a closer look at the loosely-used term
There can be few terms used as loosely by both practical horse people and animal scientists as the term ‘stress.’ It can be used to mean the physical force an object is subjected to, for example the stress applied to the pasterns of a Thoroughbred on the gallops.
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Drugs in Racing and the Role the Vet has to Play
Two horses – Eight Belles and Big Brown – have brought racetrack veterinarians and their care of thousands of racehorses squarely to the forefront of the racing industry...and in the hot seat of public and government scrutiny. Perceptions that vets are drug pushers responsible for masking injuries that lead to catastrophe are more popular than ever.
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Stabling and health specifically for racehorses
In looking at this subject, it is important to see the needs of the racehorse as being different from horses kept for any other sporting purpose. Its management, feeding, training and stabling are all critical and unique. For racing, all body organs must function efficiently and, in so much as these can be affected by barn conditions, it might pay to take a critical look at the elements involved.
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An insight into the Blackburn Correctional Institute
There is no evidence of Cool Hand Luke's callous, barren prison driving from the guardhouse at the Blackburn Correctional Institute to the barn that has housed the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF) program since 1999. Even on this gray day with the mud sucking at your shoes, the minimum security prison is a beautiful facility. Before inmates – non-violent offenders – arrive, they have filtered through maximum and medium security systems, and the longest stay at Blackburn is 48 months. It is the final step before release, and the focus is on convalescence, not punishment.
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Is speed in a racehorse overrated compared to stamina?
This year's Breeders' Cup championship races, for the first time, will include a mile-and-a-half marathon for older horses.Safety and stamina over speed?
Read full story...Horse Behaviour Problems: Common causes and welfare-sensitive approaches to solutions.
The term ‘behaviour problem’ or even ‘abnormal behaviour’ is applied to many behaviours horses perform without any great thought to the appropriateness of the term. The simplest (and probably most appropriate) definition of an equine behaviour problem is a behaviour that presents a difficulty of some kind to the horse, other horses, or to its owners and managers.
Read full story...Breeze-up babies - do they run a greater risk of being injured?
Even though many of them haven’t reached their actual second birthday, two-year-olds breezing before increasingly popular two-year-olds-in-training sales are routinely breaking standards of speed which have endured for decades. By ripping off an eighth of a mile in under :11 seconds, they are generating millions of dollars for pinhookers, consignors, breeders, owners and the sales companies which auction them off as early as February of their two-year-old season.
Read full story...A new equine hospital is coming to Belmont Park
At the very site where Dr. William Reed and a team of doctors performed emergency surgery on Ruffian in an unsuccessful attempt to save the immortal filly’s life in 1975, a new, state-of-the-art, full-service equine hospital will be constructed across the street from the Belmont Park backstretch on Plainfield Avenue by the International Equine Acquisitions Holdings Corporation.
Read full story...Understanding Horse Behavior
It cannot be denied that there is art as well as science in the successful training of racehorses. No matter how good one’s understanding of the principles involved, an essential component is good horsemanship- a ‘feel’ for the horse, and an easy communication between horse and trainer which would appear to defy scientific explanation.
Read full story...The man making racing surfaces safer - Bill Heller meets Professor Mick Peterson
When someone outside the world of horse racing steps inside, he does so innocently, even if he has a Ph. D. When Michael “Mick” Peterson, a 44-year-old associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Maine with a doctorate in theoretical and applied mechanics, wondered about the maintenance of track surfaces to prevent horses’ injuries, he assumed there would be uniform guidelines for track superintendents. “What are the standards for horse racing?” he asked. “That was my naïve question 12 years ago.”
Read full story...How will artificial surfaces affect thoroughbred racing and breeding?
Dubai Millennium, Arcangues, Singspiel, Swain, Sakhee, Giant’s Causeway and Electrocutionist. What do they have in common? They all transformed high class turf form to dirt. Though the main point is this: They had all proved effective on soft or heavy turf before running on dirt. If this is a key factor for trainers assessing a turf horse’s prospects of running in big dirt events, is it also something to bear in mind for racing on artificial surfaces, like the Polytrack? Such racing, on the so-called ”all-weather” has been limited up to now but times are changing and soon we will see a great number of races on artificial surfaces in North America, the world’s biggest bloodstock market. It will be a third playing field, alongside turf and dirt racing. How will this affect the breeding industry?
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