Performance
Does riding in a bitless bridle limit or prevent Dynamic Laryngeal Collapse?
Upper respiratory tract (URT) obstruction is a common cause of poor performance in racehorses and a major cause of lost earnings and wastage from training. Bits have often been incriminated as a cause of upper respira...
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What is the awareness of concussion in adult horse riders, and what are typical attitudes and behaviours?
Concussion is classed as a mild form of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and can lead to significant and prolonged symptoms, even after a ‘mild’ injury. Equestrian sports, along with cycling and rugby are associated with ...
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How does being ridden by different people affect horses’ responses to training?
Riders differ in many aspects including skill, experience, gender, weight, height, and riding style. These differences likely impact on horses ridden by different riders and may result in training cues being applied i...
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Does Light Therapy Aid Wound healing?
Light‐emitting diodes (LEDs) are commonly used for treating a variety of disorders in horses, including wounds. Despite anecdotal claims that these LEDs shorten healing times, there is a lack of scientific evaluation ...
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How do ‘pressure headcollars’ affect equine behaviour?
Despite domestication and careful management, horses retain many of their innate flight and fright behaviours in response to environmental challenges. Consequently, the use of equipment to manage and reduce the likeli...
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Does Intra-articular Steroid Therapy Affect Tendon Structure?
Deep digital flexor tendon (DDFT) injuries including those accompanying degenerative changes of navicular bone are a major cause of lameness associated with navicular disease. Injection of corticosteroids into the nav...
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Thoroughbred use, health and owner satisfaction following retirement from racing
Each year a great many Thoroughbred racehorses retire and are rehomed for alternative careers unrelated to racing. Whilst studies investigating racehorse health are frequent, there are few regarding the health of Thor...
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Natural vs. Synthetic Vitamin E Supplementation in Exercising Horses
Vitamin E is abundant in fresh grass but becomes unstable, reducing the amount available to the horse, in the process of baling and storing hay. Horses without access to pasture therefore require supplemental vitamin ...
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Scoring system finds lameness in horses considered sound by their owners
Low grade lameness in ridden horses is more common than recognised by owners. A previous UK study of 506 sports horses in full work and presumed to be non‐lame found that 47% were lame or had other pain‐related gait a...
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No Foot, No Horse? Are low heels associated with hind limb lameness?
Low heels are the most common abnormal hoof conformation seen in both the front and hind feet of horses. This conformation causes a ‘broken‐back’ hoof‐pastern axis and hyperextension of the distal interphalangeal (cof...
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Assessment of injury risk in high level eventing horses
In human sport science, the acute:chronic workload ratio (ACWR) is used to monitor an athlete’s preparedness for competition and to assess risk of injury. Researchers in the Netherlands have conducted a study investig...
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New recording technique to detect a difficult-to-diagnose equine heart condition
Use of a new electrocardiogram (ECG) technique to detect an abnormal heart rhythm called paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) has been described in Nature Scientific Reports (Alexeenko et al., 2020). PAF causes rapid,...
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