HEALTH & EDUCATION

Health & Education

We all want the best care possible for our horses. The Heath & Education section covers both Learning Institutions, Organizations as well as many sources for equine assistance including Veterinarians and Farriers.

For those who want a to formally study horses, the Education section includes College Riding, Equine Studies, and Veterinary Schools. Learn about the wide variety of horses in the Horse Breeds section. Supplements and Treatments Therapy are also included in the section.

Everyone can learn from Fine Art and there are some specialty Museums that might surprise you.

Horses as a therapy partner enrich the lives of the disabled. These facilities are listed in our Therapeutic Riding section. To help children and young adults build confidence and grow emotionally, please see the resources available on the Youth Outreach page.

Looking for a place to keep your horse? You can find it in the Horse Boarding section. Traveling? Find a Shipping company or Horse Sitting service if your horse is staying home!

Want to stay up to date with the latest training clinics or professional conferences? Take a look at our Calendar of Events for Health & Education for the dates and locations of upcoming events.

Do we need to add more? Please use the useful feedback link and let us know!

Training a horse is a challenging but necessary part of equine ownership. If you don’t train your horse, it will become unruly and hard to manage as it reaches adulthood. Independently of which horse breed you own, maybe it’s a Shetland pony or maybe an Arabian horse, training it will take time, but the rewards are there if you can pull it off.

Set Goals

Before you start training your horse, it’s important to know your main objective. Some people just want to ride their horses around a field; some want to take their horses onto the road, and some want to take their horses around the country in trailers. Whatever goal you have, make sure you take it step-by-step and don’t rush things. If you want to teach your horse to get into the trailer, you have to get it used to the trailer first but if what you want is to ride your horse, it would be best to get it used to having a saddle on first.

Trust

Having your horse’s trust is one of the most important aspects of training. If your horse doesn’t trust you, it won’t listen to you, and you’ll waste hours training it when it’s in a state that won’t accept any training. You need to build that trust over time by doing simple things like grooming it, spending time with it, walking it, etc. Once you’ve built up that trust, only then can you begin training it.

Doctor Dorothee Bienzle,a Ontario Veterinary College researcher

by Jackie Bellamy-Zions

Heaves is known as a disease that can leave a horse struggling to breathe, ending athletic careers and even rendering a pleasure horse unsuitable for riding. Commonly known today as equine asthma, it’s an irreversible disease brought on by repeated exposure to dust and moulds. Ontario Veterinary College researcher, Doctor Bienzle has a long history of primary and collaborative work studying asthma in horses. Her most recent contributions include working with a group of researchers in Slovenia, investigating stem cells as a potential treatment option.

Bienzle explains the usual causes of heaves are long term exposure to dusty or mouldy hay, bedding, dusty environments and sometimes even grass in hot humid climates that provide the right conditions for mould to thrive. “Horses get sensitized to these components in the inhaled air and with time, they develop airway inflammation and that begins to manifest with occasional coughing or runny nose.”

With continued exposure to the same particulates, the condition worsens, and the coughing becomes more continuous. The nose may be running and then there is thickening of the bronchial wall in the lung. There is extra smooth muscle being laid down and it becomes hard for the horse to exhale against mucus and inflammatory cells in the lumen of the airway.

In the later stages of disease, horses can develop a ‘heaves line’ (hypertrophic abdominal muscles are recruited to assist with exhaling air). By the time equine asthma is diagnosed, it has usually been present for a few years, if not several. Treatment of the symptoms includes immunosuppression, but the disease cannot be reversed.

by Laura Crump Anderson

Pregnancy is such an exciting and nerve-racking part of a woman’s life. There is no denying that it will impact your riding as your body adapts and changes to the challenges of becoming a mother. While most doctors and literature on the subject will tell you not to ride while you are pregnant, if you are healthy and your pregnancy is progressing normally, you can certainly continue to exercise. You may need to make some modifications for your changing body, and that’s what a pregnancy-specific routine is designed to help you do.

There are some exercises that are very safe to do while you’re pregnant; there are also some things you should avoid doing, such as deep twists, exercises on your stomach, and after your fourth month, exercises that have you on your back for extended periods of time. Be aware that expectant mothers often tire sooner, so don’t push yourself too hard as exhaustion leads to an increased risk of injury. The last thing you want from your exercise program is an injury that would make life even harder while you’re pregnant, so make sure you listen to your body and back off when it tells you to.

I developed a special strength-building routine after working with riding clients who wanted to stay active during their pregnancies. Pregnant women are some of my favorite to work with because it is such an exciting period in their lives. They know that they need to work hard and take care of their bodies. Some days are harder than others, but they always show up and give it everything they have. As a personal trainer, I could not ask for more.

by ECIR Group Inc.

Hyperinsulinemia associated with pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID) and/or equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) is well documented to put horses at high risk of laminitis. While dietary control of simple sugars and starch is the most effective therapy to control hyperinsulinemia, some horses fail to respond.

Since the publication of articles in 2018 and 2019 describing the effects of the SGLT2 (sodium glucose cotransporter 2) inhibitor velagliflozin in controlling insulin levels in horses with hyperinsulinemia, the Equine Cushing’s and Insulin Resistance Group (ECIR Group) has been interested in exploring this family of drugs in horses that do not respond to the usual measures of diet/carbohydrate control, pergolide if the horse has PPID/Cushing’s, and metformin.

ECIR Group members with horses that had unresponsive high insulin levels and laminitis, in conjunction with their treating veterinarians, trialed them on canagliflozin. Because velagliflozin is not commercially available, members used the flagship SGLT2 inhibitor, canagliflozin, with estimated appropriate dosages based on published information.

By Sean Patrick

Helping Your Horse Overcome His Fears

Horses usually take the path of least resistance and conserve their energy…a nice way of saying that they are inherently lazy. So why does a young horse surge in speed under saddle when a slower pace would take less effort? The answer can be explained by examining the horse’s fear level. He needs to build confidence through experience and habituation. Building your horse’s confidence is not just about desensitizing him to a saddle pad; it is an ongoing process every time you handle him or get in the saddle.

Expect your horse to be fearful of new experiences. Your job is to assist him in overcoming his fear. Here is a list of measures you can take:

Use your hands and legs wisely. Your horse must completely trust your actions and intentions. Communicate through physical touch that is fair and pleasing.
Apply motivators consistently and fairly—smoothly and with warning. For example, when using a dressage whip, take your position and begin hind-end tapping slowly with increasing firmness. Never startle your horse with an unexpected firm tap. With fair application he’ll learn to respond without ever showing signs of fear.
Be reasonable and consistent with reprimands. Your horse needs to know where the line is, and that the line is stationary.
Spend ample time in the saddle on a regular basis. This keeps your horse prepared and accustomed to his job as a riding horse. When your riding time is short and infrequent, he won’t progress nearly as well. You want the saddle and rider to be a normal part of his routine, where fear and discomfort are not factors.

Disease symptoms, transmission and prevention, as described by an entomologist and veterinarian.

It was early in the mosquito season when a young cutting horse, who had just started training, became inflicted with West Nile virus.

“The horse didn’t know where he was placing his feet, and his gait was off. When the bloodwork came back, it ended up being West Nile,” said Tony Hawkins, DVM, Valley Vet Supply Technical Service Veterinarian. “It’s such an easy disease to prevent – as long as the horse is properly vaccinated, you don’t get any breakthrough infections.”

With about 10 weeks of treatment, the gelding survived and made a full recovery, which can be rare.

“Not many horses will recover fully. While the survival rate is high (67%), there can be some lasting side effects,” said Dr. Hawkins.

Since 1999, more than 25,000 cases of WNV encephalitis have been reported in U.S. horses, according to the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP). Even more, horses represent 96.9% of all reported non-human mammalian cases of WNV disease.

With mortality rates reaching up to 90% from mosquito-transmitted diseases, it’s important that horses be protected.

by Alessandra Deerinck

The connection between humans and horses has always been strong and universally evident ... Opposites attract. Horses do not change their surroundings, adapt to survive wherever they find food, water and other horses, and live always alert, completely immersed in the environment. On the other side of the spectrum, man, by nature, tends to modify everything to fulfill his life needs. For example, he builds houses that allow him to live in safety, abstracting himself from the surrounding environment.

When man met the horse he tamed it, because it seemed a resource to improve life ... and so it was! Over the centuries, humans have even modified the original equine species, creating breeds that have genetic traits that can satisfy human needs and desires. The horse has been able to adapt to survive in conditions that are extremely different from the natural ones for him, allowing man to build entire civilizations. Nowadays the original functions that the horse has had in human life are performed by mechanical means, but, once again, due to their flexible nature, horses still find a place in our life as men of the twenty-first century.

MacNicol describes the complexities of the equine microbial environment that begin to develop at birth, how it very quickly starts to reflect that of the mare and how rapidly a foal adapts so it can consume forage. (Photo Credit: Jolene Purdue)

by Jackie Bellamy-Zions, Equine Guelph

The foal’s gut undergoes many changes as it develops rapidly. More and more, we are learning how the colonization of a gut correlates to good health. Exploring the differences in foal microbiomes and how those differences may tie in with overall health has PhD Candidate, Jennifer MacNicol, very excited about the potential advancements the research could yield in the field of equine neonatal care.

MacNicol, from the Department of Animal Bioscience at the Ontario Agricultural College will be working under the direction of Ontario Veterinary College researcher, Dr. Luis Arroyo, in a project planned to begin this summer studying mare/foal pairs to gain knowledge of how the horse’s gut environment matures. Research in genomics is rapidly expanding our knowledge of digestive health but is it is not well understood why diarrhea can become life-threatening in some foals while others recover without additional symptoms.

An entomologist and veterinarian discuss the unremitting mosquito.

While much of the Western half of the United States endures near historic drought levels, one might anticipate this year’s mosquito season to be a walk in the park.

No Rain, No Problem for Mosquitoes

“Just because we don’t have rain, doesn’t mean we don’t have mosquitoes,” explains Department Head for Entomology and Plant Pathology at Oklahoma State University, and former livestock entomologist, Justin Talley, PhD. “Some of the most significant West Nile virus outbreak years have been associated without significant rainfall. Be aware, just because you don’t see water, doesn’t mean there are no breeding areas around.”

Dr. Talley shared how the Culex mosquito, which is responsible for transmitting core equine diseases such as West Nile virus (WNV), can populate in the most unsuspecting places. Standing, puddling water is not needed. “One would think that wet years equal more equine West Nile virus cases; however, the type of mosquitoes transmitting these equine diseases can develop in muddy water or a storm drain. There’s a lot of water you don’t see.”

Even a tiny hole in a tree – with just a bit of water – is enough for the Culex mosquito to repopulate within.

“The thing about mosquitoes is they’re very diverse in the habitat they can modify to, and it’s their adaptive behaviors that allow them to be successful,” Dr. Talley said.