A Veterinarian's Take

Kentucky Horse Racing Commission RaceDay Medication Transcript

2012-02-07T12:07:00.004-07:00

Dr Gustafson's testimony begins on Page 169, Arthur Hancock's testimony begins on page 220, Bill Casner's begins on 137.

http://khrc.ky.gov/Documents/RaceDayMedicationTranscript.pdf

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. DrSid provides equine behavior consultations to help recreate the needs and preferences of horses in training and competition. He advises owners and trainers how to manage bleeding without drugs.

MR. FARMER: Dr. Gustafson with the Humane Society of the United States.

DR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you commissioners for having this hearing to address this important issue.

My name is Sid Gustafson. A brief biography for those of you who would like to know. In the '60s, I started catching urine in Montana. I was catching urine in 1968 when Dancer's Image number was taken down. And so I put a lot of thought into raceday medication through the years.

I represent the Humane Society of the United States today as well as the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association. I teach veterinary behavior at the University of Guelph and, in addition, I am a regulatory veterinarian in 4 states; California, New York, Montana, and Washington.

So I have been around as both an attending and regulatory veterinarian.

We do not oppose horse racing. But we do oppose race day medication. Hearing the information that exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage is present in nearly 100 percent of the horses, some people would conclude that that is somewhat of a normal occurrence rather than an abnormal pathology.

However, certain degrees of it can be quite problematic. And I feel that part of this is due to exceeding the adaptability of the racehorse. So in my talk, I am going to present some solutions other than medication to exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage.

Apparently all of these other jurisdictions in Hong Kong and Europe and places they don't use race day medication went through this process. And I assume the process they went to -- the collusions they came to will somewhat reflect what happens here. But I guess that remains to be seen.

To appreciate the nature of the thoroughbred, I would like to briefly review the evolution of the horse and the domestication process. Of all of the human equine pursuits, horse racing is perhaps the most natural equine pursuit of all. More natural, for example, than polo or stadium jumping or cutting. Horses have evolved for 60 million years to run at speed in close company. Running at speed in close company is the horse's long evolved group survival mechanism.

This is the nature which is nurtured in thoroughbred lines and thoroughbred development and training.

Racing comes natural to a horse.

To appreciate how horses develop the athletic endurance to run at speed together and connected in close company, veterinary behaviorists observe horses in natural settings to assess how horses naturally prepare themselves to race. We study horses prepare younger horses to develop strong limbs and strong lungs and musculoskeletal systems to achieve success evading prey.

Knowledge of the horse's nature is abundantly applied here in Kentucky. Farm after farm I drove through coming here had large pastures where bands of mares and foals and later bands of cohorts run and play and learn to travel closely together at speed. They learn to communicate together, change leads together and move in a safe and synchronous organized fashion while running in large circles around the pasture.

It is this essential experience with other horses in a heard that a growing thoroughbred gains the confident to run by and through horses later in life in a race. The herd conditions growing horses. Running with the herd facilitates the physical development of the lungs and musculoskeletal system.

The reproduction and recreation of these natural behaviors are essential for the healthy, mental, and physical development of the thoroughbred as is evident everywhere here in the Bluegrass. In order to later prevail in a horse race, growing thoroughbreds need to be conditioned to develop the ability, coordination, stamina, pulmonary capacity, and strength, confidence and experience needed to endure training and racing.

It is this knowledge that elucidates how race day Lasix impoverishes the welfare of horses. To

appreciate the principles of equine behavior is to understand what is required to maintain pulmonary health in horses confined to stalls being conditioned to race.

The solution to managing exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage is appropriate breeding development, horsemanship, training, and husbandry. The care that establishes and enhances pulmonary health and endurance in horses is the same care that enriches stabled horse's lives. It is the same care that keeps racehorses' musculoskeletal systems sound. It is the care that keeps horses on their feet during races.

One point is clear about all of this data. The data from non-Lasix, non-race day medication jurisdictions indicates to me, at least, that clean running horses suffer significantly fewer breakdowns than horses running on Lasix in America.

Over the last 2 years, if I am reading the data from Encompass correctly, we watched 2 horses break down for every 1,000 starts. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which has been discussed here quite a bit, has set an example of clean and racing without race day medication. And their data indicates that they have less than 1 breakdown for every 2000 starts.

So on that basis, we find the use of Lasix and race day medication to be a welfare issue. Horses with healthy lungs are content and

fulfilled horses whose lives their caretakers adequately, if not extensively, enrich. Lung health is supported by limb health. Appropriate husbandry and training maintains and establishes the soundness of both wind and limb.

Breeding and running are biologically intertwined on the racetrack, a breath per stride. To stride correctly is to breathe correctly. To breathe correctly is to breathe soundly and to race sound.

Horses who are bred, socialized, and developed properly from birth and who train while living enriched stable lives are seldom likely to experience performance-impairing equine induced pulmonary hemorrhage -- exercise induced pulmonary hemorrhage while racing. They are more apt to stay sound.

Humane my friends. appropriate

care of the horse prevents bleeding, Pulmonary health is reflective of

husbandry, breeding, training, nutrition, and the abundant provisions of forage, friends, and perhaps most importantly locomotion.

Lasix perpetuates substandard horsemanship, artificially suppressing the untoward result, which is bleeding, to impair performance of inadequate preparation of the thoroughbred.

Performance medication on race day leads to fragility. Rather than alleviate medical conditions, the data from several jurisdictions and studies indicates that racing medications administered on race day exceed racehorse adaptability and perpetuate fragility in race horses. Fragility is dangerous for both horses and riders.

Genetics play a role in pulmonary health and physical durability. Lasix perpetuates genetic weakness by allowing ailing horses to prevail and sow their seeds of pharmaceutical dependence.

Lasix manages a wide variety of unsoundnesses, as do the cortisone and the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Running sore can cause horses to bleed. Anti-inflammatory drugs aggravate coagulation processes.

Please appropriate that horses running on pharmaceutical scrims are 4 times more likely to

break down than horses running free of race day medication.

Pulmonary health is dependent on appropriate breeding and proper development for the vigor, durability, and endurance thoroughbred racing demands.

Drugs are not the solution. Competent horsemanship is the solution.

Genetic dosage, behavioral and physical development, socialization, training, and husbandry are the keys to racehorse soundness, stamina, and durability.

Horses evolved as social grazers of the plains, group survivalists moving and grazing together much of the time. Horses require near constant forage, friends, and locomotion to maintain health of wind and limb. Racehorses are no exception. The last place a horse evolved to live is in a stall alone. The solution to manage bleeding in racehorses is to develop, teach, train, and care for horses in a horse-sensitive fashion.

Training and husbandry need to be a good deal for horses in order for horses to maintain healthy partnerships with people. Pulmonary health is

reflective of overall health and soundness in horses.

order to maintain pulmonary health, natural conditions need to be recreated in the stable.

Horses prefer to graze together and move nearly constantly. This constant grazing and moving are essential for joint and bone health, hoof health, metabolic health, and pulmonary health. In order for lungs to stay healthy, horses need movement, often more movement than trainers provide.

Walking enhances and maintains horse health. Stabled horses need a lot more walking than most are currently afforded. Abundant on track and on track locomotion is necessary to condition a horse's lungs. Lungs deteriorate when movement is restricted. Horse breath all day long and walking is part of the way that assists their health.

Walking and movement enhance breathing and lung health. Development and conditioning of pulmonary health throughout growth and while training are the answers to prevent and manage bleeding as they have always been.

To enhance pulmonary health is to enhance the horse's entire life and outlook. Not only do

properly stabled and trained horses' lungs hold bleeding in abeyance, they hold sway and win.

Pulmonary health and bleeding prevention are dependent on smooth running and biomechanically sound locomotions.

Horse evolved in the open spaces of the northern hemisphere and require the cleanest, purest air to thrive and develop health lungs and hearts. Stable air needs to be constantly refreshed to maintain pulmonary health. Ventilation is essential and enclosed structures are often inappropriate. Barn design must be addressed to maintain pulmonary health. Bedding is critical. Clear straw provides the moves

movement by simulating Horses stalled on about with their heads

grazing. straw are noted to move down nibbling and exploring

for hours, recreating natural, keeping their lungs healthy with movement.

Their respiratory tracts drained by all the head-down nibbling and grazing. Horses need near constant movement to maintain optimum lung health. Long standing horses' lungs deteriorate quickly. Not only does near constant movement maintain and enhance pulmonary health, abundant locomotion maintains metabolic health, joint and bone health, hoof health and digestive health.

To enhance lung health, is to enhance the overall health and soundness of the horse.

Racing has proven to be safer in Lasix-free and race day medication free jurisdictions where the drug crutch is not allowed.

Drugs are not allowed to replace appropriate care and training in Hong Kong and Europe. And race day drugs should not be allowed in America.

The stabled race horses has to be carefully and humanely cared for and nourished, both physically and behaviorally to win and stay healthy. Lasix has weekend the breed, and weakened the American horse racing game considerably as the numbers across the board reveal.

The horse has brought us all here today. If racing is to flourish as a sport in Kentucky and subsequently in the rest of the world, horse racing must come clean of drugs and replace its race day medication attitudes with appropriate horse sensitive breeding, development, horsemanship, behavior, training, and husbandry programs.

To honorably share this great Commonwealth with our friend the horse, we must learn to use the resources of the land and people to nurture Kentucky horses and rid the heart of the sport of its dependence on race day drugs.

Respectfully submitted. MR. FARMER: Thank you very much, doctor. Any questions from the panel? Commissioners?

Thank you very much. DR. GUSTAFSON: Thank you.

Healing in Horses

2012-01-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Restorative healing in Equus caballus.

Grazing pasture in an open setting with other horses, when appropriately orchestrated, has the potential to provide the most profound and often the most cost-effective healing of musculoskeletal infirmities and injuries. For conditions allowed to progress to lameness, time is required, often months. When musculoskeletal conditions are detected early, before lameness ensues, short term rest and restorative strategies encourage solid healing (days to weeks). Both long and short term healing are enhanced when the horse is content with the forage, friendship, and locomotion resources. Avoid unnecessary restrictions to locomotion whenever feasible.

The earlier inflammation is detected, the shorter the time period is required to heal. Healing in a social-grazing setting is a long-evolved trait of the horse. Horses acclimated to herd and pasture settings during their development respond best to restorative healing.

Horsefolk need to take special care not to exceed the horse's adaptability regarding stabling and healing.

Horses require a sense of comfort and security for physical and mental restoration (and maintenance). An adequate social grazing environment, or appropriate facsimile thereof, often provides the most comfort to the most horses. Horses provided with adequate socialization throughout their upbringing are most responsive to these strategies. For horses, comfort and security come from friendship, forage, and, most-critically, a near-constant casual locomotion. Young horses and newborns learn to be horses from the dam and herd, and foals are best served to develop with horses in an appropriate grazing environment, as well. Horses learn to socialize, communicate, graze, locomote, run at speed in close company, play, smell, balance, move, and compete from their mother along with the herd members.

Healthy physical and mental development are best actualized in a social grazing environment. Neonates rely on their dam for critical early learning processes, including sensual development, locomotion, and early mobility. The development of agility, coordination and athleticism in early life is critical to subsequent mental health and soundness. Abundant social contact, grooming, sleep, play, athletic development, and social bonding occurs during early herd life. Horses rely on constant contact and frequent interactions with other horses for healthy mental and physical development.

Opportunities for the abundant expression of normal equine behavior and motion promotes healing.

Unfortunately, healing opportunities of this sort are not available everywhere, especially in the more urban equestrian settings. Space and grazing limitations restrict healing opportunities. In these scenarios, the horse's preferences have to recreated with carefully designed and implemented ENRICHMENT strategies that provide some fashion of near constant forage ingestion that allow oral and physical and movement and motion. Stabling scenarios often restrict social expression and sensual contact. Horses are sensitive to these deprivations which results in stress, which complicates and delays healing.

LOCOMOTION is essential for both horse health and healing.

Husbandry, healing, and rehabilitation nearly always benefit from appropriately managed and free choice locomotion strategies that are constantly tailored to the horse's healing process. Locomotion is required not only for normal healing, but for normal digestion, respiration, hoof health, circulation, and all other physiologic functions of the horse. Stall rest is at the expense of many systems, especially the hoof and metabolic systems. Digestion and respiration are compromised by confinement and restriction of movement. Metabolic, digestive, circulatory, hoof health, musculoskeletal, and nervous, systems, as well as the all other systems and functions of the horse, are dependent upon adequate and appropriate locomotion for normal functioning and/or healing.

Stalled horses heal poorly. In addition to appropriate medical treatment, veterinarians and stable managers must creatively provide horses with abundant socialization, forage, and locomotion to maintain health and facilitate healing.

Horses also heal horsefolk, and those horsefolk that implement these healing strategies often experience a sense of healing themselves, it seems. The human/horse bond runs deep. Domestication of the horse is a co-evolving evolutionary process. The human perspective is being shaped by the horse's perspective these days. Appreciation of the science of equine behavior and equitation is a welcome change for the horse after centuries of considerable subjugation.

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. He helps refine horse and dog training methods to accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses and dogs. Applied veterinary behavior enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in animal athletes. Natural approaches to development, training, nutrition, and conditioning sustain equine health and enhance performance. Behavioral and nutritional enrichment strategies enhance the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in content, cooperative horses. DrSid provides equine behavior consultations to help recreate the needs and preferences of horses in training and competition.

Racehorse Advocacy

2011-12-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

Racehorse Advocacy

The Trouble with Lasix

Testimony before the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission hearing on raceday medication. November 14, 2011, Frankfort, KY, on behalf of the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association and the Humane Society of the United States.

Sid Gustafson DVM

Equine veterinary behaviorist representing the health and welfare of horses

11-11-11

To appreciate the nature of the thoroughbred, I would like to briefly review the evolution of the horse and the domestication process. Of all human/equine pursuits, horse racing is perhaps the most natural equine pursuit of all, more natural than polo or stadium jumping or cutting, for example. Horses have evolved for 60 million years to run at speed in close company. Running at speed is the horse’s long-evolved group survival mechanism. This is the nature which is nurtured in thoroughbred lines and thoroughbred development and training. Racing comes natural to a horse.

To appreciate how horses develop the athletic endurance to run at speed together in connected and close company, veterinary behaviorists observe horses in natural settings to assess how horses naturally prepare themselves to race. They study how horses prepare younger horses to develop strong limbs and lungs and musculoskeletal systems to achieve success in evading prey. Knowledge of the horse’s nature is abundantly applied here in Kentucky. Farm after farm has large pastures where bands of mares and foals, and later bands of cohorts, run and play and learn to travel closely together at running at speed. They learn to communicate together, to change leads together, to move in a safe and synchronous organized fashion while running in large circles. It is this essential experience with other horses in a herd that a growing thoroughbred gains the confidence to run by and through horses later in life in a race.

The goal of a harem is to teach the foal to run with the herd. The mare and band are the long-evolved teachers of this process. The herd conditions growing horses. Running with the herd facilitates the physical development of the lungs and musculoskeltal system. The reproduction and re-creation of these natural behaviors are essential for the healthy mental and physical development of the thoroughbred, as is evident everywhere in the Bluegrass. In order to later prevail in a horserace, growing thoroughbreds need to be conditioned by the herd to develop the ability, coordination, stamina, pulmonary capacity and strength, confidence, and experience needed to endure training and racing.

It is this knowledge that elucidates how raceday medication impoverishes the welfare of racehorses. To appreciate the principles of equine behavior is to understand what is required to maintain pulmonary health in horses confined to stalls being conditioned to race. The solution to managing Exercise-Induced-Pulmonary-Hemorrhage is appropriate breeding, development, horsemanship, training, and husbandry. The care that establishes and enhances pulmonary health and endurance in horses is the same care that enriches stabled horses’ lives. It is the same care that keeps racehorses’ musculoskeletal systems sound. It is the care that keeps horses on their feet during races.

One point is clear; the data from non-Lasix, non-raceday medication jurisdictions indicates clean-running horses suffer significantly fewer breakdowns than horses running on Lasix in America. Over the last two years, we watched two horses break down for every 1000 starts. Meanwhile, the clean running Hong Kong Jockey Club has less than one breakdown for every 2000 starts. They have no apparent or significant problems with bleeding. They have clearly demonstrated that clean racing is four times safer than medicated racing.

Horses with healthy lungs are content and fulfilled horses whose lives their caretakers adequately if not extensively enrich. Lung health is supported by limb health. Appropriate husbandry and training maintains and establishes soundness of both wind and limb. Breathing and running are biologically intertwined on the track, a breath per stride. To stride correctly is to breathe correctly. To breathe correctly is to breathe soundly, and race sound.

Horses who are bred, socialized, and developed properly from birth, and who train while living enriched stable lives are seldom likely to experience performance-impairing EIPH while racing. They are more apt to stay sound. Humane care of the horse prevents bleeding, my friends. Pulmonary health is reflective of appropriate husbandry, breeding, training, nutrition, and the abundant provisions of forage, friends, and perhaps most importantly, locomotion. Bleeding in a race is reflective of inadequate care and preparation, of miscalculations and untoward medication practices. Lasix perpetuates substandard horsemanship, artificially suppressing the untoward result (bleeding) of inadequate preparation of the thoroughbred. Peformance medication leads to fragility. Rather than alleviate medical conditions, this data indicates racing medications exceed racehorse adaptability and perpetuate fragility in racehorses. Fragility is dangerous for both horses and riders. To grasp how Lasix impoverishes the welfare of the racehorse, one needs to understand the long-evolved nature and behavior of the racehorse.

Genetics play a role in pulmonary health and physical durability. Lasix perpetuates genetic weakness by allowing ailing horses to prevail and sow their seeds of pharmaceutical dependence. Lasix manages a wide variety of unsoundness’s, as do the cortisones and NSAIDs. Running sore causes lungs to bleed. Anti-inflammatory drugs aggravate coagulation processes. Please appreciate that horses running on pharmaceutical scrims are 4X more likely to break down. Pulmonary health is dependent on appropriate breeding and proper development for the vigor, durability, and endurance thoroughbred racing demands. Drugs are not the solution. Competent horsemanship is the solution. Genetic dosage, behavioral and physical development, socialization, training, and husbandry are the keys to racehorse soundness, stamina, and durability.

The causes of EIPH are clear. Horses prone to bleed are those horses that are mistakenly bred, inadequately developed, and inappropriately stabled and trained. To allow drugs to cover conditions reflective of horsemen failing to attend to the basic needs of the horse in training impoverishes thoroughbred and standardbred welfare. To administer Lasix, the adjunct drugs, and phenylbutazone to virtually every horse before he or she races is an inappropriate application of veterinary medicine. The en masse drugging of racehorses has been demonstrated to be unethical, unnecessary, and untoward. In the case of contemporary American racing, Lasix is the drug that allows horsemen to abuse horses, to use a plethora of performance enhancing drugs, to cut corners on the proper care, conditioning, development, and husbandry of their racehorses, to develop an ideology that relies on drugs rather than talent. Drugs should not be allowed to alleviate conditions reflective of improper care. The first rule of veterinary medicine is; First, Do No Harm.

Horses evolved as social grazers of the plains, group survivalists moving and grazing together much of the time. Horses require near-constant forage, friends, and locomotion to maintain health of wind and limb. Racehorses are no exception. The last place a horse evolved to live is in a stall, alone. The solution to manage bleeding in racehorses is to develop, teach, train, and care for horses in a horse-sensitive fashion. Training and husbandry need to be a good deal for horses in order for horses to maintain healthy partnerships with people. Pulmonary health is reflective of overall health and soundness in horses.

In order to maintain pulmonary health, natural conditions need to be recreated in the stable. Horses prefer to graze together and move nearly constantly. This constant grazing and moving are essential for joint and bone health, hoof health, metabolic health, and pulmonary health. In order for lungs to stay healthy, horses need movement, often more movement than trainers provide. Walking enhances and maintains horse health. Stabled horses need a lot more walking than most are currently afforded. Abundant on track and off-track locomotion is necessary to condition a horse’s lungs. Lungs deteriorate when movement is restricted. Horses breath all day long, and movement is required much of the day to maintain pulmonary strength and health. Walking and movement enhance breathing and lung health. Drugs are not the answer.

Development and conditioning of pulmonary health throughout growth and while training are the answers to preventing bleeding, as they have always been. To enhance pulmonary health is to enhance the horse’s entire life and outlook. Not only do properly stabled and trained horses’ lungs hold bleeding in abeyance, they hold sway and win. Pulmonary health and bleeding prevention are dependent on smooth running and biomechanically sound locomotion.

Horses evolved in the open spaces of the northern hemisphere and require the cleanest, purest air to thrive and develop healthy lungs and hearts. Stable air needs to be constantly refreshed to maintain pulmonary health. Ventilation is essential, and enclosed structures are often inappropriate. Barn design needs addressed to maintain pulmonary health. Bedding is critical. Clean straw provides the most movement by simulating grazing. Horses stalled on straw are noted to move about with their heads down nibbling and exploring for hours, recreating natural to some degree, keeping their lungs healthy with movement, their respiratory tracts drained by all the head-down nibbling and grazing. Horses need near-constant movement to maintain optimum lung health. Long-standing horses’ lungs deteriorate quickly. Not only does near-constant movement maintain and enhance pulmonary health, abundant locomotion maintains metabolic health, joint and bone health, hoof health, and digestive health. To enhance lung health is to enhance the overall health and soundness of the horse. Racing is safer in Lasix-free jurisdictions where the drug crutch is not allowed. Drugs are not allowed to replace appropriate care and training in Hong Kong and Europe, and raceday drugs should not be allowed in America. The stabled racehorse has to be carefully and humanely cared for and nourished, both physically and behaviorally, to win and stay healthy. Lasix has weakened the breed, and weakened the American horseracing game considerably as the numbers across the board clearly reveal.

The horse has brought us all here today. If racing is to flourish as a sport in Kentucky, horseracing must come clean of drugs and replace its raceday medication attitudes with appropriate horse-sensitive breeding, development, horsemanship, behavior, training, and husbandry programs. To honorably share this great Commonwealth with our friend the horse, we must learn to use the resources of the land and people to nurture Kentucky horses, and rid the heart of the sport of its dependence on raceday drugs.

Respectfully submitted,

Sid Gustafson DVM

Goodbye Lasix, and Good Riddance

2011-11-07T09:26:00.001-07:00

October 28, 2011, 9:14 AM
NY Times, The Rail

By SID GUSTAFSON

Beginning with the 2012 Breeders’ Cup, 2-year-olds will not be administered medication hours before they race for the first time in decades. The regulators of racing have seen the light from the horse and rider perspective. Extensive studies clearly indicate that drugs cause more trouble for racehorses and their riders than they alleviate. Lasix jurisdictions have significantly more breakdowns than jurisdictions where Lasix is not allowed. No prerace Lasix means no attending veterinarians with loaded syringes in the stall injecting the horses with drugs hours before they run. The dangerous and dubious charade of medicating racehorses before they compete is coming to a welcome end.

Science and research continue to reveal and demonstrate that raceday drugs have not been helpful to the safety of the sport. Drugs generally have not been helpful to any sport. Why veterinarians and others continue to advocate raceday drug use for competition horses is beyond sound reason. The only ones who benefit from racehorses being medicated on raceday are the attending veterinarians and, subsequently, the veterinary surgeons. Equine veterinarians have long lobbied for drugs to enhance racing, but the science continues to demonstrate that chronic use of raceday drugs degrades the quality and safety of racing while impoverishing the welfare of racehorses. Raceday medications increase the breakdown rate. After decades of racehorses suffering the devastating effects of untoward veterinary influence, raceday medication is on schedule to be eliminated in the next few years. Consider this a most beneficial measure for racehorses and horse racing.

In Europe, bleeding is managed with proper husbandry, feeding, and preparation of the horses rather than with the drug Lasix, or any other legal drugs. There, appropriate conditioning and husbandry measures maintain pulmonary health and endurance, eliminating reliance on medications to manage bleeding and unsoundness. Less medication translates to safer horse racing. Bleeding is best prevented by appropriate breeding, athletic development, abundant locomotion, husbandry, training, nutrition and conditioning rather than by drug use, which sets a grave precedent.

There is scientific validity that the drug Lasix prevents pulmonary hemorrhage, yes, but that is not an adequate reason to advocate its raceday use. Lasix begets a plethora of additional drug use. Wherever pre-race Lasix is permitted, additional drugs are administered to most all of the diuretically-infused racing horses by their trainers and attending veterinarians. Lasix allows and encourages a lot of drug use. It legitimized the stage for the medication mentality that has haunted racing in recent years with all the notable breakdowns, sudden deaths and wrecks.

Lasix or Salix is furosemide, a potent diuretic that dilutes the urine and lowers the pulmonary blood pressure. The drug alters the electrolyte balance of racing horses and makes them vulnerable to heat stroke and metabolic dysfunction. As well, chronic diuretic use interferes with locomotory abilities required to run biomechanically sound by altering cardiac function, muscle function, nerve function, and most every other physiologic function. Diuretics weaken horses. These days there is little doubt that pharmaceutically weakened horses are more vulnerable to breaking down. It is not surprising that Lasix jurisdictions have more breakdowns than drug-free jurisdictions. We should have known. Now we know.

No more Lasix is great news for horses. Endurance, durability, soundness, sway, turn of hoof and mettle will enter the betting and breeding parlance once again. No raceday medication means sounder, more durable racing. Sounder, safer racing can help sustain public interest and financial support for the sport. Horseplayers and the general public do not necessarily relish betting on medicated horses.

The racing competition in Europe flourishes without raceday medications. The increased quality of racing without drugs is readily apparent at racetracks across the Atlantic. The enhanced quality of drug-free running can be easily observed in many of their classic races. There, trainers must take care to properly nourish, condition, and enrich their charges without using drugs as a training crutch. It shows in nearly every race.

In two years, American racing jurisdictions are scheduled to join the rest of the racing horse world and eliminate Lasix in the United States and Canada. Running clean is running safer and fairer, as the Europeans and others have honorably demonstrated. Of course, honor when visiting America is a different thing, and the Europeans will drop their ethics to run on Lasix and all the other drugs still allowed at Churchill Downs in this years Breeders’ Cup. Although perhaps honorably intentioned while racing in England and France, the European trainers know how Lasix moves up a horse in America. As has long been the history of horse racing, honor with horses is one thing, and the quest for purse money still remains quite another.

Nonetheless, progress is at hand. The tide of drugs administered to American racehorses has crested and will soon be falling away altogether. The removal of anabolic steroids has already improved safety while allowing female racehorses to run with the ranks of males. The further flow of drugs into the veins and joints of horses will gradually ebb. Trainers will have to rely on knowledge, finesse, athletic development, horsemanship, nutrition, behavior, husbandry and their jockey to win a horse race, sort of like horse racing was always intended to be. Imagine that.

2012 will be the year in America where the culture of raceday medication begins to disappear. Horses at tracks everywhere will breathe great sighs of relief, as should their riders, drivers, supporters, advocates, players, writers and parlayers.

Good riddance to Lasix and all the drug use it has encouraged and facilitated. Good riddance to Lasix and all the electrolyte imbalances, metabolic dysfunctions, shortened careers, breakdowns and weaknesses the drug has caused willing runners.

There is nothing so fine as running clean and winning; nothing so fine as being truly the best horse; nothing so fine to win naturally and return to race again and hold sway.

Sid Gustafson, D.V.M., is a novelist and equine veterinarian specializing in thoroughbred sports medicine and equine behavior. He currently practices regulatory veterinary medicine, representing the safety and welfare of thoroughbred racehorses.

Horse Training Principles, DrSid's Q and A

2011-10-26T09:38:00.001-06:00

Q: What do you think are the biggest barriers today to horses being trained humanely?

Lack of appropriate socialization during the development phase of the horse's life, birth to two years old. Horses need to first become horses, as taught by the mare and herd, to subsequently become willing learners and partners for folk. Husbandry is also critical. Horses require friends, forage, and locomotion, and often these necessities are restricted by stabling and change, resulting in inability to learn, resulting in heavy handed training tactics. Horses are willing to please those who know how to please horses. Horse lives must be fulfilled and enriched when they are stabled if one expects them to train up and learn willingly.

Q: How can understanding learning theory help the average horse owner?

It is essential to appreciate learning theory, but perhaps more important is to appreciate the social nature of the horse so one can fulfill the needs of the horse before the training begins. Learning theory is only helpful if horses are cared for in a fashion that facilitates and encourages them to be in a learning state of mind when the training takes place. Horses need to be socialized, fulfilled, and enriched, and that requires a knowledge of equine behaviour.

Some horse trainers cannot articulate or explain learning theory, but they do know the fundamentals of shared sociality, and many, although ignorant of the science, apply learning principles properly. Nonetheless, it is preferred to know the science and to understand socialization. Social species require abundant socialization. Some folk, such as Native Americans and those raised by horses through childhood, intuitively know how to train horses, as they were taught by horses. They know the science, they just do not know it as science as they effectively enter the horse's social milieu. No one told them they had to become the horse's boss, only to become the horse's friend, and those folk succeed quite well. Those who have trouble training horses are those who try to establish dominance to an excessive degree.

Q: What or where do you feel the best source is for owners and trainers to learn more about training and learning theory?

They need to take equine behavior at Equine Guelph, and/or read and study McGreevy's two books, Equine Behaviour and Equitation Science. If the people are young (or agree to take a stance of innocence and open-mindedness), they should observe horses in natural settings, and hang out with horses whenever possible. Horses teach horsemanship to those with the right eyes. Kids often have the right eyes, while adults often lose their capacity to see what horses are saying and feeling. Rather than listening to and learning from horses, they attempt to domineer them.

Q: What do you think is the best recent advance in horse training?

Understanding domestication, which reveals the importance of pair bonding with each horse one desires to teach. It was the horse's idea to take up with mankind, it seems. They showed up willing to please. Other than that, not much else. One must go back in time to find advances that have long since been lost. Peggy Brown felt advances in equipment were the best advances, but I say the less equipment the better, so I do not believe in equipment and tack, especially rigs. The best advances in equine training would be, again, at Equine Guelph where Equine Behaviour is taught as a science based discipline based on the evolution, domestication, and behaviour of the horse.

Q: What do you think is the biggest disservice to horses in the trends of horse training today?

Lack of appropriate socialization is a great disservice to growing horses, as is interference with the mare/foal bond shortly after birth (imprint training is a significant welfare and behavioral insult to foals). The mare is the most qualified teacher of a foal, and teaches the foal to become a horse, as well as to pair bond. For a person to believe they know more than a mare is a mistake. Any child can observe imprint training and know it is wrong to interfere with a neonate and her mother's relationship. After a week, the people can begin training. For the first week, the best way to develop a foal to become a willing partner is to let the mare teach the foal all about willing partnerships.
Once the horse is grown and ready to train at two or so, isolation becomes a big problem for the well-being of the horse. Stabling without 24/7 forage, friends, and locomotion creates all sorts of learning disabilities and unwelcome behaviours. Only happy horses learn well and efficiently. The happiest horses are those allowed to graze together. The unhappiest horses are locked in a stall much of the time, and are the least likely to learn willingly.

What do you perceive to be a common accepted mistake when training horses?

Trying to exert dominance over horses. One must always remember that it is the horse who will always have the last word.
This mistake of attempting to establish dominance is unfortunately not commonly accepted. Horses are the most adaptable, willing learners on the planet. They are more than happy to be taught and to appease their teachers if only they are allowed appropriate socialization, and subsequent application of learning theory, which includes bonding practices. Coercive training is unproductive. Horses cannot be forced to prevail in athletic competitions. Horsefolk must seek and attain willing partnerships with horses to prevail in athletic competitions. One cannot force a horse to win the Kentucky Derby, one must work with the horse's nature every step of the way.
It is the herd of horses that teaches foals to run at speed in close company with other horses. It is the herd that gives the horse the confidence to run through and by other horses in a horserace.
One is best served to recreate the learning scenario the mare and herd creates for their foal. Mares teach utilizing pressure, release, reward. As well, the foal learns by mimicry. To learn how to walk the horse talk, watch mares teach their foals. Horsemanship is becoming part of the herd, it seems.

The Nature of Horses, A Contemporary Approach to Equine Behaviour Education

2011-08-17T13:56:00.001-06:00

A Contemporary Approach to Equine Behavior Education

30th World Veterinary Congress 2011

Sid Gustafson DVM

Veterinary Behavior Educator and Practitioner

Big Sky, MT 59716

Abstract:

This is a review of the current behavioral science regarding the horse. This paper is a primer on equine behavior, and portrays the educational approach to help horsefolk fulfill the health and welfare of horses from the horse perspective, rather than from the human perspective.

Behavioral study and appreciation of the evolved nature of horses provide the foundation for the contemporary principles equine welfare and equine behavior education. Friends, forage, and locomotion are the long-evolved requirements for healthy horses, and must be abundantly and creatively provided to facilitate optimum health, performance, and healing.

Equine Behavior Through Time

Horses began their journey through time 60 million years ago. Three million years ago the footsteps of humans were fossilized next to the hoofprints of horses, suggesting that humans have been contemplating horses for some time. But it was not until perhaps ten thousand years ago that human societies began the dance of domestication with horse. Over thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands of years, the horse herds gradually merged with human societies. A shared language and sociality facilitated the merging of the two species.

There is archeological evidence that humans had formed an intimate and intermingled relationship with horses by 5500 years ago in Botai, where the horsefolk stabled and milked horses, and probably rode them. Horses provided these early horsefolk with much of the essentials they needed for group survival. It is interesting to note that large domestic dogs lived with these early horsefolk as well, but no other domestic animals. To understand the domestication process is to enhance our appreciation of equine behaviour. Horses apparently became domesticated because they found a niche with people long ago on the steppes of Kazakhstan. Both trained and wild horses existed in this realm south of Russia and west of China. A population of horses more amenable to captivity and taming than their wild counterparts likely provided the stock for the first horse societies. Rather than plucking wild horses out of the wild and taming them, it is thought that over tens of thousands of years a relationship developed in a shared niche.

By the early 20th century the closest living relative to Equus caballus, the Tarpan, had gone extinct. No truly wild horses remain. All of today’s caballine horses are descended from an original and possibly separate population of horses that were amenable to be tamed and selectively bred by humans. It appears to have taken tens of thousands of years to fully domesticate the horse, and to eventually attain control of breeding. Breeding initially consisted primarily of selection for docility and amenability to captivity, and later milking, riding, driving, and stabling. In contemporary culture, selective breeding often involves selecting for the best athlete, or attempting to select for the best athlete. In addition to genetics, this presentation will focus on the socialization aspect of raising horses, and portray the importance of nurture on the eventual behavioral and physical health of the adult athlete.

No longer does human society depend on horse society for survival as it once did. Although still bred for trainability, more and more horses are today bred for specific performance goals. These days, horses provide people with entertainment, recreation, sport, esteem, performance, and pleasure, and, as ever, but in fewer and fewer reaches, utility. Other than stockfolk, few others rely on horses for to sustain a pastoral livelihood. This new role of the horse requires renewed studies and considerations of equine behavior.

Horsefolk and veterinarians alike remain enticed and intrigued by horses. The science of equine behaviour attempts to appreciate just who horses are, and from the horse perspective. To appreciate the horse perspective, behaviorists explore the evolution and domestication of the horse. We continue to find ourselves attempting to appreciate how the current human/horse relationship came to be so as to facilitate a smooth trouble free relationship with our horses. As well, appropriate breeding, socialization, and training of horses helps minimize behavioral wastage.

To understand where our relationships with the horses are headed, veterinary behavior practitioners attempt to see where the human/horse relationship has been, and to subsequently help modify and refine the relationship to favor the horse. Humans continue to live with horses and continue to learn from them, as all horsefolk have through time, but now much less time is spent with horses learning from horses, so contemporary practitioners must research and make themselves aware of behavioral principle that were once gleaned from a near-constant exposure to horses through all stages of their development. We study the evolution and domestication of the horse to better help us appreciate the horses we have in our hands today. Evolution and domestication provide a basis for the understanding of equine behaviour. Man has attempted to refine his relationship with the horse ever since the first kid grabbed a mane and swung atop a horse. To become a partner with the flighty, powerful (but trainable and tamable) grazer of the plains remains the horsefolk goal.

The nature of the horse is enhanced by the horse’s social development. Appropriate socialization with other horses in herd pasture setting best prepares horses to be subsequently trained by horsefolk. Pastured horses train up and learn more efficiently than stabled horses. The appropriate, efficient, and considerate training of horses is highly dependent on their previous socialization by the dam and other horses, as well as their current husbandry situation. Trainability is heavily influenced by the intensity and type of stabling and husbandry, not to mention the type of training. In the latest revolution of horsemanship, the area of appropriate socialization and stabling has not received the attention it deserves.

Horses are a quiet species. They prefer calm, and learn most efficiently in tranquil, familiar settings. Horses must know and be comfortable and secure in their environment to be able to learn as horsefolk hope them to learn. Horsefolk all know what we want from our horses, however in this paper I shall present the science of what our horses want and need from humans, the science of equine behaviour. Equine behaviour is not only the basis of training and trainability, but also the very basis of equine health. To succeed in our endeavors with horses (whatever the our equine goals or pursuits), our horses are best served to receive what they preferentially need and require behaviourally, nutritionally, socially, physically, environmentally, visually, and metabolically. In order to properly care for horses and successfully teach and train horses, horsefolk must know horses. They must know who the gregarious grazers of the plains are. They must know how to properly socialize horses through their growth phase to ensure that their horses grow up to be horses. Horses raised out of the herd context are vulnerable to behavioural insecurities later in life. Most behavioural wastage is due to improper socialization and husbandry.

Rather than dissimilar to us, horses are much like us. In this presentation, I attempt to clarify humankind's social and communicative similarities to horses. As with people, strong social bonds develop between individual horses and groups of horses. This herd nature results in intense social pair and herd bonds. Horses need other horses. Horses require other horses for security, comfort, and behavioural health. Horses need friends throughout their entire life, first their teaching mother, and then their teaching herd. Today’s domestic horse needs horse friends and human friends, although horses do retain the wherewithal to survive just fine without horsefolk. Horses need friends so preciously and constantly, that horses allow horsefolk to substitute as friends. This is possible because man shares a sociality with domestic horses. We speak their gesture language, and horses speak ours. We share a language of movement, and language described as kinetic empathy.

Domestic horse is no longer human prey, and has not been for thousands of years. Horse has been brought into the circle of humanity, along with a dozen or so other domesticates that shared an adequate sociality with mankind to be allowed to develop and mutually beneficial relationship.

Horse and man have co-evolved together for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. Each knows the other, well, and horses have proven to know the nature of people more consistently than people know the nature of horses. It is paramount that horsefolk appreciate the social and communicative nature of horses, and deal with horses in a fashion that is appropriate to their long-evolved social nature.

In addition to adequate and appropriate sociality and socialization, the importance of constant locomotion is paramount to appreciating equine behaviour and the moving, digestive nature of horses. Locomotion. Horses need movement. In addition to friendship, most all horses require near-constant movement for behavioural expression and health. Interdependence exists between horse health and locomotion. Horses evolved to be near-constant walkers and grazers. The last place a horse evolved to be is alone in a stall. Despite domestication and selective breeding for docility and captivity, horse health remains dependent on locomotion. Locomotion is inherent to grazing. Locomotion is inherent to digestion, to respiration, to metabolism. If horses are not allowed to move about freely and socialize with other familiar horses grazing and chewing as they evolved to do, they become metabolic unstable and subsequently troubled. Horses deprived of locomotion and constant forage ingestion develop strategies to maintain the motion and oral security they feel they need to survive. When horses are deprived of adequate and abundant locomotion, they develop strategies to keep themselves and their jaws moving, as is their essential and inherent nature. Horses deprived of friends, forage, and locomotion are at risk to develop stereotypies to provide themselves with the movements they need to survive.

The primary premise of equine behavioural health is this: In natural settings, horses walk and graze with other horses two thirds of the time. They take a step and graze, then another step or two grazing and moving along, always observing their surroundings, grazing while in touch with other members of the herd unless playing, occasionally dozing or sleeping, but only under the secure and established watch of others. Horses that are not afforded the opportunity to graze and walk much of the time take up with behaviours to replicate essential locomotion. When stabled, some of the horse's long- evolved survival behaviours become unwanted and unwelcome.

Horses require friends, forage, and locomotion to stay healthy and productive. Additionally, horses need clean air and abundant space for optimum health. In rural settings, these requirements are easy to fulfill. Open grasslands and steppes are the geography and environs that the most recent predecessors of Equus caballus evolved. The further we remove horses from their social grazer of the plains preferences, the more health issues develop that require treatment and management by veterinarians and horsefolk.

Stabling, stalling, hospitalization and transport all deprive horses of their preferences for friends, forage, and locomotion. Although convenient for horsefolk, stabling is inconvenient for horses. Stabling limits the resources of friends, forage, and locomotion. Stabling creates bad air, and allows pathogens and parasites to travel easily between horses. When stabling is required, horses are best served to have their natural needs re-created in the stable. The air must be kept clean, and forage must be always available. Opportunities for movement and simulation of grazing with friends must be provided in abundance. Once our horses behavioural needs are understood, appreciated, and fulfilled, the learning and training can begin. Enrichment strategies re-create the needs of stabled horses. Horses deprived of friends, forage, and locomotion are not able to learn as well as appropriately socialized horses. Those strategies that best replicate the grazer of the plains scenario promote the best health, learning, and performance from horses.

Locomotion and socialization are essential for both horse health and healing.

Husbandry, healing, and rehabilitation nearly always benefit from appropriately managed locomotion strategies that are constantly tailored to the horse's healing process. Locomotion is required not only for normal healing, but for normal digestion, respiration, hoof health, circulation, and all other physiologic functions of the horse. Stall rest is at the expense of many systems, especially the hoof and metabolic systems. Digestion and respiration are compromised by confinement and restriction of movement. Metabolic, digestive, circulatory, hoof health, musculoskeletal, and nervous, systems, as well as the all other systems and functions of the horse, are dependent upon adequate and appropriate locomotion for normal functioning and/or healing.

For horses that are hospitalized, paddocked, stabled, and corralled; active implementation and re-creation of the social pasture setting is required to optimize and maintain health and promote healing. Medical conditions are apt to deteriorate in the face of the deprivations of forage, friends, and locomotion created by stabling and hospitalization. Re-creation of a natural setting in the stall is the biggest challenge veterinarians face in maintaining the health of stabled horses.

Stalled horses not only heal poorly, they learn and train poorly. Locomotion, social, and forage deprivations create problems for horses. In addition to appropriate medical treatment, veterinarians and stable managers must creatively provide horses with abundant socialization, forage, and locomotion to maintain health and facilitate healing within the parameters of acceptable medical and surgical treatment. Restriction of locomotion to facilitate healing necessitates the implementation of enrichment strategies to simulate locomotion, including massage, passive flexion, and a wide variety of physical therapies.

Horses also heal horsefolk, and those horsefolk that implement these healing strategies often experience a sense of healing themselves, it seems. The human/horse bond runs deep. Domestication of the horse is a co-evolving evolutionary process. The human perspective is being shaped by the horse's perspective these days. Appreciation of the science of equine behavior and equitation is encouraged to support the renewed interest in equine medicine and welfare, and to facilitate the veterinarian’s role of providing horses with their essential needs.

References

McGreevy, Paul, (2004) Equine Behavior: A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine Scientists Philadelphia: Elsevier Limited. ISBN 0 7020 2634 4

Olsen, Sandra, Horses and Humans, The Evolution of Human-Equine Relationships, 2006, Sandra Olsen, Grant, Choyke, and Bartosiewicz, BAR International Series 1560, Archeopress, England, ISBN 1 84171 990 0

McGreevy, Paul; McLean, Andrew, Equitation Science, Wiley Blackwell, UK, ISBN 2009048321

McGreevy, P.D. et al, (2007) “Roles of Learning theory and ethology in equitation” Journal of Veterinary Behavior 2, p. 108-118.

McGreevy Paul D., (2006) “The advent of equitation science” The Veterinary Journal 174 p. 492-500.

Waran, N., McGreevy, P., & Casey, R.A., (2002) “Training Methods and Horse Welfare”, in Waran, N., ed., The Welfare of Horses, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers (2002) 151-180.

Magner, D. (2004.) Magner’s Classic Encyclopedia of the Horse. Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 2004.

Dr Gustafson's interview The (Behavioral) Life of a Racehorse

2011-07-21T22:36:00.000-06:00

The Behavioral Life of a Racehorse, interview with DrSid regarding the welfare of racehorses and foals
http://pondside.cachefly.net/equinely-inclined.ep107.mp3
Dr Gustafson's interview begins at 25 minutes remaining.

DrSid provides equine behavior consultations to help enrich the lives of horses in training and competition.

Appreciating Horses Farm.tv video

2011-02-19T08:02:00.002-07:00

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. He provides education and presentations regarding equine behavior and equine welfare. Dr Sid helps animal folks refine their horse and dog training methods to accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses and dogs. Applied veterinary behavior enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in equine and canine athletes.
Follow DrSid to learn how to effectively implement natural approaches to development, training, nutrition, and conditioning to sustain equine health and enhance performance. Behavioral and nutritional enrichment strategies enhance the lives of stabled horses, and leads them to the winner's circle. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in content, willing horses.
DrSid provides equine behavior consultations to help recreate the needs and preferences of horses in training and competition.

Contact Dr Gustafson

Appreciating Equine Behavior

2011-01-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

Appreciating Equine Behaviour

Sid Gustafson DVM

Hello horsefolk!

Friends, forage, and locomotion. These are the requirements for healthy horses.

Horses began their journey through time 60 million years ago. Three million years ago the footsteps of man were fossilized next to the hoofprints of horses, suggesting that humans have been contemplating horses for some time. But it was not until perhaps ten thousand years ago that man began the dance of domestication with horse. There is archeological evidence that man had formed a close relationship with horses by 5500 years ago in Botai, where the horsefolk kept and milked horses, and probably rode them. Horses provided these early horsefolk with nearly everything they needed. It is interesting to note that large domestic dogs lived with these early horsefolk as well, but no other domestic animals. To understand the domestication process is to appreciate equine behaviour. Horses apparently became domesticated because they found a niche with man long ago on the steppes of Kazakhstan. Both trained and wild horses existed in this realm south of Russia and west of China. A population of horses more amenable to captivity and taming than their wild counterparts likely provided the stock for the first horse societies. Rather than plucking wild horses out of the wild and taming them, it is thought that over tens of thousands of years a relationship developed in a shared niche.

By the early 20th century the closest living relative to man's Equus caballus, the Tarpan, had gone extinct. No truly wild horses remain. All of today’s caballine horses are descended from an original and probably separate population of horses that were amenable to be tamed and selectively bred. It must have taken tens of thousands of years to fully domesticate the horse, to attain control of breeding. Breeding likely consisted of selection for docility and amenability to captivity, and later milking, riding, driving, and stabling.

No longer does man depend on horse for survival as he once did. Although still bred for trainability, many horses are today bred for specific performance goals. These days, horses provide man with entertainment, recreation, sport, esteem, performance, and pleasure, and, as ever, but in fewer and fewer reaches, utility. Other than stockmen, few others rely on horses for to sustain a pastoral livelihood.

Horsefolk remain enticed by horses. The science of equine behaviour attempts to appreciate just who horses are, and from the horse perspective. We continue to find ourselves attempting to appreciate how this human/horse relationship came to be so as to facilitate a smooth trouble free relationship with our horses. To understand where our relationship with the horses is headed, we attempt to see where the relationship has been. We live with horses and we continue to learn from them, as all horsefolk have through time. We study the evolution and domestication of the horse to better help us appreciate the horses we have in our hands today. Evolution and domestication provide the basis for the understanding of equine behaviour. Man has attempted to refine his relationship with the horse ever since the first kid grabbed a mane and swung atop a horse. To become a partner with the flighty, powerful (but trainable and tamable) grazer of the plains remains the horsefolk goal.

Appreciation and sensitivity to all of our caballine horses' evolved preferences results in optimum health and soundness, and therefore optimum performance. A horse cannot be coerced to win the Kentucky Derby. The people must work with the horse, and from the horse’s view. If we understand equine behaviour, we understand what makes horses do our bidding, and do it well. To this day, horses seek to appease their domesticators. Horses are willing learners. This learning behavior is a result of evolutionary development of a complex social lifestyle. More recently, selective breeding has influenced equine behaviour. The nature of the horse is enhanced by the horse’s social development. Appropriate socialization with other horses in herd pasture setting best prepares horses to be subsequently trained by horsefolk. Pastured horses train up and learn more efficiently than stabled horses. The appropriate, efficient, and considerate training of horses is highly dependent on their previous socialization by the dam and other horses, as well as their current husbandry situation. Trainability is heavily influenced by the intensity and type of stabling and husbandry, not to mention the type of training. In the latest revolution of horsemanship, the area of appropriate socialization and stabling has not received the attention it deserves.

Horses are a quiet species. They prefer calm, and learn most efficiently in tranquil, familiar settings. Horses must know and be comfortable and secure in their environment to be able to learn as horsefolk hope them to learn. Horsefolk all know what we want from our horses, however in this paper I shall present the science of what our horses want and need from us, the science of equine behaviour. Equine behaviour is not only the basis of training and trainability, but also the very basis of equine health. To succeed in our endeavors with horses (whatever the our equine goals or pursuits), our horses are best served to receive what they preferentially need and want behaviourally, nutritionally, socially, physically, environmentally, visually, and metabolically. In order to properly care for horses and successfully teach and train horses, horsefolk must know horses. They must know who the gregarious grazers of the plains are. They must know how to properly socialize horses through their growth phase to ensure that their horses grow up to be horses. Horses raised out of the herd context are vulnerable to behavioural insecurities later in life. Most behavioural wastage is due to improper socialization and husbandry.

Rather than dissimilar to us, horses are much like us. In this talk, I will focus on humankind's social and communicative similarities to horses. As with people, strong social bonds develop between individual horses and groups of horses. This herd nature results in intense social pair and herd bonds. Horses need other horses. Horses require other horses for security, comfort, and behavioural health. Horses need friends throughout their entire life, first their mother, and then their herd. Today’s domestic horse needs horse friends and human friends, although horses do retain the wherewithal to survive just fine without horsefolk. Horses need friends so preciously and constantly, that horses allow horsefolk to substitute as friends. This is because man shares a sociality with domestic horses. We speak their gesture language, and horses speak ours. We share a language of movement.

Domestic horse is no longer man’s prey, and has not been for thousands of years. Horse has been brought into the circle of humanity, along with a dozen or so other domesticates. Horse and man have co-evolved together for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. Each knows the other, well.

The importance of constant locomotion is paramount to appreciating equine behaviour and learning. Locomotion. Horses need movement. In addition to friendship, they require near-constant movement. Interdependence exists between horse health and locomotion. Horses evolved to be near-constant walkers and grazers. The last place a horse evolved to be is alone in a stall. Despite domestication and selective breeding for docility and captivity, horse health remains dependent on locomotion. Locomotion is inherent to grazing. Locomotion is inherent to digestion, to respiration, to metabolism. If horses are not allowed to move about freely and socialize with other familiar horses grazing and chewing as they evolved to do, they become troubled. Horses deprived of locomotion and constant forage ingestion develop strategies to maintain the motion and oral security they feel they need to survive.

The primary premise of equine behavioural health is this: In natural settings, horses walk and graze together with other horses two thirds of the time. They take a step and graze, then another step or two grazing and moving along, always observing their surroundings, grazing while in touch with other members of the herd unless playing, dozing or sleeping under the watch of others. Horses that are not afforded the opportunity to graze and walk much of the time take up with behaviours to replicate essential locomotion. When stabled, some of the horse's long-evolved survival behaviours become unwanted and unwelcome.

Horses require friends, forage, and locomotion to stay healthy and productive. In Alberta, these requirements are easy to fulfill, as this is the geography and environs that the most recent predecessors of Equus caballus evolved. Stabling is what deprives horses of friends, forage, and locomotion. Although convenient for horsefolk, stabling is inconvenient for horses. Horses are best served to have their needs re-created in the stable. Once our horses behavioural needs are understood, appreciated, and fulfilled the learning and training can begin.

Domestication of the horse by (with) man seems to have been facilitated not only by a shared geography, but also by a shared sociality that uses mutual communication and teaching principles, thus allowing the training and shaping of horse behaviors by man. Trainability! Training up horses to our desires is what fascinates horsefolk. So how can this be that man can slip in as horse’s friend? Horses utilize kinetic empathy to facilitate communication. They communicate information to each other (and to horsefolk) via gestures, behavioural patterns, pressures, conditioned reactions, and movements.

Due to convergent evolution, this quiet gesture language can be applied by horsefolk to have horses do their bidding. When spoken correctly, horses understand what people want them to learn, and they learn willingly, provided they were allowed to be taught to learn by their dams. Horses understand the language of horsemanship, and it is a language taught to them by horses, and used to communicate with both horses and people. Horses are not only born to communicate and learn, it is in their nature to appease others, to please them. With these characteristics, the population of horse that took to following pastoral man around became the ideal domesticate. Horsefolk can express kinetic empathy that horses consistently respond to if the movements are correctly taught to the horse and consistently applied by the horseperson.

Please appreciate that just how the horse's mental processes are similar to the human cognitive processes is not clear, and may never be. Horses think about what is important to them. They learn what they need to survive. They adapt to horsefolk and the restrictive environments horsefolk impose upon them.

Care must be taken not to give horses either too much or too little credit for their thinking and reasoning capabilities. The consequences of incorrect assumptions can result in exceeding the horse's adaptability, which results in health and behaviour issues.

Horses have emotions and feelings that may or may not be comparable to man's. Insight and intelligence cannot be scientifically measured just yet, it seems. Horses do have the mental capacity and behavioural flexibility to successfully survive and function both within and beyond man's realm. Horses can survive in close proximity to man, as well as completely without him. This requires complex, adaptable, flexible, and efficient intelligence and behaviour.

The traditional training of horses utilizes negative reinforcement. Pressure is applied, and then released when the horse gives the correct response. So then, pressure followed by release to the desired response is negative reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement is adding something, such as food or a rubbing reward. Positive punishment is adding punishment, a kick, jerk, or whack.

Once again, negative reinforcement is pressure and release, a certain pressure is applied, and when the horse offers a move in the direction of what is requested, the pressure is released. Negative reinforcement is how most horses are trained, and the negative does not imply anything negative, only that the pressure is applied and then removed when the correct response by the horse is answered. Positive reinforcement can be layered upon negative reinforcement. After the horse responds to the cue and pressure is released, a positive reward can be added, a verbal acknowledgement or a rub, or a food treat. Both negative and positive reinforcement are forms of operant conditioning, sometimes called instrumental conditioning. Operant conditioning is how horses are initially trained, and operantly taught responses can be modified by classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is conditioning by association. The rein cue to stop can eventually be replaced by a seat cue, for example. The rein and seat cue are given together for a time, and then the rein cue is dropped and no longer needed.

The dam teaches the foal how to be a horse using all these training and teaching techniques, and as do humans when they train horses in later life.

Shared sociality. Kinetic empathy.

Horses are horses. Folk are folk. Horses are domesticated. Horses and humans live together, and have for some time. The two species share many aspects of living, including communication and learning.

For behavioral and organic health horses require friends, forage, and locomotion...and lots of each mixed together, it seems. Play, sleep, constant nipping and chewing, water, salt, and more roughage and forage, especially in the form of grasslands and appropriate pasture. They like the open view, so as to be ever vigilant and constantly knowing of their surroundings.

When any of the three (friends, forage, locomotion) are lacking, health and welfare issues develop.

Kinetic, horses are kinetic. If not allowed movement they devise the movement they require for normal function of all of their systems and physiologic functioning.

Locomotion is integral to behavioural and hoof health. Horses need to move on a near constant basis, yes they do. Breathing, digestion, musculoskeletal function, and hoof health depend on movement.

Rhythm and balance, effective training requires accurate application of the rhythm and balance of locomotion. Timing is what engenders respect. Getting the feel of a horse's movement is necessary to properly apply and release cues, not to mention the refinement and shaping of requested locomotions.

We seek timing, balance, and feel with horses to establish connection, communication, and confidence. Confidence is consistency.

But even this does not help unless our horses have adequate if not constant friends, roughage, and locomotion. To understand how horses stay healthy, we need to understand how horses heal. Restorative healing of physical and behavioural problems in Equus caballus is accomplished in the same fashion that appropriate socialization is accomplished, in the herd, grazing setting.

Restoration strategies that recreate the horse's social grazing preferences facilitate and potentiate horse healing. Appropriate healing of many equine maladies is encouraged when the veterinarian provides appropriate initial treatment and subsequently carefully facilitates a scenario to provide the horse with abundant forage, friendship, and locomotion.

Grazing pasture in an open setting with other horses, when appropriately orchestrated, has the potential to provide the most profound and often the most cost-effective healing of musculoskeletal infirmities and injuries. For conditions allowed to progress to lameness, time is required, often months. When musculoskeletal conditions are detected early, before lameness ensues, short-term rest and restorative strategies encourage solid healing (days to weeks). Both long and short term healing are enhanced when the horse is content with the forage, friendship, and locomotion resources. Avoid unnecessary restrictions to locomotion whenever feasible.

Horsefolk need to take special care not to exceed the horse's adaptability regarding stabling and healing.

Corral or stall rest is often counterproductive to healing, as it deprives horses of all three healing essentials. Horses heal efficiently in a social grazing setting, not one of isolation and deprivation. To a horse, restoration, from the word rest, ideally implies grazing open country in a herd setting with abundant environmental resources; appropriate grasslands to graze and walk, salt, and appropriately placed clean water. The properly managed social grazing setting with the open view is the environment in which horses evolved to thrive and heal.

Healthy physical and mental development are best actualized in a social grazing environment. Neonates rely on their dam for critical early learning processes, including sensual development, locomotion, and early mobility. The development of agility, coordination and athleticism in early life is critical to subsequent mental health and soundness. Abundant social contact, grooming, sleep, play, athletic development, and social bonding occur during early herd life. Horses rely on constant contact and frequent interactions with other horses for healthy mental and physical development.

Opportunities for the abundant expression of normal equine behavior and motion promote healing.

Unfortunately, healing opportunities of this sort are not available everywhere, especially in the more urban equestrian settings. Space and grazing limitations restrict healing opportunities. In these scenarios, the horse's preferences have to recreated with carefully designed and implemented enrichment strategies that provide some fashion of near constant forage ingestion that allow oral and physical and movement and motion. Stabling scenarios often restrict social expression and sensual contact. Horses are sensitive to these deprivations, which result in stress, which complicates and delays healing.

Locomotion is essential for both horse health and healing.

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. DrSid provides equine behavior consultations to help recreate the needs and preferences of horses in training and competition to promote willing partnerships and winning combinations.

Equine Behaviour and Horseracing

2010-11-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

November 8, 2010, 8:19 AM

Blame Is King for a Day

By SID GUSTAFSON

John Sommers II/ReutersThe connections of Blame, with Garrett Gomez aboard, celebrating after edging Zenyatta.

FROM THE TIMES

No Longer Perfect,
But Still a Champ

The talented mare Zenyatta is the people’s champion and is worthy of Horse of the Year honors, writes Joe Drape.

Blame the Queen’s loss on the earplugs, she could not hear the beckoning call of millions. Blame the win on a great conditioning job, a great ride, and a great horse for the course. Blame the win on Al Stall’s superior grade of straw and water, on his special brand of racehorse enrichment, on his ability to deliver a perfectly conditioned and prepared horse. Blame the win on Blame.

Blame the loss on the trainer for not properly generalizing and habituating his horse to dirt in her face. Do not blame Mike Smith, as his horse was not prepared for what she encountered at Churchill Downs. It is the trainer’s responsibility to totally prepare the horse. The Queen did not like dirt in her face, and that is not the jockey’s fault. Zenyatta had to acclimate during the race, and did, albeit a bit late. She had trouble transitioning into the right lead coming out of the turn into the stretch, as she was pinned in tight with a rough, tough crowd of runners. Any factor could have moved up a head, but the sweet trip belonged to Garrett Gomez.

Blame it on horse racing. Blame it on that horseperson waiting in the wings to rise out of the dust with his horse, the one who discovers what makes the willing partnership click for the big race.

Blame it on Gomez for staying out of his horse’s way. Blame it on appropriate socialization, as Blame (and Zennie) were taught by other horses to run at speed in close company by other horses in their growth and development. They were taught the confidence to run through and past other running horses by their dams, and run by and through horses they both did. Did you see Blame pin his ears at the goddess of Zen at the finish line? saying, “You may be the greatest, Queen Z, just not today.”

No need to Blame anyone, really, other than the Sport of Kings, and these days, the Sport of Queens. Blame showed up with little to lose, and lost nothing at all. Zenyatta showed up with everything to lose, and lost nothing other than a horse race.

A stellar performance by the entire field. There is no alpha in the world of horses or horse racing.

How Horses Heal

2010-08-28T07:25:00.018-06:00

Restorative healing in Equus caballus.

Restoration strategies that recreate the horse's social grazing preferences facilitate and potentiate horse healing. Appropriate healing of many equine maladies is encouraged when the veterinarian provides appropriate initial treatment and subsequently carefully facilitates a scenario to provide the horse with abundant forage, friendship, and locomotion.
Grazing pasture in an open setting with other horses, when appropriately orchestrated, has the potential to provide the most profound and often the most cost-effective healing of musculoskeletal infirmities and injuries. For conditions allowed to progress to lameness, time is required, often months. When musculoskeletal conditions are detected early, before lameness ensues, short term rest and restorative strategies encourage solid healing (days to weeks). Both long and short term healing are enhanced when the horse is content with the forage, friendship, and locomotion resources. Avoid unnecessary restrictions to locomotion whenever feasible.
The earlier inflammation is detected, the shorter the time period is required to heal. Healing in a social-grazing setting is a long-evolved trait of the horse. Horses acclimated to herd and pasture settings during their development respond best to restorative healing.
Horsefolk need to take special care not to exceed the horse's adaptability regarding stabling and healing.

Corral or stall rest is counterproductive to healing, as it deprives horses of all three healing essentials. Horses heal efficiently in a social grazing setting, not one of isolation and deprivation. To a horse, restoration, from the word rest, ideally implies grazing open country in a herd setting with abundant environmental resources; appropriate grasslands to graze and walk, salt, and appropriately placed clean water. The properly managed social grazing setting with the open view is the environment in which horses evolved to thrive and heal.

Healthy physical and mental development are best actualized in a social grazing environment. Neonates rely on their dam for critical early learning processes, including sensual development, locomotion, and early mobility. The development of agility, coordination and athleticism in early life is critical to subsequent mental health and soundness. Abundant social contact, grooming, sleep, play, athletic development, and social bonding occurs during early herd life. Horses rely on constant contact and frequent interactions with other horses for healthy mental and physical development.
Opportunities for the abundant expression of normal equine behavior and motion promotes healing.
Unfortunately, healing opportunities of this sort are not available everywhere, especially in the more urban equestrian settings. Space and grazing limitations restrict healing opportunities. In these scenarios, the horse's preferences have to recreated with carefully designed and implemented ENRICHMENT strategies that provide some fashion of near constant forage ingestion that allow oral and physical and movement and motion. Stabling scenarios often restrict social expression and sensual contact. Horses are sensitive to these deprivations which results in stress, which complicates and delays healing.
LOCOMOTION is essential for both horse health and healing.
Husbandry, healing, and rehabilitation nearly always benefit from appropriately managed and free choice locomotion strategies that are constantly tailored to the horse's healing process. Locomotion is required not only for normal healing, but for normal digestion, respiration, hoof health, circulation, and all other physiologic functions of the horse. Stall rest is at the expense of many systems, especially the hoof and metabolic systems. Digestion and respiration are compromised by confinement and restriction of movement. Metabolic, digestive, circulatory, hoof health, musculoskeletal, and nervous, systems, as well as the all other systems and functions of the horse, are dependent upon adequate and appropriate locomotion for normal functioning and/or healing.

For horses that are hospitalized, paddocked, stabled, and corralled; active implementation and re-creation of the social pasture setting is necessary to maintain health and promote healing. The absence of abundant forage, friends, and locomotion is detrimental to a stabled or hospitalized horse's health, if not welfare. Medical conditions are apt to deteriorate in the face of the deprivations created by stabling and hospitalization.
Stalled horses heal poorly. In addition to appropriate medical treatment, veterinarians and stable managers must creatively provide horses with abundant socialization, forage, and locomotion to maintain health and facilitate healing.
Horses also heal horsefolk, and those horsefolk that implement these healing strategies often experience a sense of healing themselves, it seems. The human/horse bond runs deep. Domestication of the horse is a co-evolving evolutionary process. The human perspective is being shaped by the horse's perspective these days. Appreciation of the science of equine behavior and equitation is a welcome change for the horse after centuries of considerable subjugation.

Dr. Sid Gustafson at Canada's Outdoor Equine Expo

2010-07-29T22:42:00.000-06:00

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, animal behaviorist, and novelist. He observes and refines horse training methods to accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses resulting in optimum performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity. Behavioral approaches to development, training, nutrition, and conditioning sustain equine health and enhance performance. Behavioral and nutritional enrichment strategies enhance the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in happy, winning horses.DrSid offers equine behavior consultations to manage unwanted and unwelcome behaviors.

Equine Behavior Statement, updated

2010-07-10T16:12:00.002-06:00

Equine Behavior Statement—

In Consideration of Horses

Sid Gustafson DVM

July 9, 2010

In consideration of the horse’s nature and behavior horsefolk are obligated to provide horses an appropriate environment, proper nutrition, abundant sociobehavioral opportunities, as well as practicing ethical training, husbandry, and horsemanship principles.

Reproduction should be limited to horses who have demonstrated a career of health and usefulness. Horses experiencing unsoundnesses that have not healed should not be bred. Unwanted horses are too often a result of inappropriate reproduction practices.

By nature the horse is a grazer of the plains, a social herd animal, and flighty. Horses require friendship, forage, and locomotion, and these preferences need to be recreated in the stable. Care must be taken not to exceed the behavioral adaptability of the horse.

Horsemanship and training are best accomplished through behavioral understanding of the horse and facilitation of the horse’s nature, rather than by force or coercion. Horses are best trained in a relaxed, calm state. Training that puts the horse into the flight or sympathetic state generated by fear and contained by ropes or pens is discouraged, and not in accordance with acceptable standards of well being.

Electricity of any type should not be used on horses to modify behavior, train, or restrict movement or stereotypies.

Imprint training neonates has been scientifically demonstrated to be inhumanely invasive, unnecessary, and potentially permanently harmful and is not a good behavioral deal for foals. The mare is the best teacher of newborn foals, and the foal-mare bond should be allowed to develop fully in a pasture setting.

Horses graze and walk together 60-70% of the time under natural circumstances, eating and moving from spot to spot independently but within a few meters of the next horse. Stabling should make every effort to accommodate or recreate these long-evolved grazing in motion preferences for proper physiological function and mental health.

Horses require other horses for proper health and prosperity. Horses require the companionship of other horses. A horse should seldom be kept alone. Horses being mixed with other horses and expected to share resources should be properly acclimated socially, and be given the required space to adjust to new herds without injury or undue stress. Resources should not be unfairly limited. Every effort should be made to provide horses with the social benefit of appropriate companion horses through times of stress and illness.

Horsewomen and men need to appreciate the sensual nature of the horse, and understand the physiological needs of the horse. Horses prefer the open view, and if they cannot be with other horses, they need to see and smell other horses for proper behavioral functioning and responsiveness.

Appropriate forage, water, and salt are the most important nutrients, and are best provided 24/7 in consideration of equine behavioral preferences.

Grazing is the preferred and predominant equine activity. Horses did not evolve to metabolize grains and non-structured carbohydrates, or to remain stationary for even short periods of time.

Play and sleep are naturally occurring preferences that require accommodation however horses are housed or stabled, as social deprivation results in deterioration of behavioral health.

Horses are physiologically dependent on shared social grooming and sensual contact companionship. If stabling precludes these preferences from fulfillment, then every effort need be applied to replace or recreate these needs on a daily basis.

These behavioral considerations apply to horses in transport, and for those horses too, however unwanted, man is obligated to provide the proper environment, social functioning, nutrition, medical care, and exercise to sufficiently assure health and comfort.

As to performance, every care and precaution need be taken to avoid exceeding the adaptability of the horse. All of the horse's normal natural sensation should remain fully intact and functional without undue pharmaceutical influence. The horse's metabolic, physical, medical, and behavioral limitations are best monitored by equine veterinary professionals on an intense, constant, and comprehensive basis.

Tail amputation and tail docking of horses is immoral and unethical, and illegal in Great Britain.

Stabled horses and horses competing in competitive pursuits are best served with frequent monitoring by equine veterinary professionals who represent the health and welfare of the horse.

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. He observes and refines horse training and husbandry methods to accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses resulting in optimum performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity. Behavioral approaches to development, training, nutrition, and conditioning sustain equine health and enhance performance. Behavioral and nutritional enrichment strategies enhance the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in happy, winning horses. DrSid offers equine behavior consultations to manage unwanted and unwelcome behaviors.

A Veterinarian's Take: Wolves and Sheep and Dogs

2010-05-05T06:25:00.000-06:00

A Veterinarian's Take: Wolves and Sheep and Dogs

Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, animal behaviorist, and novelist. He observes and refines horse training methods to accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses resulting in optimum performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity. Behavioral approaches to development, training, nutrition, and conditioning sustain equine health and enhance performance. Behavioral and nutritional enrichment strategies enhance the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in happy, winning horses.DrSid offers equine behavior consultations to manage unwanted and unwelcome behaviors.

Wolves and Sheep and Dogs

2010-05-04T09:39:00.002-06:00

Hi animal folks,
An intriguing article by sheep producers appeared recently regarding sheepfolk using livestock protection dogs to protect their sheep from reintroduced wolves and grizzlies. http://www.sheepusa .org/user_ files/file_ 713.pdf
Having been raised amidst free-ranging wolves and grizzlies and livestock and dogs in Northern Montana next to Glacier Park on the Blackfeet Indian Nation, I observed that certain cultural ethical husbandry principles had emerged through historical time.
Wolves and Grizzlies have been present since the Ice Age in my home country, where over time many a livestock folk has had aspirations to raise sheep because of the nutritious grass. I am here to report no sheepman succeeds amidst wolves.
Sheep, the longest domesticated herbivore, have become the most human-dependent and reliant. Livestock protection dogs cannot defend sheep against wolves or griz like livestock protection and sheepdogs can rather successfully defend sheep against coyotes. Livestock protection dogs should never be expected to defend sheep from wolves and griz, as the attempted practice is counterproductive for the dogs and sheep.
Cattle can generally take flight or defend themselves against griz and wolves when given the opportunity to range away from hungry predators, provided the cattle are otherwise appropriately bred and managed. Presently, cattle successfully share habitat with griz and wolf in Montana and Alberta. Indeed, the wild predators thin out some of the lungers and gimpers, but otherwise generally leave the healthy cattle alone. As well, the Rocky Mountain cattle become wolf and griz savvy, and avoid them, giving way and moving on when such predators so much as lift a nose their way.
Sheep, on the other hand, are helpless against wolf and griz, and cannot be successfully or humanely raised near those predators, nor should they attempted to be. In areas where wolves are re-introduced (unlike the Blackfeet country which has always harbored wolves) the livestock folk seem to be slow learners.
Those pastoral livestock and dog people who have had the pleasure to live with wolves and grizzlies for thousands of years have learned to live with large predators rather harmoniously. From native cultures symbiotic animal/human relationships can be gleaned and appreciated.
Sheep should not be attempted to be grazed where Griz and wolf take up residence as trouble can be counted upon when nutritional protein resources become seasonally limited.
Aggressive dogs should not be bred or used to attempt to defend sheep from wolves and griz, as they cannot handle wolves or giz, however selectively or aggressively bred. The spiked collars the sheep folk have devised for their dogs make that clear, it seems.
Selection for canine aggression does nothing more than create opportunities for emergency-room doctors, behaviorists and dogtrainers, as has become clear with current human attempts to select dogs for aggression for whatever purpose.
Sheep cannot be grazed with wolves or griz, and should not attempted to be raised amongst such predators. Furthermore, livestock dogs should not be selected for aggression, and should not be utilized to defend sheep against wolves or grizzlies.
Those are the empirical if not ethical conclusions from the pastoral/wilderness interface in OldMan's country.
Cheers, Sid

Puppy Socialization

2010-01-10T09:43:00.003-07:00

Puppy Socialization
In response to a behavioral question about how to pick the pick of the litter and the appropriate socialization of Border Collies with people and livestock, I would like to share my experience. The dog and horse people (the Blackfeet Indians) allowed my current Border Collie, Spek, to stay with his litter until he was 15 or 16 weeks old. I must say the socialization he experienced with the litter on a ranch with cattle proved invaluable. He knows himself, and has turned out to be the best learning, most well-adjusted dog I have yet had the pleasure to partner up with.
At 6 weeks I can't perceive an adequate amount of individual puppy personality to determine future suitability (you'll have to use the black mouth rule then; pick the pup with the most black pigmentation in the oral cavity to insure you get the smartest one). On the other hand, when observing the puppy and bitch socialization through 16 weeks, the personalities of the littermates become quite clear and distinct. That is the time to pick a dog to match your demeanor, when possible, it seems, despite the pressure to choose early.
When advocating adequate socialization of puppies, I think of littermates living and learning together until 16 weeks of age, during which time the litter freely socializes with one another in an adequate environment along with select, knowledgeable dog people and children. The pups watch and eventually help the bitch work cattle and sheep at the gentle hand of their human leaders.
For happy, knowing sheepdogs, I encourage late weaning and a proper and spacious growth environment. I attribute the personality and intelligence benefits to littermate socialization and bitch teaching, along with human/bitch observation, which becomes focused by 10-12 weeks. The pups learn about people by watching their well-trained mother interact with experienced dog people. The bitch does a lot of the pup training.
In my experience, cowdog pups allowed to hang in the litter for 3 to 4 months seem to easily develop willing human partnerships. They get along not only with people, but nearly all other dogs. The most impressive aspect to me is they do not seem to need food as a motivator, and can be trained on a "willing to please" basis, which for me, is not only preferable, but delightful.
Pups weaned and separated at 6-9 weeks appear to me to be the ones that develop the more pressing behavioral issues, I assume in large part because of deprivation from their species at critical psychological developmental and learning stages. With horses we are always always attempting to look at "natural" behavior in feral settings, hoping to apply our knowledge to husbandry and training. With pups, weaning at 16 weeks seems "natural" if one wishes to extrapolate wolf behavior.
Nice thing about living in Montana is that we have both wild wolves and wild horses to observe. We do this atop our horses with our dogs at our side, the domestics watching the wildlife as we watch, and the wildlife in turn observing all of us.
Indeed, there is no dominance.
Regards, Sid

Dr Gustafson provides insight regarding the inherent nature and behavior of horses and dogs in response to people. He offers consultations and management assistance to create and sustain natural approaches to animal training, health and welfare. DrSid teaches equine behaviour for the University of Guelph. In addition to practicing veterinary and behavioral medicine, DoctorG is a novelist, social commentator, and journalist.

To the True Horsemen of the Racing Game

2009-06-08T18:39:00.001-06:00

Here’s to the Jockeys

If only jockeys could speak their mind like trainers. Last year Big Brown’s trainer criticized his jockey for pulling the big horse up with a widely publicized hoof infirmity. This year Woolley, a Chip off the old trainer’s block if there ever was one, felt the need to blame Calvin Borel for misriding Mine That Bird, for moving too early in the third Leg of the Triple Crown.

It seems everyone accepts jockey criticism. The first words out of both of the trainers of the last two losing Belmont favorites, were words of criticism for their riders, yet both trainers failed to properly prepare their horses to partner with their jockeys. As human nature goes in horse racing, both trainers found it in their hearts to shift the blame from themselves to the riders. Sportswriters find little trouble going after jockeys as an easy target, as well. Desormeaux last year, Borel this. Nice.

These athletes who ride thoroughbreds are little, and they are humble. Jockeys know better than to find blame in their horses or their trainers, as they know there will be another day if only they make it alive through the race at hand. Jockeys are the true makers of this game — the jockeys and their mounts. In a jockey’s world, once the gate opens, everyone else is superfluous but their horse and the other horses and riders in the race. In a horse race decisions are made, yes, judgments upon which races can be won or lost.

Yet, with jockeys once the race is over, everything is superfluous. They are alive. They pinch themselves, yes, I made it. Jockeys leave the should-have-done-this, should-have-done-that for the next race. They adjust and learn from their mistakes to a highly efficient degree. Jockeys leave the riding commentary to the trainers and sportswriters. When jockeys comment negatively on the trainer’s ability, they often lose future mounts. When jockeys gripe about sportswriters, they get bad press. Jockeys are wise. Horses make one very wise, especially if one rides them in rough company for big money. Like horses, jockeys know when to keep their mouths shut.

You did not hear Kent Desormeaux criticize Big Brown’s trainer for failing to adequately prepare the horse to be in a partnering mood last year. But indeed, the trainer failed to prepare the horse to collaborate with Kent. Brown was rank and washy and unmanageable. See last year’s summary of the Belmont, Horsemanship and Horseracing.

This year Woolley failed to prepare Mine That Bird to rate well over the Belmont route of ground, and whom does he blame? Calvin Borel, the Derby-riding savant.

The angst Preakness runner-up Mine That Bird was weaving in his Belmont shedrow all day. Weaving is a stereotypy improperly managed racehorses take up with. Seems Woolley was busy elsewhere other than in the shedrow where he should have been enriching his horse’s life before the Belmont. As a result, the Kentucky Derby winner took to cantering in place on the way to the paddock. Generally, this is not a sign that the horse has been prepared to rate. Racy horses do not rate well nor easily. The trainer is responsible for the condition of his horse. The mental condition of Mine That Bird was not conducive to rating the mile and a half Belmont. The trainer failed both the horse and the jockey.

Let us take a moment and bow our heads to the jockeys. They take all the risks and talk about none of them. They take criticism close-lipped and quiet-like, the true horsefolk they are. All the risk is theirs, yes, but the blame for losing a race is not theirs, not in the last two Belmonts at any rate.

Like horses, jockeys are survivors. They have class. Jockeys emanate class. The organization that oversees thoroughbred horse racing is called The Jockey Club for a reason. Jockeys rule this game quietly. Each and every race they are riding to survive, and riding well.

From my rabbit hole in the infield, I say let us all take our hats off to the game’s true friend. Here’s to the jockeys! Spills and wrecks will break their bones, but words will never hurt them.

Sid Gustafson, D.V.M., is a novelist and equine veterinarian specializing in thoroughbred sportsmedicine and equine behavior. He currently practices regulatory veterinary medicine, representing the safety and welfare of thoroughbred racehorses.

Dr Gustafson provides consultations regarding the design and management of equine facilities and horse training methodologies to best accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses. He provides information and management assistance creating natural approaches to maintain equine health, prevent diseases, and resolve lameness.

Mine That Oxygen, a veterinary take on the Derby victory

2009-05-06T19:40:00.003-06:00

Mine That Oxygen: a Vet’s Take on the Derby
By SID GUSTAFSON
Chalk that Derby win up to efficient use of oxygen. No mysticism or surprises in the equine physiology and podiatry camps, just good old dependable O2 at work, along with some nicely-nurtured hooves. Mine That Bird’s road trip from New Mexico brought the horse down into the oxygen the other runners in the Derby came up to, allowing a significant and readily apparent advantage as the race shaped up around the turn into the stretch run. Yes, the 135th running was a freight-train-passing-a-bum scenario if there ever was one, the bums being the other gaspers in the field groping for the oxygen that Mine That Bird sucked up down the stretch run ahead of them.

And some stretch run that was (and how did you like the call? The announcer seemed completely depleted of air.)

The outcome is not really all that surprising to the exercise physiologists and hoof bio-mechanicists laughing in the wings, not to mention the cowboys. Bird’s Rocky Mountain High conditioning stimulated the production of red blood cells by causing a release of endogenous erythropoietin naturally, and natural is the way to go these days as polo ponies attest.

High-altitude acclimation training is one of the oldest endurance strategies, and the affect appeared stunning. By the time Bird crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky his blood was attracting Louisville oxygen like Churchill Downs had attracted dreamers, sucking the stuff right of the air as we watched. If some of you are still wondering why you were feeling a bit lightheaded toward the end of the race, now you know why. I was sorry to hear a couple of ladies fainted, but such is the price to watch an oxygen harvester like Mine That Bird take a race.

Not only did Bird’s blood have the iron to carry the oxygen, his tremendous nares had the shape and flare to inhale the oxygen, much like his hooves had the shape and flare to handle the mud.

Did you notice the Bird had all four legs wrapped? Some consider leg wraps oxygen stockings, and after that performance more will become believers in the strategy. Lower leg pressure wraps can improve a runner’s max VO2 by increasing blood return from the legs to the heart. Additionally, Bird’s body shape and flying style made the perfect oxygen-assimilating piston, as did Calvin’s aerodynamic ride. With horses, each gallop is a breath you know, breathing being interconnected with running, a breath per stride. Did the mathematicians get Bird’s stride count? When they get it all added up, Bird outstrode the also-rans, outstriding equated to outbreathing the competition, enhancing his aerobic capacity further.

Note the oxygen miner’s nose and throat. The winner has the finest nostril flare of them all, pouring the essential horse racing juice into his lungs, to his big heart, to his gliding muscles, gliding muscles harboring a sweet reserve of oxygen to accelerate down the stretch run.

Like his black hooves handled Kentucky mud, his nostrils and blood kept him metabolically astride. The Miner held sway, I’d say, and would have most likely held sway against Rachel and Revenge had they chose also to follow him across the finish line.

With glide like his, Mine That Bird hydroplaned over the Kentucky mud. Yes, it appeared the horse did not break the surface tension like the other plodders along. Those water bugs that run across ponds, what are they called? Boatmen, yes, Mine That Bird’s hooves became his four boatmen, so oxygenated he was. Mudder hooves, yes. Mudder physique, yes. Mudder stride, yes.

What else made this the best Derby ever? Mudder lightness, as in the tapering trailer ride from the mountains. Tapering? you ask. The strategy of reducing intestinal volume to enhance mobility and flight is long practiced, and in this Derby metabolically perfected by New Mexican cowboys, whom it appeared also lost a few pounds on the trip to Louisville, and perhaps will lose a few more as the Triple Crown wears on. Tapering not only reduces a horse’s weight, but it also prepares them physiologically to run a route of ground. It appropriately alkalinizes them, naturally. With a Birdstone horse like That, why Woolley thought he ever needed to ride a motorcycle we will never know.

Gelding, the only gelding in the field wins. Gelding allowed man to domesticate horse like gelding allowed the Bird to win the Derby in gentlemanly fashion. Mine That Bird’s mare mining days ended some time back. On May 2 the Bird mined both oxygen and mud most efficiently. He did not have to bother himself with the hundred plus fillies in heat around the Churchill Downs backside that morning. No, Mine That Bird focused on running, and that lightened his load considerably, as well.

Before we end here, let us all express our gratitude to Mary Scollay, the equine medical director for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, and her professional team of regulatory veterinarians for effectively representing the health and safety of all the 20 horses entered in the Derby this year.

Sid Gustafson, D.V.M., is a novelist and equine veterinarian specializing in thoroughbred sportsmedicine and equine behavior. He currently practices regulatory veterinary medicine, representing the safety and welfare of thoroughbred racehorses.

Thoroughbred Culture

2009-04-06T11:08:00.005-06:00

Society and racehorse culture continue to tryingly adjust to the new age of horseracing. Racing jurisdictions became overly permissive regarding medications through the past, the pro-medication argument being to protect the health and assure the comfort and well-being of the horse. The medication experiment went too far, and has failed, with widespread medicating resulting in the adaptability of the horse being exceeded (Eight Belles and too many others).
Racing jurisdictions and regulatory veterinarians are working diligently to improve racing safety and thoroughbred soundness. Previously accepted medication practices are being rescinded on a widespread basis in response to the untoward shift of racehorse medications to achieve competitive advantage. Across the board this year medication has been significantly reduced. Pre-race and post race examinations have been intensified. Soundness concerns (The Pamplemousse) and medication incidents will remain prevalent as we adjust the management of our relationship with the horse.
The blame lies with us all, and it is all of us who must contribute to make racing safer, and to improve the competitive ethic and our relationship with the horse.
In time horsemanship will once again replace medication, and the horse will be appropriately considered, and allowed to race with its senses fully intact. Blinkers take the sense of sight partially away from horses. Nose and mouth aids take the sense of smell and vomeronasal insight away from horses. There is a long tradition of masking these senses in horseracing.
Why do trainers take these senses away from horses? They do it so the horse focuses on the race and does not spook or become unmanageable, in many trainer's minds they do it for the safety and welfare of the horse. The industry is sorting through all this in the best interests of the horse. These practices are subject to change, and the change, while welcome and timely, will be painful at times.

Dr Gustafson provides consultations regarding the design and management of equine facilities to best accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses. He provides information and management assistance creating natural approaches to maintain equine health, prevent diseases, and resolve lameness.

Understanding Horses

2009-03-23T19:45:00.003-06:00

Equine Behavior Statement
Revised and Expanded
March 23, 2009
Sid Gustafson DVM

In consideration of the horse’s nature and behavior horsewomen and horsemen are obligated to provide horses an appropriate environment, proper nutrition, sufficient sociobehavioral circumstances, as well as ethical training and horsemanship modalities. By nature the horse is a grazer of the plains, a social and herd animal, and flighty. Horsemanship and training are best accomplished through behavioral understanding of the horse and facilitation of the horse’s nature, rather than by force or coercion.
Horses are ideally trained in a relaxed, calm state. Training that puts the horse into the flight or sympathetic state generated by fear and contained by ropes or pens is discouraged, and not in accordance with acceptable standards of well being.
Horses graze and walk together 60-70% of the time under natural circumstances, eating and moving from spot to spot independently but within a few meters of the next horse. Stabling should make every effort to accommodate or recreate these long-evolved grazing in motion preferences for proper physiological function and mental health.
Horses require other horses for proper health and prosperity. Horses require the constant companionship of other horses. A horse should seldom be kept alone. Horses being mixed with other horses and expected to share resources should be properly acclimated socially, and be given the required space to adjust to new herds without injury or undue stress. Every effort should be made to provide horses with the social benefit of appropriate companion horses through times of stress and illness.
Horsewomen and men need to appreciate the sensual nature of the horse, and understand the physiological needs of the horse. Horses prefer the open view, and if they cannot be with other horses, they need to see and smell other horses for proper behavioral functioning and responsiveness.
Water is the most important nutrient, and must be provided in consideration of equine behavioral preferences.
Grazing is the preferred and predominant equine activity. Horses did not evolve to metabolize grains and non-structured carbohydrates, or to remain stationary for even short periods of time.
Play and sleep are naturally occurring preferences that require accommodation however horses are housed or stabled, as deprivation results in behavioral deterioration.
Horses are physiologically dependent on shared social grooming and sensual contact companionship. If stabling precludes these preferences from fulfillment, then every effort need be applied to replace or recreate these needs on a daily basis.
These behavioral considerations apply to horses in transport, and for those horses too, however unwanted, man is obligated to provide the proper environment, social functioning, nutrition, medical care, and exercise to sufficiently assure health and comfort.
As to performance, every care and precaution need be taken to avoid exceeding the adaptability of the horse. All of the horse's normal natural sensation should remain fully intact and functional without undue pharmaceutical influence. The horse's metabolic, physical, medical, and behavioral limitations must be monitored by equine veterinary professionals on an intense comprehensive basis.

Dr Gustafson provides consultations regarding the design and management of equine facilities to best accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses. He provides information and management assistance creating natural approaches to maintain equine health, prevent diseases, and resolve lameness.

Contemporary Horsemanship

2009-03-08T19:27:00.003-06:00

Contemporary Horsemanship Pursuits

The centaur portrays something significant about our horsemanship desires. That primal mythological being displays our metaphoric ideal; head, arms, and torso of horseman or horsewoman blending gracefully into the body and legs of horse; Equus sapien. Those who ride horses understand this conceit clearly; to be the horse, to become the horse. Sophisticated Thessalonian Greek tribesman imagined and mythologized this manhorse creature, a cultural reflection of their emotional and physical blending with the species. The centaur expresses pastoral man’s exalted and cherished association with the horse. The symbol defines the willing partnership many contemporary horsemen seek. This book is intended to encourage people to refine their relationship with horses.
Centaur passion is expressed today as natural horsemanship, a renewed manifestation of our desire to connect with horse in a willing and conciliatory partnership. More than ever, or ever in recent memory, people seek unity with their horses, partnerships based on understanding and trust rather than relationships that are a result of dominance or coercion. Horsemen hope their horse engages in their wishes happily and readily⎯dependably, consistently, and reliably⎯wherever and whenever they ride together. A willing partnership based on time, trust ,and understanding is a high hope indeed, but a hope that has reached its true promise in many horse/man pairings through time.
The ideal connection facilitates empowerment from the horse, a controlled extension of our selves, a naturally manifested power that can make one delirious. After a century of widening disconnection, America’s horse culture is attempting to renew and refine the relationship that has bonded mankind to horses for millennia. Horsemen continue to seek a connectivity of their minds to the horse’s body as horsemen always have.
The horsemanship ideal reigns in America as it has reigned through time: that the rider’s thought becomes the horse’s action, the centaur effect, control of the horse’s feet, becoming one with the horse. Modern horsemen report that horse/man relationships approach this ideal with regularity. The nature of the horse, however, is such that the regularity remains uncertain. The horse retains the power to have the last word in this language of horsemanship we explore. The horseman’s goal remains to have a say in all the horse’s actions. A resurgence of conciliatory training methods has emerged offering horsemen/women a trusting and reliable relationship with their horse that is not forced or coerced, a relationship based on mutual respect and understanding.

The Language of Natural Horsemanship

2009-02-04T10:01:00.007-07:00

Be assured your first edition! Click the above title.
THE LANGUAGE OF NATURAL HORSEMANSHIP now available for preorder on amazon.
"Finally, horsemanship told in the present tense." Mr Ed

Dr Gustafson provides consultations regarding the design and management of equine facilities to best accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses to facilitate effective, willing training and performance. He provides examinations and management assistance creating natural approaches to maintain equine health, enhance performance, prevent diseases, and resolve lameness.

Equine Welfare Statement

2008-12-24T13:44:00.002-07:00

Horse Welfare Statement
Applied Ethology
Sid Gustafson DVM

In consideration of the horse’s nature and behavior horsemen are obligated to provide horses an appropriate environment, proper nutrition, sufficient sociobehavioral circumstances, as well as ethical training and horsemanship modalities. By nature the horse is a grazer of the plains, a social and herd animal, and flighty. Horsemanship and training are best accomplished through behavioral understanding of the horse and facilitation of the horse’s nature, rather than by force or coercion. Horses are best trained in the parasympathetic state. Training that puts the horse into the flight or sympathetic state generated by fear and contained by ropes or pens is discouraged, and not in accordance with acceptable standards of well being.
Horses graze and walk together 60-70% of the time under natural circumstances. Stabling should make every effort to accommodate or recreate these long-evolved preferences for proper physiological function and mental health.
Horses require other horses for proper health and prosperity. Horses require the constant companionship of other horses. A horse should seldom be kept alone. Every effort should be made to provide horses with the social benefit of appropriate other horses through times of stress and illness.
These behavioral considerations apply to horses in transport, and for those horses too, however unwanted, man is obligated to provide the proper environment, social functioning, nutrition, medical care, and exercise to sufficiently assure health and comfort.

Dr Gustafson provides consultations regarding the design and management of equine facilities to best accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses. He provides information and management assistance creating natural approaches to maintain equine health, prevent diseases, and resolve lameness.

The Language of Horsemanship

2008-12-05T20:56:00.003-07:00

Dr Gustafson provides consultations regarding the design and management of equine facilities to best accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses. He provides information and management assistance creating natural approaches to maintain equine health, prevent diseases, and resolve lameness.

Upcoming Book Preview
The Language of Horsemanship, preview, summary, blurbs,

THE LANGUAGE OF NATURAL HORSEMANSHIP is a professional interpretation of the theory and practice of contemporary horsemanship. An appreciation and exploration of this theory will help horsemen and horses alike. Domestic horses are flight animals, herd animals, and grazers of the plains. They are sensual learners willing to please men for comfort and security. Effective horsemanship appreciates both the wild and domestic natures of the horse.
Sid Gustafson DVM

Book Introduction

The Language of Horsemanship brings man’s relationship with horse into contemporary perspective. Horse and man coming together in a mutual beneficial relationship reigns as the most important cultural-changing experience in the history of mankind. Since domestication horse has embedded itself in the psyche of many cultures in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa before spreading across the entire world. Linguists tell us that the words for mind and horse are similar in many of these ancient horse cultures. Horse bones from that time are found buried with the bones of men buried at that time. Horses as art, as cult, as culture, and as God appear in many ancient civilizations.
Today animal enlightenment flourishes in a refined fashion with horsemanship becoming a state of mind rather than the physical, coercive force it may have been at other times in the past. Horse remains integral to art and culture. Horsemanship through time has reflected the art and culture of the times. Two classes of horse emerge, pleasure and performance. Replacing military pursuit is athletic performance pursuit. Pleasure horses far outnumber all other horses. Today’s horseman is different than the horsemen of times past who were reliant on horses for subsistence and survival. Today’s horseman seeks enjoyment and honor and prestige with horses. Many seek enlightenment and release. Others are obsessed with equestrian competitive pursuit. Practical horsemanship survives in pockets as it has survived for time immemorial. Ranch and harness horses remain active on the remote ranches and fields and trails of America, but their percentage is smaller than ever. Contemporary horsemanship addresses varied pursuits; work, pleasure, and performance foremost among them. Additionally, the companionship of horses is sought by many today, more companionship than in times past, companionship unhindered by assertiveness and respect in some instances, companionships lacking balance.
In order to safely and effectively commune with horses, one best develop a deep sense of the horse’s nature. This requires considerable time be spent with horses; time which horse-dependent people in the past most certainly experienced. Horses once were the essence of civilized life. With horses man lived and worked. Horse/human relationships flourished in this continuum.
That sort of immersion with horses is experienced by few these days. Today people attempt to develop partnerships with horses, but many of the partnerships are limited by time. A goal of this book is to help horseman develop an appreciation of horse’s natures. Knowledge allows time spent with horses to be more efficient and productive. Knowledge prevents bad scenarios with horses from developing. Diverse approaches to knowledge allow horsemen to develop the accord, acceptance, and connection necessary to develop positive relationships with horses.
The Mongol word for horse is takh, meaning spirit. Mongols, the ones who introduced the riding of horses to the Greeks, are perhaps the oldest continuous horsemen. They relate to horse in a state of grace, a blending of body and mind. In Mongolia there remains a sharing of man’s spirit with horse’s spirit, a blending of the physical and metaphysical. In America blending with horse is in a state of renewal, a state of grace.
The premise of American horsemanship, like that of the Mongolian horsemanship, is to control a horse’s feet willingly. Horsemen must go though the horse’s mind in consideration of his nature to penetrate the horse’s psyche, to get to his feet, to become horse, to attain the consistent willingness horsemen so desire.
The Language of Horsemanship reveals the many renewed training and husbandry strategies emerging and evolving today. The goal of today’s horsemen is to master horsemanship rather than to master the horse. The ideology of dominance is being replaced by an ideology of partnership. The pleasure horse training ideology has perhaps differed from the performance horse training ideology in the past, but today both disciplines attempt to match natural equine behavior with the training and husbandry of the horse. The objective of most contemporary horsemanship is to achieve training and prevail in performance while sustaining health and preventing injury. Contemporary culture is seeking natural approaches to achieve these goals.

Veterinarian Finishes Anxiously Awaited Upcoming Horse Book, Volume I: The Language of Natural Horsemanship, by Sid Gustafson, DVM

⎯what his patients say:

“Finally, a book for horsefolk that brings the language of horsemanship into the present tense.”
Mister Ed

“If only Kent had read The Language of Horsemanship before the Belmont we could have had the Triple Crown and Horse of the Year. Dutrow could have used an awful lot of this advice and done his part to put me in a partnering mood, as well.”
Big Brown

Early blurbs from horse people:

“The Language of Horsemanship enlivens contemporary horsemanship as it needs enlivened… knowledgeably, honestly, and representative of the horse.
Dr Gustafson has delivered a poetically relevant cultural achievement, a horsemanship original.”
Jim Harrison, novelist poet, and essayist, author of Legends of the Fall and Wolf

“Dr Gustafson knows horse’s nature fluently. He is not afraid to ask the good question. He is keenly astute in assessing its needs both physically and mentally. His ability to increase awareness and progress horsemanship to a new level with his graceful blending of science, experience, and gifted insight are truly refreshing. I welcome his ideas in my daily horse experiences and I know others will do the same. Read his book, mine his wisdom, fulfill the promise between horse and rider.” Wylie, of Wylie and the Wild West, champion horseman and western singer.

“The Horse Medicine Man is at it again with his horse sensibility! The Language of Horsemanship combines the science with the spiritual, the past with the present. Feel horses like you have never felt them before…”
Hank Real Bird, Crow Horseman, teacher, and poet

Table of Contents

The Language of Natural Horsemanship

Part I
Horse and Culture

1 Mutual Beneficence
2 Contemporary Horsemanship Pursuits
3 Defining Natural Horsemanship
4 Natural Basics
5 The Theory and Practice of Watching Horses
6 Natural Trust and Mutual Respect
Part II
Essential Natures
7 Born Running—the first hours; mare teaches foal
8 If Let Be
9 The History of Horsemanship
10 Origins of Horsemanship
11 Horse and Human Relationships
Part III
Contemporary Horsemanship
12 Horse Training Pursuits
13 How Horsemen Teach
14 Applying Natural to Horsemanship

Part IV
Ancient Horse, Ancient Man
Ancient Natural
15 Equus caballus defined
16 Taming then Domestication

Part V
Natural Applications

17 Natural Approaches to Stabling
—enriching natural needs
18 Applying Behavior
⎯natural approaches to training
19 Natural Horsemanship across Disciplines
20 Communication is Sensation
—a most sensual seasonal herd-grazing creature
21 an Eye for Horsemanship
⎯talents horsemen acquire from horses
22 Taking Natural on the Road
23 Horse and Man Relational Goals
⎯seeking symmetry
Terminology
Appendix
Glossary
In Conclusion

Equitarian Philosphy

2008-07-10T11:18:00.004-06:00

Equitarian:
If we can define humanitarian, then let us try to expound the definition of equitarian: making the world a better place for horses and horsemen.
How can we progressively address our contemporary relationship with horses in light of contemporary issues: slaughter, overpopulation of unwanted horses both feral and domestic, the thoroughbred fetlock epidemic, and the stress of intense stabling?
Although there are more pressing concerns, horsetraining methodology is one area I have a desire to establish parameters regarding exhaustion. The behavioral ideal of natural horsemanship as I define the discipline is to keep the horse in the parasympathetic state during training and handling, that is, a relaxed-unfrightened-cerebral-thinking state of body and mind. I realize this is not constantly possible, but the ideal is to stay parasympathetic the vast majority of the time, and to avoid using flight strategies. It is important to avoid panting--a distressed overwrought horse struggling to get oxygen during training is a contemporary welfare issue I would like to see addressed and minimized.
We do not know how the induction of sustained-flight afflicts a horse, but we suspect it can be is significantly detrimental to certain horses and in certain degrees. Certain training strategies, including those in the natural horsemanship realm, appear to exceed accepted contemporary welfare standards. Many trainers and horsemen take horses into a sympathetic, or flight state, while containing the horse’s flight in a round corral. The horse is chased with flags and gestures until it is exhausted, and resigns into a survival mode, allowing the trainer to approach and begin a desensitization process. Timed colt-srtarting contests televised on RFDTV display these exhaustive strategies, by many, including natural horsemen. Many of these horses are young and growing, vulnerable to growth plate damage from overexertion, and metabolic disease as a result of over-exhaustion. Their respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and musculoskeltal systems need careful attention during training. Induced metabolic stress states can adversely affect subsequent behavior and physical development in growing learning horses.
Q. What is too much, then, Dr Gustafson, in your opinion?
I would like to suggest that horses-in-training might be better off psychologically and physically if training is curtailed when the horse’s respiratory rate exceeds 120 breathes per minute. This seems high, and may be, but it is a breathing rate that is often exceeded during the training of young horses. To take care not to exceed acceptable metabolic limits, horsetrainers need to get in touch with horses’ respiratory rates, and learn to carefully and constantly monitor respiration by second nature as they train. Many young horses are brought into panting states that exceed 150 breathes per minute, and then kept there. Equine physiologists concur that "panting" is a stressed metabolic state for every system. Certainly, an observant horseman can see the distress in their horse's eyes. Beyond the physical, neurologists and behaviorists express concern about significant psychological affects that may impair the horse’s trainability and usefulness into the future with these exhaustive strategies.
The most vulnerable system of all, the equine system most frequently insulted in domestication, is the nervous system. Appropriate training should nurture the horse’s nervous system, and avoid unnecessary insults that may have unrelenting affects. I see too much “learned helplessness,” a survival mode stance that is docile and submissive, yet unspirited and dulled; a result of sympathetic overload during training, and undesirable in my developing view. We aspire to willing partnerships with horses, rather than coerced submission.
It is easy to monitor respiration and determine respiratory rates by simply observing the nostrils, flanks, and ribcage and counting the number of breaths per minute, or in the case of panting horses, the number of breaths per second—two, sometimes three breaths a second. Horses normally breathe 8-14 beats per minute.

The equitarian salon:
Promoting an EQUITARIAN concept to better man’s relationship with domestic equids.

Dr Gustafson provides consultations regarding the design and management of equine facilities to best accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses. He provides information and management assistance creating natural approaches to maintain equine health, prevent diseases, and resolve lameness. swgustafson@yahoo.com

Horsemanship and Horse Racing

2008-06-12T18:55:00.002-06:00

June 11, 2008, New York Times, The Rail
Horsemanship and Horse Racing
By SID GUSTAFSON
I have to be careful writing about jockeys and riding as I still do veterinary regulatory racetrack work from time to time representing the horses and jockeys safety and welfare on race day. I try to stay out of debates involving riding strategy, so as not to have jockeys lose confidence in me should I happen to perform regulatory work at their track in the future. In order to effectively carry out regulatory duties, veterinarians have to maintain trusting working relationships with the jockeys. On the other hand, proper horsemanship is essential for horse racing safety, and regulatory veterinarians are certainly responsible for that.
I teach natural horsemanship at the University of Montana Western, where I have the good fortune to ride in all of the horsemanship classes. We study the nature and behavior of horses and base our training on this understanding of horses.
After the gate opened in the Belmont Stakes, Kent was dealing with a Big Brown anxious to sprint to the lead. Brown seemed to shy sideways to the right away from the starter standing in the track after he slipped out of the gate. Kent reacted and Brown did not respond to the rider’s initial reaction and instruction like Kent had anticipated, and the rider had to apply a large amount pressure to the reins, repeatedly, wrestling the horse in one direction then the other. The early issues between horse and rider cascaded, and the partnership between horse and rider deteriorated out of the gate well into the first turn.
It seemed that the Brown team knew that a deficit in the connection between Kent and Brown existed when they last observed Kent gallop Big Brown. It was reported by the trainer through the media that the horse was all over the place on a morning gallop with Kent aboard.
The general horsemanship belief is that once a horse gets his way with an unassertive rider through the course of a gallop, the horse will attempt to have its way with the rider on future rides by ignoring the cues the rider gives with the reins and legs. According to the news media and Dutrow, Brown got the best of Kent the last time Kent galloped him. Kent was not able to get Brown to respond to his cues on the gallop.
Apparently, the trainer observed the horse get his way with Kent on the last gallop and did not take measures to correct the racehorse’s relationship with the rider before the race. Subsequently, the horse did not respond to Kent in the race. In essence, Kent had to retrain the horse to respond to his cues through the first quarter mile. If Brown understood he could get away with refusing to answer to Kent’s cues appropriately on gallops, Brown is not going to react any better to Kent’s cues in a race.
Dutrow’s description of Kent’s last gallop of Big Brown seemed to match the subsequent race ride Kent gave Brown, which is what horsemanship studies would expect, and even predict. In trying to find answers as to what might be done differently to prepare Big Brown for future races with Kent up, the horsemanship issues between horse and rider regarding response, connection, and communication need refined before the race.
Nothing is simple in horseracing, and most race finishes are the result of many, many factors and sequences of factors. Horses’ reaction times are lightning quick. However practiced, a human’s reaction to a horse’s reaction is not always a rhythmic thing when extenuating pressures and surprises arise, or when preparation has been lacking. In retrospect, it now seems that it may have been inappropriate to let Brown get away with a disobedient gallop with Kent up before the race. Brown also could have been better prepared mentally for the race, so to have been in a partnering mood with his rider. This is of course all very complex, and horses regularly fool horsemen. Developing a better understanding of equine behavior is the goal of all horsemen, but much of our learning is trial and error.
I do not share these horse behavior observations to place blame, but to clarify an aspect of horse training and memory. Certainly, losing the race was not Big Brown’s fault. He is in the hands of people, the training, the riding, the conditioning, the medication; everything the horse does is at the hand of man.
In natural horsemanship, we teach that the horse is never wrong. Riders have to develop partnerships of confidence, respect, and connection with each horse they ride, and consistently maintain all aspects of those partnerships to ensure a responsive partnership. If people are not consistent with horses, horses will not be consistent for people.
Not only was Big Brown unwilling to respond evenly for his rider, Desormeaux, Big Brown did not work as evenly as hoped for his regular exercise rider, Michelle Nevin, before the race. Horsetraining is in order for Big Brown, refinement of the basics of confidence, respect, and connection going both ways between horse and rider, all Brown’s riders. The owner and trainer’s idea to resume medicating Big Brown with Winstrol is a mistake, as anabolic steroids are notorious for making horses less trainable and responsive. Big Brown needs to get more connected with his riders, and anabolic steroids can contradict that goal.
If Desormeaux rides Big Brown in the coming races, the horsemanship issues between the horse and rider should be refined so that the horse and rider connection is more secure when the Haskell or Travers roll around.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.

About Those Steroids and Big Brown

2008-06-12T18:53:00.001-06:00

June 10, 2008, 8:02 am
About Those Steroids and Big Brown
By SID GUSTAFSON
Lack of steroids did not appear to be the reason Big Brown tanked the Belmont. I went over the reasons I thought were significant in my last article. Big Brown is a stallion. Horses are seasonal breeders. Anabolic steroids are naturally occurring. As days lengthen the endogenous anabolic steroids, those produced internally by intact male horses, are increasingly secreted into their bloodstream.
The days have lengthened considerably since April. Whatever Winstrol was excreted or metabolized by Big Brown before the Belmont Stakes had by and large been replaced by race time with his increased secretion of seasonal anabolic steroids. By this time of year most stallions have established higher levels of androgenic steroids in their bloodstreams by secreting their own endogenous hormones in response to the lengthening days.
Although steroids can improve performance in horses, steroid administration in itself does not assure enhanced performance. Generally speaking, horses are adequately big, strong, and fast enough. Steroid administration is not always a beneficial thing, especially over the long run. There are adverse reactions and side effects aplenty. When the dosage is excessive, or sometimes even with small dosages, difficult behavioral issues often arise. The biggest problem is that horses become hard to manage and handle. They act rank. With horses control is essential to safety and performance. It seemed Big Brown was plenty frisky as he broke out of the gate for the Belmont. Behaviorally and physically, there appeared to be little appearance of a lack of steroids in the big horse’s system.
Since steroids can indeed at times improve performance for some horses, they should be banned. There is little doubt that life will be healthier and safer for racehorses when steroid use is restricted. Artificially enhanced performance means that some medicated horses will exert themselves more than they might without steroids, putting added stress on their legs and muscles, leading to more injuries than would be the case without the added juice. Additionally, there are significant deleterious side effects due to the injudicious use of anabolic steroids: subsequent sterility, cancer, heart disease, unhandleabilty, psychological confusion, and other troubles.
Are there justified medical uses for anabolic steroids in racehorses? Yes, but justified medical use does not include enhancement of performance beyond what would normally be a horse’s inherent ability. What then are anabolic steroids used to appropriately treat? Anabolic steroids are given to help horses recover from certain medical conditions involving weight loss, reduced appetite, and loss of muscle mass. There are also valid medical uses for anabolic steroids to help horses recover more quickly and heal stronger after undergoing arduous surgical procedures, prolonged stress, and racing and training injuries. Anabolic (building up the protein) steroids induce metabolic protein retention, resulting in the incorporation of additional protein into the muscular and other structural tissues, bulking up the horses and athletes on the stuff.
Any other uses? Well, yes. Horses that are given significant amounts of catabolic steroids may need anabolic steroids to allay the protein loss the catabolic steroids induce. Catabolic steroids or cortisone (those steroids that break down protein and cause it to be excreted) are often administered to race horses to reduce joint, bone, tendon, ligament, and muscle inflammation, as well as to treat a plethora of other medical, immune, and metabolic conditions (pulmonary disease, hypoglycemia, tying-up, allergies, and many other medical issues).
Joints are injected with cortisone, and cortisone is also given systemically (intravenously, intramuscularly) to be absorbed into the bloodstream. Anabolic steroids compensate for the deleterious side effects of cortisone injections. If the use of catabolic steroids is limited, this will eliminate the medical indication to use anabolic steroids to compensate. If the industry is going to move forward in the best interests of race horses, they should significantly limit the use of cortisone as well. This will level out the drug-playing field, and bring our medical racehorse morals up to the standard of the rest of the civilized world.
Are there other examples of where one drug needs another follow-up drug to compensate for the side effects of the original drug? Yes. Phenylbutazone (bute), in addition to its vaunted non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory effect, thins the blood, increases the clotting time, and can increase the potential for bleeding into the lungs during racing (exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage, EIPH). If we ban the bute, the horses hopefully won’t bleed as much, and we can then reduce the need for Lasix.
Without bute and other NSAIDs in the horse’s system, the racehorse will be less likely to bleed. Both anabolic and catabolic steroids cause fluid retention, which also increases the possibilities to bleed with the increased blood volume. Lasix, a diuretic and lung-blood-pressure reducer, is used to eliminate this excess fluid.
The horse racing industry could begin to restrict the original allowed drugs bute and cortisone, thus reducing the need for Lasix, anabolic steroids, antibiotics (steroids impair immunity) and other drugs which tend to be needed to mitigate the side effects of the original drugs.
The preference of many is that race horses should run clean. Drug-free racing is safer. It favors sound horses. Fewer drugs, then, allow horses to race sounder and longer, and drug-free racing might protect the horseplayers a bit. If horses are treated with the drugs veterinarians determine they need to be treated with, then the patients should not be allowed to race until the resultant therapeutic drug levels have subsided to insignificant levels.
Will this no-drug policy then push trainers to use drugs that cannot be detected? Yes again, but then attempts to gain advantage with drugs have always been problematic in horseracing. Legalizing the use of bute and Lasix drugs did not curtail this activity, it simply enhanced it. Allowable drugs “clouded” the tests, hiding other drugs. Lasix diluted illicit drugs in the urine, making them harder to detect.
The 35-year-old raceday-drug horseracing experiment has failed, or is failing. Too many fractures. Too many wrecks. Too many injured jocks. Too many down, dead horses. It is time to start running American racehorses clean like horsemen do in the rest of the world. The cleaner, the better. Racing jurisdictions gave veterinarians and trainers the go-ahead to use drugs liberally in the 70s. And, as is apt to happen with drugs, some individuals abused the dosages and administration of those drugs. They topped allowable drugs off with more drugs, and in doing so did their horses and patients and the thoroughbred industry a significant disfavor.
The ethical rule of equine veterinary medicine is this: First, do no harm. When drugs are implicated with harm, then it is time to re-evaluate their use. The argument that legal drugs somehow help horse racing is getting weaker and weaker. Legal drugs engender the use of more drugs. Some drugs may have their place in racing horses, but we need more evidence to overcome the contradictory evidence that drug use is diminishing the public’s confidence in horseracing.
We’ll never forget those images of Eight Belles trying to rise on two broken legs. None of those who witnessed that misfortune will, not even Big Brown. But that image will fade and be less-likely to be repeated if we all get together to make racing a more reasonable sport for the horses’ sake, for everyone’s sake. It is a good feeling to win a horse race with a thoroughbred, but the ultimate good feeling in horseracing comes when a horse runs clean, wins, and returns to the barn fit and sound. Let’s get that feeling going, now.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.

Belmont Stakes, 2008

2008-06-12T18:52:00.001-06:00

June 8, 2008, 5:10 pm
Horse Racing Prevails
By SID GUSTAFSON
Big Brown burst from the gate fresh and fast. He immediately veered out, causing some concern that he was getting off the left front hoof (or was he just shying a bit from the starter in light of his freshness?). Despite his best efforts, Kent couldn’t contain his horse’s energy and settle him in. Checking can take the timing, balance, and rhythm out of a horse, disordering their physiology, expending their energy.
The heat, Brown’s rankness, the rough-going in tight company early, the necessity of having to rein heavily, the lost conditioning due to the quarter crack, the quarter crack itself, three races in five weeks, one mile and a half in the heat; all adequate reasons for the altered performance from the veterinary view. No surprises in the realm of equine medicine, at least.
The day was very hot; Brown was washing and foaming between the thighs. All the trouble the horse had to contend with early in the race expended needed energy not later available at the top of the homestretch. Down the backstretch Brown’s head was bobbing significantly more than the other racing horses, suggesting the onset of exhaustion.
Medically, the media and veterinary consensus thus far is that Big Brown is fine. Kent Desormeaux’s decision to pull the horse was commendable in light of the knowledge that a medical problem existed in his foot. No one wanted to risk the horse injury, especially his rider. The pressure was on to bring the horse home sound, and Kent did that. Big Brown expressed his displeasure at being held back, fighting with Kent, unfamiliar with having a herd of horses leave ahead of him, wanting to go on as Kent was bringing him to a stop in front of the grandstand. It appears our fallen hero was more likely exhausted than injured, for which we are all grateful.
Big Brown had a bad day, but things have could have turned out worse, as we all know. Horses humble men on a regular basis. Here is to the smooth and steady Da’ Tara, the sweet-riding Alan Garcia, and a superb conditioning job by Nick Zito.
The beauty of horse racing is overcoming great odds to win, rising out of the dust to prevail in the big race. The Da’ Tara team did just that, especially impressive in Saturday’s hot weather.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.

Racehorse Heat

2008-06-12T18:50:00.001-06:00

June 7, 2008, 7:45 am
It’s Hot Out Here for a Horse
By SID GUSTAFSON
Horses don’t like heat. They evolved in cool, even sub-arctic climates and are generally poorly-suited to deal with hot, humid weather. Heat makes horses sweat. Horses dissipate 75 percent of excess heat by sweating. The remainder of the heat is blown off by respiration. High humidity reduces the horse’s ability to dissipate heat by sweating, making it more difficult to keep the body temperature normal.
Hydration and electrolyte balance are critical in the racing thoroughbred. Muscle, nervous, pulmonary, cardiac, and joint function are vulnerable to electrolyte imbalances. Most electrolyte imbalances in thoroughbreds are caused by excessive pre-race anxiety and perspiration (washing out), which can be exacerbated by the use of race-day Lasix.
Potassium is one of the critical electrolytes depleted by washing out, as are sodium and chloride. Lasix depletes calcium and magnesium. These electrolytes are all essential for proper nerve, muscle, and circulatory function, and they all must be balanced in relation to one another.
When electrolyte dysfunction begins, wobbliness and weakness ensue, stressing the musculoskeletal system. After electrolyte imbalance becomes marked, the syndrome can move into thermoregulatory dysfunction, and the core temperature of the horse becomes elevated, causing further and more serious consequences. Although, high temperatures cause exercising horses to sweat heavily to dissipate the internal heat, susceptibility to heat stress is not solely influenced by ambient temperature alone. Excitable temperaments are the biggest culprit. Calm horses can generally maintain a normal body temperature and minimize sweating utilizing their ability to remain quiet and relaxed. In hot weather, anxiety-riddled horses can become electrolyte imbalanced before the race begins.
Other factors that may make horses vulnerable to heat include failure to be acclimated to hot temperatures and high humidity, tendency to sweat, and withdrawal of drinking water before racing. Racehorses may lose to 10-20L of sweat in a one-mile race. Fluid loss thickens the blood, making it flow more slowly, delivering less needed oxygen as the race perseveres. Additionally, hot horses redistribute blood flow to the skin in attempt to cool the blood off. This combination results in less blood being available for critical racing muscles, resulting in muscle weakness and cramping, weakness that may become especially noticeable in the last half mile of a one and a half mile race.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.

Eight Bells, continued from the NYTimes the Rail

2008-06-12T18:17:00.001-06:00

By SID GUSTAFSON

Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.

There are medical and cultural human-animal issues in the thoroughbred industry that warrant exploration and acknowledgment.

A prudent horseman could begin with the essential topic of stabling: how do we move forward to best recreate the natural preferences and tendencies of stabled racehorses? More intense issues such as racing age, medication, track surfaces, and breeding can be better addressed in subsequent articles after the nature of the horse and the implications of racetrack confinement are addressed.

The Fetlock Epidemic: When horses break their legs in races and have to be euthanized on the track, we have clearly exceeded the adaptability of the horse. Racetrack breakdowns are endemic, if not epidemic, in America, an undeniable veterinary reality of which I have first-hand experience. There are at least 60 identified factors which contribute to breakdowns, the leading one of which is a lack of prerace scrutiny by the trainer, his veterinarian, and the regulatory veterinarians. There are accidents, bumps, missteps, and bad luck, yes, but in my experience the vast majority of breakdowns are predictable, and most breakdowns are a result of running horses with fetlock lamenesses. Fetlocks are among the thoroughbred racehorse’s most vulnerable and complex joints. The fetlock gathers a vortex of anatomical structures that are intricately interdependent and essential. Inflammation, pain, or swelling in any one of the structures alters the essential biomechanical synchronicity for proper function and support of the critical joint.

As a professor equine studies, I attempt to teach my students appropriate moral reasoning regarding the well-being of the horse. Acquiring an academic and intuitive understanding of the horse’s nature enhances moral reasoning. Time spent with horses combined with intellectual academic pursuit helps us realize when equine welfare standards are exceeded by our competitive pursuits. This is not an easy task, as horses have been utilized intensely and harshly, assertively and aggressively through time, a cultural ideology that does not fade easily, although significant progress is taking place. In situations involving the welfare of animals progress is sometimes all we can ask.

Understanding horse behavior is necessary to refine our contemporary relationship with the horse. I attempt to engage my natural horsemanship students in analytical thinking regarding the management of confined horses in the context of the well-being of the horse, and in consideration of the intimately connected physical and mental needs of horses, especially the mental. Thoroughbreds are one of the most intensely stabled breeds. Mental and physical health become challenging to manage in confinement scenarios. After their yearling year, many thoroughbreds spend the rest of their performance life stalled, contrary to their nature. To restore confidence in thoroughbred racing, we could begin by trying to modify stabling practices to better accommodate horses’ nature, allowing the horses to develop stronger and more durable physiques in a natural fashion; to become more psychologically content and physically sound athletes, to become less dependent on drugs and surgeons. We need to place more focus on the horses’ racetrack environment and take steps to design appropriate stables and training facilities to accommodate the horses’ sociobehavioral, nutritional, and physiological requirements and preferences. To make horseracing a safer sport for horses and riders the industry could best be served by attempting to improve racetrack stabling practices, a topic on which most horsemen should find common ground in which to contribute appropriate practices and facility ideas to improve the horses’ racetrack life.

The contemporary racetrack-stabling scenario significantly displaces the horse from its natural preferences. Little semblance of a horse grazing the plains with its herdmates is apparent in a shedrow stall, where today’s racehorse spends over 90 percent of its time, depending on the trainer and his or her regimen of training and enrichment. Somehow, certain effective trainers recreate enough natural preferences for racing success despite this restrictive stabling. Their horses train sound and win races and return sound and uninjured in the best circumstances. These trainers create success for their horses; make it easy for the horses to succeed by fulfilling their inherent needs. Other trainers fail to adequately fulfill their horses’ needs. Adaptation is exceeded. Their horses become injured, sometimes because of inappropriate conditioning, and subsequently become prone to break down, as certain conditions really never return to normal function. An injury in one location, or two or three as can be the case, significantly disrupts the synchronous movement of the horse, stressing multiple joints and legs, an interdependence demonstrated so unfortunately by Eight Belles, fracturing not one, but two fetlocks.

How do we strengthen legs? Improved husbandry and stabling practices can offer remedy when the horses’ adaptability is exceeded. How can we better recreate the natural needs and conditions of stabled racehorses? All horsemen have ideas about recreating natural circumstances to fulfill natural tendencies of horses, like friendship and play, sleep and grazing and walking together. If we design the stable and manage horses in a more horse sensitive manner, horses have the potential to race stronger and safer. Many trainers adequately fulfill these needs in horses. Certain individual horses require more fulfillment than others, they are less adaptable to stabled life, require more patience and understanding to facilitate gate relaxation and acceptance.

What improvements in stabling facilities and exercise paddocks can be implemented to improve the horses’ mental health and physical endurance? Let’s ask the horsemen. Let’s ask those who study horses. Let’s attend The Horse display at the Museum of Natural History. Let us look to many venues to understand the horse. Can natural approaches improve the durability and safety of thoroughbreds? Can we create stabling conditions that promote the need for less medication while creating increased physiologic durability and mental health? Yes. Educational, informative articles make a difference for racehorses, literarily, medically, and journalistically.

Drugs and Horseracing

2008-06-12T18:12:00.001-06:00

June 4, 2008, 3:42 pm
Drugs and Racehorses
By SID GUSTAFSON
Phenylbutazone seemed a miracle drug when the stuff began entering the bloodstreams of racehorses in the 1960s. I was collecting the post-race urine that concentrated the metabolites of that drug during the ’60s, and as a teenager I became acutely aware of drugs and racehorses.
What a soothing anti-inflammatory effect bute brought to racehorses in those simpler days when its use first became widespread. The alleviation of certain lamenesses was dramatic. “Really sweet stuff,” I remember Wright Haggerty’s Kentucky groom telling me on the Shelby, Montana, backside in 1965 as he pestelled up tiny white 100-milligram dog pills he had received from my father, the attending and regulatory veterinarian (thus my job as urine catcher). The original medical plan, being that most racing jurisdictions back then prohibited the use of any and all drugs, was to use bute for training. The groom mixed the white powder into a mash, and fed his eager and waiting racehorse, who trained like Seabiscuit the next morning.
Bute cools hot joints and quiets inflamed tendons to desirable medical effect, allowing horses to return to training and racing sooner than otherwise, allowing them to maintain their conditioning. Tight, cool legs and hooves are necessary to continue conditioning the racehorse. If there is excess fluid in a joint, or swelling within a hoof, conditioning is generally counterproductive as further inflammation and damage follow exercise.
Bute was first used to facilitate continued training by quieting certain injuries or inflammations, and was especially effective when used conscientiously and conservatively. In a certain sense and in compassionate, knowing hands the drug provided humane relief to the rigors of racehorse life. The question quickly became: Could bute enhance performance? It was not a question for long. The answer was yes. Bute was and is the cleanest boost ever for a horse with mild inflammation in need of relief. The stuff could move a horse up, as they say, without a mental, or stimulant effect, but with an anti-inflammatory effect.
Two horses being equal, however, bute generally won’t make a horse with quieted inflammation run faster than a horse without joint, bone, or tendon inflammation. In a sense, bute restores normal overall biomechanical function. The nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug takes the heat out of mildly inflamed legs, feet, and joints, and this can be good in considerate hands.
Bute also became useful in the sense that it was diagnostic, or so the mind-set went at the time. If you administered bute and your horse went back to training and eating and being a sound horse after laming up a bit, then it was concluded that the condition was not significant enough to warrant rest, only to warrant bute. Bute, then, could be used to assess the severity of the lameness in racehorses. Some did not consider bute-responsive conditions serious, and this is one line of reasoning that eventually allowed the legalization of bute. There were medical arguments for its use in racing horses, medical arguments made by veterinarians and drug companies.
The conditions that bute administration does not resolve or effectively manage are considered problematic, and those conditions generally warrant rest, rather than more intensive treatment. Today, however, if bute does not manage the condition, more intense treatments are used, and more intense drugs are used.
Rest is the oldest and most effective treatment for lameness. In the history of horse doctoring, no treatment is more effective. The horse has a tremendous potential to heal musculoskeletal injuries if returned to natural pasture conditions, grazing the plains with herdmates. The problem is that it takes a full year of rest to cure many conditions racehorses develop, and at least months for others. No one has time to rest racehorses, to wait a year, and then take eight months to recondition the horse. With racehorses the clock is ticking, fast. If drugs can save time with racehorses, they are used for just that. And that is the case these days. The industry has transcended bute. The monthly veterinary bills at Belmont and Aqueduct often exceed the monthly training fee. Ask any owner.
If conditions are diagnosed accurately and thoroughly, and drugs are dosed properly and administered in a timely manner, doctors can reduce problematic inflammation in a given leg or joint, which in turn protects the rest of the horse by minimizing the risk of extra strain on other joints and limbs to compensate for the painful injured joint. However carefully dosed and administered, however, this brand of racehorse sports medicine puts more pressure on the weakened, and now treated joint, and herein lies the danger. In addition to systemic medication given intravenously to treat joint inflammation, cortisone is injected directly into joints and tendon sheaths to get a significant anti-inflammatory effect. Cortisone is in a different class of drugs called steroids, which can be used more specifically than bute to reduce the inflammation in a specific joint.
When there is swelling in a joint or tendon sheath, excess synovial fluid is secreted, distending the joint structures, and in some cases, deforming them, making for irregular movement. The reason for excess fluid in a joint is most often damage to the sensitive joint structures; damage to the synovial membranes, articular cartilages, ligaments, tendons, and underlying bone, any or all of the above. Damaged joints are weakened joints. They are inflamed joints, and in racehorses, many become cortisone-injected joints: weakened joints that are quieted down with cortisone. Why? Horse joints need to flow smoothly. Imagine an abraded joint surface, or a tendon that loses its lubrication as is passes over a running, moving joint, the resultant pain, swelling, inflammation, increased friction, and impaired function. If there is rough movement in one joint, the roughness is relayed throughout the horse’s musculoskeletal system, increasing the burden on the other legs and joints.
Intra-articular injection of a joint with cortisone is a potent treatment. In certain veterinarians hands it can be used beautifully. The most commonly injected joint is the fetlock, which is also the most commonly fractured joint. The reality is that most of fractured joints were cortisoned joints, although this information is inaccessible because of medical confidentiality. Bute is less intense, less potent, and a more conservative, safer remedy. The original idea was that legalized bute would replace joint injections, or that was part of the intent. That has not been the case.
Phenylbutazone, or bute, abbreviated from the early popular brand Butazolodin, is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug very similar to aspirin. Those who understand the pharmaceutical principles of aspirin understand phenylbutazone. Bute reduces inflammation, and subsequent to that, pain. That is the sequence, anti-inflammatory first, with subsequent pain relief. As a result of reduced inflammation, there is restoration of function accompanying relief of the joint pain.
If you consider aspirin a painkiller, then I suppose you can consider bute one, as well. Bute lasts longer, a day or two, while aspirin is more quickly metabolized in the horse, a matter of hours. The sustained anti-inflammatory effect of bute is especially therapeutic to horses. Prolonged anti-inflammatory relief allows the interdependent musculoskeletal system of the horse to redistribute weight appropriately. Lameness anywhere imbalances the horse. In a sense, bute can improve the balance by providing anti-inflammatory relief of the inflamed parts.
Initially, drugs for racehorses being illegal, bute was used to facilitate training and not so much enhance racing. That came next. The medication got to working pretty darn good, and in time trainers began administering bute to their horses closer and closer to racing, and soon the testing folk started picking it up. Matt Lytle was one trainer who taught me about bute, the smile it put on his face until Croff Lake, one of his horses, suffered a bad test after winning the Oilfield Handicap in Shelby, Montana, one of those years in the mid-’60s. Lost his purse and sort of soiled his reputation all because of a shade of bute in the urine.
Later, I heard him defend the drug, and his use of it: he gave it for the horses well-being, he claimed, and knowing Matt and his connection to his horses, I did not doubt his intent and compassion. Pain relief is compassionate, especially the sort of racehorse pain relief bute provided. The problem today is that a good thing, bute, or medication in general, has been taken too far. In the passion of competition and in a world of big money, horses have become victims of a misguided pharmaceutical culture.
My dad, having dispensed the bute, sampled Matt’s horse after it won the Oilfield Handicap. I was the one who caught Croff Lake’s urine, which tested positive. Then the next spring a winning horse tested positive in the Kentucky Derby. Rather than further restrict drug use to remedy the situation, the industry legalized drugs. From that time, horse racing shifted from a covert medication culture to an overt medication culture, which has been recently brought to its knees.
After hundreds of other doping incidents, there came a general consensus that if so many felt the need to use bute, maybe it should be O.K. to run on. After all, it was only a type of aspirin. And perhaps its legalization would eliminate the need for other more abrasive medications, such as opiates and amphetamines, and local anesthetics. Some even thought it would reduce the urge to administer intra-articular injections of cortisone. Not the case.
By the time I graduated from vet school and began practicing at Playfair Racecourse in the late ’70s, I could legally treat racehorses with nearly everything except stimulants, opiates or depressants. That left a lot of anti-inflammatory drugs, antihistamines, hormones, steroids and bleeding medications to administer to running racehorses, not to mention a multitude of vitamins, amino acids and minerals thought to help a horse endure the rigors of confinement training and racing.
Now virtually all racehorses run on bute and Lasix, and now with too many fractured fetlocks the medication has to be reduced. Bute wasn’t enough. No drug is. Legal bute engendered a drug culture. The ideology that more conservative use of potent medications would follow legalization of bute did not prove up. More intense drugs and medical treatments followed, rather than less. The pharmaceutical adaptability of the racehorse has been exceeded. Horse racing has to wean itself from its addiction to drugs that no longer help, but instead weaken horses. Racing jurisdictions are in the process of rolling back drug use. The trend should continue as a part of the remedy to reduce breakdowns. Foreign horse racing jurisdictions run without medication, and their safety records are better than the United States’. Horses running clean are less likely to break down than those running on medication.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.

A Veterinarian's Take

Kentucky Horse Racing Commission RaceDay Medication Transcript

Healing in Horses

Racehorse Advocacy

Goodbye Lasix, and Good Riddance

Horse Training Principles, DrSid's Q and A

The Nature of Horses, A Contemporary Approach to Equine Behaviour Education

Dr Gustafson's interview The (Behavioral) Life of a Racehorse

Appreciating Horses Farm.tv video

Appreciating Equine Behavior

Equine Behaviour and Horseracing

Blame Is King for a Day

FROM THE TIMES

No Longer Perfect,But Still a Champ

How Horses Heal

Dr. Sid Gustafson at Canada's Outdoor Equine Expo

Equine Behavior Statement, updated

A Veterinarian's Take: Wolves and Sheep and Dogs

Wolves and Sheep and Dogs

Puppy Socialization

To the True Horsemen of the Racing Game

Mine That Oxygen, a veterinary take on the Derby victory

Thoroughbred Culture

Understanding Horses

Contemporary Horsemanship

The Language of Natural Horsemanship

Equine Welfare Statement

The Language of Horsemanship

Equitarian Philosphy

Horsemanship and Horse Racing

About Those Steroids and Big Brown

Belmont Stakes, 2008

Racehorse Heat

Eight Bells, continued from the NYTimes the Rail

Drugs and Horseracing

No Longer Perfect,
But Still a Champ