Hello from the most beautiful place on Earth! Somehow 4 weeks of this experience have gone by without a peep from me, so there is a lot for me to catch you all up on!! My placement at Equine Analysis Systems is a bit different than your typical veterinary clinic. In our office you won't find needles, syringes, bute, xylazine, or any of those other equine vet essentials. Instead, what you will find is computers, ultrasound machines, cameras, and some of the smartest researchers outside of the university. For a full company description, please visit www.equineanalysis.com, but in short EAS is a performance prediction company that has developed its own proprietory and patented technologies for assessing Thoroughbred racehorse conformation, breathing ability, metabolic response, cardiac competence and many other aspects that play a role in the success of a racehorse. As a consulting company, we are employed by farms, owners, and perspective buyers to assess horses on the farm, at the yearling and 2-year-old sales, and at the track. Much of the job description is to fully understand the concept of confidentiality, as the results of the tests can mean the difference between buying, selling or keeping animals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Therefore, I apologize that I won't be able to post any pictures of the farms or horses I visit, but our client list is as confidential as the data collected. So what the heck am I doing at a place that doesn't practice veterinary medicine?? Well, the short of the story is we have 3 veterinarians on staff who DO practice their veterinary skills, just outside of the traditional idea of "medicine." Our veterinarians are very skilled at ultrasounding hearts and working with clients to make the best decisions for their horses. It is our goal to help the horse by first helping the horseman. My main goals here in Kentucky are to get a thorough understanding of the ins and outs of the Thoroughbred industry, and to conduct research that may help the company, its clients, and potentially the Thoroughbred industry. Stay tuned for more information on my research when it becomes publicly sharable. My boss, Dr. David Lambert, is a wonderfully encouraging person, and has aspired to help me create a paper that is publishable and presentable at MSU CVM's Phi Zeta Day this next year. We aim for the moon here in Midway!
As for the daily activities at EAS...My first week here involved riding along to many of the farms around Lexington and the surrounding area, observing as the vets ultrasounded hearts and took photos to be analyzed by our conformation analysis software, FotoSelect. After only 4 days in Kentucky, we took off for Maryland, to the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale. It was a long, beautiful drive through West Virginia, and was not without adventure! We stopped at a barbeque place in WV where lunch included a cupcake dipped in funnel cake mix, deep fried, and covered in ice cream and caramel sauce! (and then I enjoyed a sugar-coma while Dr. Rainbow drove!) In Maryland, we stopped at Dr. Rainbow's uncle's house, which was right on a mountain and had a view all the way to Baltimore. On the way home, pulling a tractor, we ran out of gas. Yup, that's right, 1.5 vets in the truck and we ran our of gas. Thankfully, fumes and weight from the tractor pushing us down hill, got us to a gas station. I think I've had enough West Virginia adventure for a while! So about Maryland...what a culture shock! The first thing that takes some getting used to is the sheer value of the animals presented. The top selling horse went for $1.25 million (and yes I got to touch her!) We were just in time for the Preakness, but as most of you know, it rained. That's not the right word, it poured. An entire lake fell from the sky. So my coworkers and I watched the race from the safety of a restaurant and were very grateful that we did. Now that I am back in Kentucky, I have been researching, analyzing data, and becoming very good friends with Microsoft Excel and statistics. It may seem boring, but every day I chip away at the puzzle a little more and move closer to some truly effective results. Stay tuned for more information on my research, and hopefully some pictures of this wonderful little town! Cheers!
-Nicole King
Fumes still count as Fuel!
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