Greetings from the Great Lakes Equestrian Festival

Hey guys!

I'm sitting in beautiful Traverse City, MI watching the hunters and jumpers show their horses.  This relaxing venue comes after several weeks of intense Arabian horse shows, followed by prep work to send horses to their national youth competition in New Mexico.  This trip began June 14th with a short two days in Cleveland, OH where we helped prep horses for an upcoming show in Springfield, OH.  This included our usual work of flexion tests, ultrasounding and radiographing limbs, joint injections, shockwave therapy, etc.  From there we traveled to the Region 13 Arabian horse show.  As Equine Athlete is the official show vet for this event, during the week we not only took care of lamenesses, but any and all emergencies.  In typical horse fashion, our best emergency occurred after a particularly slow day and close to midnight.  One of the horses spooked, got loose from her groom and bolted, only to later fall on the asphalt.  After all was said and done, the mare ended up with lots of road rash, a laceration to her elbow and a laceration to her stifle, both required suturing.

The following week took us to Lexington, KY for the Region 14 Arabian horse show.  This was held at the horse park, one of my favorite venues.  The last time I was at the Kentucky Horse Park, I was with one of the riders I groom for, Dale Dedrick, who was beginning her journey to the Paralympics.  Being classified as a para athlete at the 2010 World Equestrian Games was the first step down the road to the 2012 London Paralympic Games.  Having finally returned to our starting point, successfully completing our goal, felt as good as when I finally found out I had been accepted into vet school.  From one incredible journey to another, always going good in the right direction.

From Region 14 to Region 15 in Lexington, VA.  I should add that these horse shows are typically a week in duration. With riders and horses arriving on Monday or Tuesday and official showing beginning Wednesday and concluding on Sunday.  We try to arrive with the horses and leave when they leave to ensure that they have access to veterinary care at each leg of their journey.  Often times, these animals arrive from long, long trailer rides and need IV fluids and electrolytes.  During transition from traveling to new stabling, some can develop a mild colic, respiratory issue, or diarrhea.  Dealing with these issues requires special considerations in regards to which medications can and cannot use.  Show horses are frequently tested for drugs and the USEF places restrictions and time limitations on the uses of specific medications.

On the way home from Region 15, we stopped overnight in Cleveland to continue prep work for the next show.  I was able to enjoy a few days off at this point as the doctors of Equine Athlete traveled to MN, CA, and AZ to work on horses.   And lastly, while half of Equine Athlete travelled to NM for Youth Nationals, the other half ventured to Traverse City for the Great Lakes Equestrian Festival.

So enough chatter.  Here are some photos from some horses we've worked on.

This is a photo of a coffin bone fracture. Can you tell where the fracture line is? There are actually 7 types of coffin bone features categorized by where they occur and whether or not they involve the coffin joint. 

This photo is of a horse with laminitis.  The shot on the left is the most recent where the shot on the right is from when this episode actually began. As you can probably tell, we beat the disease process to the punch and while this horse was very sore on her feet, we were lucky to avoid any significant rotation.

Injecting the navicular bursa.

Ultrasound guided sarcoiliac injection