Preparing your Horse for Show Season
As spring approaches, many riders and trainers are beginning to prepare for show season. Besides training and riding preparations, there are some medical considerations to keep in mind. These include routine health/wellness maintenance as well as soundness maintenance for your horse.
Health and wellness reminders include:
1) Ensuring that your horse is up-to-date on all vaccinations prior to traveling and showing
2) Performing fecal egg counts and appropriate de-worming practices as spring pastures begin to grow
3) Obtaining current Coggin’s testing and documentation
4) Renewing Health certificate/Go Pass/Passport documentation prior to traveling
5) USEF Equine Influenza/Equine Herpes vaccine documentation
Routine herd health/wellness maintenance is something we all sometimes overlook, especially current Coggins/Health certificate documentation. It is important to remember that these documents are essential and are easy enough to obtain.
Similar to top human athletes, our top equine athletes are plagued with mild aches and pains associated with tendons/ligaments, muscle injuries, and more commonly joint arthritis. Having Reedsdale Equine perform pre-training or pre-showing soundness evaluations can help detect small issues that can be addressed with medications and shoeing strategies before they become larger lameness issues that could put a halt to your show season.
Soundness maintenance reminders include:
1) Oral joint supplementation/anti-inflammatory drugs
2) Intramuscular or intravenous joint supplementation
3) Intra-articular hyaluronic acid and corticosteroid injection(s)
4) Regenerative joint therapy (PRP, Prostride)
5) Routine and consistent farrier with collaboration with RES
Routine joint injections help to keep our equine athletes performing their best.
Oral joint/muscle supplementation can help to support and maintain your equine athlete’s musculoskeletal system with important amino acids and joint fluid precursors as the horse’s workload increases. Intramuscular or intravenous joint supplements also support normal joint health by providing substances that support healthy joint fluid and cartilage maintenance. Many top equine athletes need maintenance joint injections with hyaluronic acid and a corticosteroid to help decrease the inflammation secondary to arthritis that will cause poor performance and eventual lameness. Depending upon your horse’s hoof growth, maintaining a 4-6 week shoeing/trimming interval is recommended to maintain consistency with hoof angles, sole depth, and general hoof health.
One final reminder is to discuss with Reedsdale Equine about appropriate drug rules depending upon the horse’s discipline, showing governing body, and level of performance.
Please do not hesitate to call or email Reedsdale Equine Specialists with any questions regarding anything discussed above. Stay safe and enjoy this show season!