canadian horse journal - sample - march 2015

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In This Issue CONTENTS • MARCH 2015

SPECIAL FEATURES

36 Be Posture Perfect! 8 exercises to improve your posture and correct common riding faults.

44 Mantra Magic: Power Up Your Ride A well-chosen phrase can focus your mind on positive thoughts to improve your performance.

55 New Test to Distinguish Horsemeat from Beef New technique closes gaps in the testing process and reduces potential health hazards.

HORSE HEALTH

12 Spring Into Action Simple steps to bring your horse safely back to work after winter’s layoff.

16 Glowing from the Inside Out Understanding the genetics of horse colours, and feeding for a healthy coat.

22 A Horse Owner’s Primer on Navicular Syndrome What are the symptoms of this degenerative disease, and how is it diagnosed and treated?

26 Scratching the Surface of Equine Skin Diseases Diagnosis and treatment of hives, mud fever, rain rot, and ringworm.

30 The Foaling Mare: When to Watch – When to Act Knowing what’s normal and when to help is part of being prepared for everything during the breeding and foaling process.

52 Newborn Foals and Childhood Autism – is there a link? Research at the University of California, Davis, is exploring the possible connection between maladjustment syndrome in newborn foals and childhood autism.

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6 Editorial

8 Letters

10, 51 The Hoofbeat

41 Contest: Horse-Of-My-Heart

43 Contest: Win Tickets to ODYSSEO

48 Horse Council BC News Stay Safe While Sharing the Roads

56-57, Inside B/Cover Country Homes & Acreages

58 Canadian Therapeutic Riding Association News

The Gentle Art of Leading

EquiNetwork59 Hitchin’ Post

59 Horses for Sale & Classifieds

59 Index to Advertisers

60 Roundup

page 36

page 16

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BY DR. TANIA CUBITT AND DR. STEPHEN DUREN, Ph.D.

As we welcome the transition from winter to spring, we are eager to get back in the saddle and start riding regularly again. Canadian winters are not sympathetic to outdoor riding, and without access to indoor facilities many horse owners have not been able to ride or exercise their horses as much as they would like during the winter months.

Bringing horses back into work after their winter vacation must be done gradually by starting at a lower level and increasing the duration and intensity of workouts. At the same time, the horse’s feed should be adjusted to address his present body condition (too thin or too fat) as well as nutrient requirements for the increased workload. It doesn’t matter what your horse’s level of fitness was when you stopped riding last fall; after three or more months of inactivity, the conditioning he had is essentially lost. Even if the horse had plenty of turnout, most horses do little more than eat and stand around, especially when the weather and ground conditions are poor.

Here are a few simple guidelines to safely bring your horse back to work after a prolonged break.

Make Feeding Changes Gradually The horse is first and foremost a grazing animal that

relies extensively on the bacteria present in its gastrointestinal tract to process forages. These bacteria are a mix of different organisms that work together to the benefit of the horse. If the feeding program is changed suddenly, bacteria populations do not have time to adjust. Instead, large numbers of bacteria die, while others flourish, setting up a situation where toxins may be absorbed by the horse, resulting in digestive upset or colic. Many horses are as sensitive to changes in hay as they are to changes in grains. A gradual change from one feedstuff to another provides time for the bacterial populations to adjust. For example, when changing the type of hay or grain being fed, replace only about 20 to 25 percent of the current feed every other day, so that it takes a week or more for a complete change.

Be Careful Not to Overwork A horse that hasn’t seen much exercise over the winter

can be just as excited about going out on that first ride as

Simple Steps to Bring Your Horse Back After Winter

intoSpring Action

The snow is melting and there’s warmth in the early spring sunshine. It’s time to start bringing your horse back to fitness with a gradual return-to-work program.

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HORSE HEALTH

Body Condition Scores The best way to evaluate a horse’s weight and condition is with this universally recognized Body Condition Scoring (BCS) system based on the Henneke Body Condition Scale. Since it can be hard to recognize if your horse is over- or underweight, it is often helpful to have two or three friends who don’t see your horse every day use the BCS system to objectively score your horse.

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM HORSE COUNCIL BC

13March 2015 • Canadian Horse Journal

BCS Body Parts These are the points of the horse you will

look at closely when making an evaluation.

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Body Condition Score 1WHOLE BODY: Poor condition, extremely emaciated, no fat tissue feltNECK: Bone structure visibleWITHERS: Bone structure easily visibleLOIN: Spinous processes project prominentlyTAIL HEAD: Tail head, pin, and hook bones project prominentlyRIBS: Project prominentlySHOULDER: Bone structure easily noticeable

Body Condition Score 2WHOLE BODY: Very thin, emaciatedNECK: Bone faintly discernibleWITHERS: Bone structure faintly noticeableLOIN: Spinous processes prominent; slight fat covering over base of spinous processes; transverse processes of lumbar vertebrae feel roundedTAIL HEAD: ProminentRIBS: ProminentSHOULDER: Faintly discernible

Body Condition Score 3WHOLE BODY: ThinNECK: AccentuatedWITHERS: AccentuatedLOIN: Fat build-up halfway on spinous processes, but easily discernible; can’t feel transverse processesTAIL HEAD: Prominent, but individual vertebrae can’t be visually identified; hook bones rounded but easily discernible; pin bones not distinguishableRIBS: Slight fat cover; individual ribs discernibleSHOULDER: Accentuated

Body Condition Score 4WHOLE BODY: Moderately thinNECK: Not obviously thinWITHERS: Not obviously thinLOIN: Negative crease along backTAIL HEAD: Prominence depends on conformation; fat palpable; hook bones not discernibleRIBS: Faint outline discernibleSHOULDER: Not obviously thin

Body Condition Score 5WHOLE BODY: Moderate conditionNECK: Blends smoothly into bodyWITHERS: Rounded over spinous processesLOIN: Back is levelTAIL HEAD: Fat around tail head beginning to feel spongyRIBS: Individual ribs can be felt, but not visually distinguishedSHOULDER: Blends smoothly into body

Body Condition Score 6WHOLE BODY: Moderately fleshyNECK: Fat beginning to be depositedWITHERS: Fat beginning to be depositedLOIN: May have slight positive crease down backTAIL HEAD: Fat around tail head feels softRIBS: Fat over ribs feels spongySHOULDER: Fat beginning to be deposited; point of shoulder not discernible

Body Condition Score 7WHOLE BODY: FleshyNECK: Fat deposited along neckWITHERS: Fat deposited along withersLOIN: May have positive crease down backTAIL HEAD: Fat around tail head is softRIBS: Individual ribs can be felt; noticeable fat filling between ribsSHOULDER: Fat deposited behind shoulder

Body Condition Score 8WHOLE BODY: Fat; fat deposited along inner buttocksNECK: Noticeable thickening of neckWITHERS: Area along withers filled with fatLOIN: Positive crease down backTAIL HEAD: Tail head fat very softRIBS: Difficult to feel individual ribsSHOULDER: Area behind shoulder filled in flush with body

Body Condition Score 9WHOLE BODY: Extremely fat; fat along inner buttocks may rub together; flank filled in flushNECK: Bulging fatWITHERS: Bulging fatLOIN: Obvious positive crease down backTAIL HEAD: Building fat around tail headRIBS: Patchy fat appearing over ribsSHOULDER: Bulging fat

Spring Action

WITHERS

BARREL

LOIN HOOK BONETAIL HEAD

PIN BONE


Everyone wants to see their horses with a sleek, glowing coat. The quality of a horse’s hair coat is directly related to his overall health. Providing

the horse with plenty of roughage and a balanced diet along with an effective parasite control regime, sufficient exercise, and grooming is imperative when striving for a healthy coat. Horse owners are frequently asking, “What can I feed to darken my horse’s coat or make him shinier?” In order to answer this question, we must first understand the basics of hair structure and the genetics of coat colour.

Hair structureHair is a filamentous biomaterial that grows from

follicles found in the dermis layer of the skin. Hair is primarily composed of protein, notably keratin. Hair growth begins inside the hair follicle. The only “living” portion of the hair is found in the follicle. The hair that is visible is the hair shaft, which exhibits no biochemical activity and is considered dead. The base of the root is called the bulb, which contains the cells that produce the hair shaft. Other structures of the hair follicle include the oil producing sebaceous gland which lubricates the

The Genetics of Horse Colours and Feeding for a Healthy Coat

Glowing from the Inside Out BY DR. TANIA CUBITT

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HORSE HEALTH


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hair, and the arrector pili muscles, which are responsible for causing hairs to stand up.

Coat ColourThere are many different coat colours

possible, but all colours are produced by the action of only a few genes. The simplest genetic default colour of all domesticated horses can be described as either red or non-red, depending on whether a gene known as the Extension gene is present. When no other genes are active, a red horse is the colour popularly known as a chestnut. Black coat colour occurs when the Extension gene is present and no other genes are acting on coat colour. The Agouti gene can be recognized only in non-red horses; it determines whether black colour is uniform, creating a black horse, or limited to the extremities of the body, creating a bay horse.

Chestnut, black, and bay are considered the three base colours that all remaining coat colour genes act upon. There are a number of dilution genes that lighten these three colours in a variety of ways, sometimes affecting skin and eyes as well as hair coat, including cream, dun, pearl, champagne, and silver dapple. The palomino colour, for example, is created by a single allele of a dilution gene called the cream gene working on a red (chestnut) base coat.

Genes that affect the distribution of white and pigmented coat, skin, and eye colour create patterns such as roan, pinto, leopard, white, and even white markings. Some of these patterns may be the result of a single gene; others may be influenced by multiple alleles. Finally, the grey gene, which acts differently from other coat colour genes, slowly lightens any other hair coat colour to white over a period of years, without changing skin or eye colour.

Coat colour alleles affect melanin, the pigment or colouring of the coat. There are two chemically distinct types of melanin: pheomelanin, which is perceived as red to yellow colour, and eumelanin, which is perceived as brown to black. All colouration genes in mammals affect either the production or distribution of these two chemicals. Alleles affecting melanocytes (pigment cells) do not alter the pigment chemicals themselves but rather, by acting on the placement of pigment cells, produce distinct patterns of unpigmented pink skin and corresponding white hair.

Patterns such as roan are created by genes that affect the distribution of white and pigmented coat, skin, and eye colour.

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If you have ever experienced the relief that comes after exchanging ill-fitting shoes for a more comfortable pair, you can understand what a horse suffering from navicular disease feels like when it gets a set of corrective shoes.

Corrective shoes are not a cure-all for navicular disease, but they’re the first line of defence for this chronic cause of foreleg lameness, says equine surgeon Dr. Joe Bracamonte.

“When I diagnose navicular syndrome, the first thing I do is try to find the shoe that fits that horse. One of the things that’s going to improve his life is finding that shoe,” says Bracamonte, an associate professor at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

“Navicular syndrome is a degenerative disease. It’s not like we can stop it. What we’ve got to do is try to slow it down.”

Bracamonte estimates that about 70 to 80 percent of the horses that come to the WCVM’s Veterinary Medical Centre because of lameness issues are suffering from this degenerative condition of the navicular bone and soft tissues in the back of a horse’s forefeet.

As researchers have gained a greater understanding of the disease, it has gone through several names over the years. Navicular disease is now known to be caused by a variety of abnormalities and is referred to as “navicular syndrome” or “caudal heel pain.”

This condition shows up in horses aged anywhere between four and fourteen years old. In North America, navicular syndrome affects mainly Thoroughbreds and other breeds such as Quarter Horses and Tennessee Walking horses. Ongoing studies will eventually confirm whether a predisposition to developing navicular syndrome is a heritable trait in some breeds.

Bracamonte explains that foot care is very important for all horses, especially for Quarter Horses that have small feet — a predisposing factor for navicular syndrome. As well, this breed’s tendency for long toes and underrun heels could put stress on the navicular area.

Other common predisposing factors for the disease include a broken forward or backward hoof axis, sheared heels, contracted heels, and mismatched hoof angles.

A Horse Owner’s Primer on

Navicular SyndromeBY SHIRLEY BYERS

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Horses with navicular issues may be stiff and sporadically lame. A horse used for barrel racing might exhibit a gradual loss of performance and a reluctance to turn.

HORSE HEALTH


VA.0115.PCPRPOUR(out).pdf 1 1/15/15 10:09 AM

Clinical Signs and DiagnosisHorses with navicular issues likely present with “on

and off” lameness until one day, the animal is suddenly acutely lame. Stiffness is another clinical sign, points out Bracamonte.

In barrel racing horses, riders might notice a gradual loss of performance and a reluctance to turn. Western pleasure horses might also favour a shorter stride.

A common misconception is that lame horses have shoulder issues, but that’s usually not the case. “For every case of lameness originating in the shoulder, we see 2,000 that are foot related,” says Bracamonte.

To diagnose navicular syndrome, he wants to see his equine patients trot on a hard surface, and in a circle on hard and soft surfaces. “We have a grading system from zero to five,” explains Bracamonte. “Five is non-weight bearing.”

When Bracamonte watches horses with suspected navicular disease (and with a lameness grade of two or three), he may notice a variety of subtle clinical signs. For example, a horse may point with one foot, or it may have a head nod with the sore foot. It may start landing on its toe and look like it’s trying to avoid landing on that heel.

“It almost seems like they’re stepping on eggs,” says Bracamonte.

Horses with soreness in both front feet present with an even choppier gait. On a hard surface, they’re very careful how they place their feet. There could be stiffness in their necks, and in most cases, one foot is more painful. Horses suffering from navicular disease often

have a short stride in both limbs, and they might swap lame legs when navigating tight circles or corners.

To determine which leg is in worse condition, Bracamonte explains that he might apply stress to certain areas of the horse’s legs. For example, he might pick up one leg so more weight rests on the other leg, then release the leg and watch for an increase in lameness as the horse moves.

Here are two other tests used by veterinarians to diagnose navicular syndrome:

• Wedgetest:A veterinarian places one of the horse’s front feet on a wedge of wood to force the limb into a hyper-extended position. At the same time, the horse’s

Coffin Joint DDFT

Navicular Bone

Navicular Bursa

Impar Ligament

Digital Cushion

Collateral LigamentCoffin Bone

Hoof Wall

INTERNAL HOOF STRUCTURE

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If you have ever owned a horse with a skin disease, you know from experience that these conditions are frustrating to manage — diagnosing them can be difficult, and their treatment is tedious. Worse yet, skin diseases can be painful for your horse if they cause lameness, or irritation under tack.

Dr. Michelle Husulak has seen her fair share of equine skin diseases during her work as a resident in equine field service at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine’s Veterinary Medical Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Husulak talks about diagnosing and treating four of the most common skin conditions that plague horses in Canada.

UrticariaUrticaria or hives is a skin reaction to allergies or to

other stressors. The reaction causes flat-topped wheals (raised areas surrounded by a red base) that can vary in size. In most cases, these wheals are not painful or itchy.

“This is usually an allergic reaction to food, drugs, vaccines, or anything that the horse is exposed to and may

be allergic to,” says Husulak. “It can also be caused by non-allergic reactions such as heat, cold, exercise, or stress.”

Finding the cause of urticaria can be difficult. “We ask questions about the horse’s history and try to find out if they have been recently vaccinated or treated with any drugs, or if there has been a recent change in their environment or feed,” says Husulak. But in many cases, the cause of the skin reaction can’t be identified.

Veterinarians can perform allergy testing to try and determine the cause of the urticaria. However, this is often unrewarding as the allergens that are tested are usually different from the ones that are present in the horse’s environment.

“When we are trying to treat this, we attempt to treat the symptoms — the swellings that are happening on the body. These are usually treated with steroids,” says Husulak.

Urticaria is often a one-time event, but if the condition recurs or is severe, it’s important to try and determine the cause to prevent subsequent allergic reactions.

HORSE HEALTH

BY HAYLEY KOSOLOFSKI

Equine Skin DiseasesSCRATCHING THE SURFACE OF

above: While they appear

uncomfortable, the flat-topped wheals of urticarial are usually

not painful or itchy.

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Pastern DermatitisPastern dermatitis goes by many names:

scratches, grease heel, cracked heel, or mud fever. Veterinarians can rarely identify the cause of the disease, but the main suspects are bacteria and fungus.

Crusted scabs are typically found on the back of the pastern, but lesions can extend higher or to the front of the leg. The condition most often affects white areas on a horse’s leg, and it can be aggravated by sunlight. To make matters worse, the limb is often swollen and painful.

“The skin below the crusting is red and cracked and there is often hair loss there as well,” says Husulak.

She says it’s important to talk to your veterinarian early in the disease process. If your vet sees the wounds in the early stages, he or she can biopsy the skin to try to determine the cause and treat your horse more effectively.

“Initially, we start off by clipping the hair and removing the dirt and debris. Then we remove the crusts with warm water and anti-bacterial soap,” says Husulak. She adds that this process can be painful, and the horse may need to be sedated.

“We then apply a ‘scratches’ ointment that’s made by our pharmacy,” says Husulak. “It contains steroid, antibiotic, and antifungal medication that decreases the inflammation and kills bacteria and fungi present in the skin.”

The leg is then bandaged to keep it clean and out of the sun. Owners must continue to clean the sores, apply cream, and bandage the leg daily until the wounds heal.

above, left: Pastern dermatitis or mud fever often affects the white areas of the horse’s legs, and can cause pain and swelling.

above, right: To prevent pastern dermatitis, horses should have access to a dry sheltered area and turnout that is free from manure and mud where bacteria and fungi thrive.

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BREEDING

The Foaling Mare

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Ask anyone who has bred horses, and they’ll tell you it’s no easy feat. However, when it is done properly (and everything goes right), having an energetic and healthy foal is an exciting and rewarding experience.

Dr. Stephen Manning is a board-certified theriogenologist and an associate professor at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Based on his training and experience, Manning has some helpful information and guidelines on breeding, pregnancy requirements, normal foaling, and foaling complications that can happen before, during, or after birth.

BreedingThe first step is getting the mare pregnant, which can

be a challenging task. It’s not always clear when to breed your mare or easy to confirm pregnancy — especially without access to technology and equipment.

Manning explains that the classical way to determine pregnancy, commonly used by breeders and owners, is to observe a non-return to estrus (heat). Between 14 and 21 days after breeding, the owner reintroduces his mares to a stallion. If a mare will not stand for the stallion, her lack of co-operation may indicate that she’s already pregnant.

A more definitive method involves transrectal palpation. In pregnant mares, the cervix will be long and tight. Depending on the stage of pregnancy you may feel a bulge, or later on, you may actually palpate the fetus in the uterus. Manning notes that this procedure takes some skill, and it’s not necessarily easy to confirm pregnancy since changes can be subtle — especially early on when most mare owners are requesting a diagnosis.

Ultrasonography is the most reliable method of determining pregnancy. It’s the only way to determine if a mare is pregnant with a healthy embryo, and it’s the only way to detect twins (a problem in horses because they almost never carry twins to term successfully).

Not all horse breeders may have access to a veterinarian who is skilled in this technology, although ultrasonography is commonly used by practitioners who do any amount of equine work. Ultrasound examinations can also be used at various stages to assess pregnancy: Day 11-14: Can see embryonic vesiclesDay 16: Destruction of one vesicle if twins are presentDay 25: Can confirm pregnancy with a fetal heartbeatDay 55: Can attempt fetal sexingDay 340: Approximate gestation period for a mare (can

range from 320 to 365-plus days)

GestationOnce the pregnancy has been confirmed, keeping

your mare in optimal physical condition is important. For the first eight months, mares on good quality feed do not need additional feed requirements. However, since 65 to 70 per cent of fetal growth occurs from eight to eleven months, pregnant mares will require more energy in the last three months of gestation.

Manning says owners “don’t need to double the energy provided in the feed, they just need to increase it by about 20 to 30 per cent. Sometimes this just means an increase in quality by adding in a concentrate and mineral.”

While late gestational complications can be devastating, they are not the norm. However, breeders should be prepared to call a veterinarian if problems arise at any point in the pregnancy since many issues can be life threatening to the foal and mare. Here are several of the most dangerous late gestational problems:

Twins: “Twins can be an epic failure and can end up costing a lot of money. We try to avoid these at all costs,” says Manning.

Placentitis: This condition is caused by an infection in the uterus and results in a thickened placenta. This development ultimately compromises the oxygen and nutrients delivered to the foal. Placentitis is considered serious and veterinarians treat it aggressively with antibiotics — often for the remainder of the pregnancy. To reduce the occurrence of placentitis, veterinarians often recommend performing a Caslick’s procedure (surgically closing the upper part of the vulva).

Uterine torsion: Uterine torsion(twisting of the uterus) results in a reduced blood supply to the foal. Mares will usually present with signs of colic; sometimes those signs are acute and severe, but sometimes the clinical signs are more subtle. “These [situations] are always serious for both the mare and fetus and usually require surgical

WHEN TO WATCH — WHEN TO ACTBY SARAH FIGLEY

The Foaling Mare

Most mares foal at night and are not comfortable being watched. Signs of the first stage of labour are similar to those of colic; the mare may appear agitated, sweat, and pace her stall.

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BY GINA ALLAN AND BARB KOPACEK

Be PosturePerfect!

RIDER FITNESS

Exercises to Correct Common Riding Faults

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It is the beginning of the riding season and many people enjoy setting goals to help give focus and guidance to the year ahead. If we map out our desired goals appropriately, making them realistic and attainable, then initiate them with baby steps, there is a greater likelihood we will achieve success. When we write down our goals we are, in essence, making a commitment and a contract with

ourselves. This year I challenge you to improve your overall physical posture and riding position to become the best rider you can be.

Can you commit ten minutes every ride to focussing on your

posture? Ten minutes of focus during a warm-up in walk, trot, or canter will help

any rider significantly change and improve their riding position. There are many ways to

successfully approach improving our physical performance when riding. Watching a video of

yourself or using mirrors while you ride are excellent tools for observing traits to change or improve. If you have access to mirrors when you ride, look at yourself from the side. Ensure you have the classic positional alignment in place by imagining a line from your ear to your ankle, it would bisect the shoulder and hip. This line should be perpendicular to the ground.

POSITION PROBLEM #1

Legs that habitually swing forwardIf your lower legs are always swinging so far forward that you can see your toes in front of your knees, try standing up on your stirrups. Imagine they are like swings. Place the balls of your feet directly across the stirrup bar, just like in the two-point position. Reach the crown of your head skyward as if it is being pulled by a string like a puppet. Keep stretching lengthwise through your torso and, keeping your ankles directly underneath your hips, return to a seated position. If your legs swing forward as you sit down you may need to make an adjustment to your


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Deep Lunge Stretch Begin in a runner’s lunge with your right leg forward and your left leg stretched behind you. (Ensure your left knee is appropriately padded.) Gradually lower your left knee to the floor, so that your right knee is aligned over your right ankle at a 90 degree angle. Extend your left leg behind you so the top of your foot is flat on the floor. Try to bring your hips forward to square them up. Lengthen through your torso by stretching skyward. Feel the stretch on the front of your hip. Hold 30 to 60 seconds. Repeat on the other side.

Low Back Gluteal Stretch#2

Lie on the floor in Three-Point-Touch position. Keeping your hips level, gently bring one and then the other knee to your chest. As you do so, widen your legs as if bringing them toward your underarms. Keep your torso long and your pelvis level and square along the floor. Squeeze your thighs in and hold for 30 to 60 seconds. Repeat ten times.

#1

saddle, but, more than likely you just need to practice keeping your lower legs and ankles back and underneath your seat. This is where your legs should be held and maintained during your entire ride. Simple adjustments like this can and ought to be made at any time throughout your ride if you feel you’ve fallen out of alignment. We call this “resetting your position.” Tight hip flexors and low back muscles, and weak glutes are often the result of this misalignment issue and result in the legs swinging too far forward. This can also create heaviness in the rider’s seat,

which puts too much pressure on the horse’s back, and can cause discomfort or even acute pain, reducing the horse’s ability to bring his hind legs underneath his hips. Whether or not you have experienced this problem in the past it is worth trying the following exercises to help release the hip flexors and increase strength in the glutes to give you that much-sought-after deep classical seat. The following dryland exercises are designed to help develop better muscle balance between the hip flexor, quadriceps, hamstring, and gluteal muscles:


A t some point, all riders suffer from lapses in confidence, over thinking, or jangling nerves. When this happens to you, an

effective strategy to employ is the use of a mantra.A traditional mantra is a word or sound that is

used to facilitate concentration in meditation. Translated from Sanskrit, mantra literally means “an instrument of thinking.”

In sport, this particular instrument of thinking can come in quite handy. A well-chosen phrase can guide your mind away from negative, unhelpful thoughts. Think of it as creating an anchor that guides your focus, or a way to fill the space in your head so there is less room for all that stuff you don’t want messing up your ride.

“My mind was a constant jumble of competing thoughts at shows,” says Amy, a junior dressage

rider. “I would be trying to sort through them, just getting more and more nervous. But when I

developed my guiding phrase it helped me immensely. I now repeat ‘enjoy and shine’ over and over as I warm up. It brings me back to my important things, which are to

have fun and to show off the skills I have worked so hard to perfect. It really works for me.”

mantra:Keep calm and ride on.

mantra magic

POWER UP YOUR RIDE BY APRIL CLAY, M.Ed., REGISTERED PSYCHOLOGIST

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The Making of a Good MantraThere are a few rules for creating a good mantra. The

first is it should be short and easy to apply. Stay away from complicated acronyms or long phrases.

I once worked with a rider who decided to use C-H-I-L-L as her key phrase for relaxation. Each letter represented something important to her, but she found this mantra was too lengthy to complete. It was actually adding stress rather than relieving it. So she modified this to “chilly Jilly.” Yes, her name was Jill, and she loved the bit of humour that helped her lighten up. Her practice became to warm up at the trot while rhythmically repeating her phrase in time to her horse’s hoofbeats. At the end of four weeks, she was able to use her mantra to calm her mind in a matter of minutes.

The key is to make sure your mantra suits your needs. Ask yourself what is most important to you at what time. Do you need a positivity boost before entering the ring? A motivational phrase for when the going gets rough? Or maybe a way to calm yourself after a mistake? You can have several cues to use at different points in your ride.

There is no rule that says you cannot use a ready-made mantra as long as it has the impact you want, so borrow one if you need to. It’s also just fine to make up your very own language. Lee liked to refer to the style of his jump-off ride as “Millarian.” He was after an efficient, speedy, and well calculated risk in his ride, much like he had seen Ian Millar deliver many, many times.

mantra:One fence at a time.

mantra:It’s in the vault.

mantra:Do your best, forget the rest.

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Dually Cat

Newborn Foals and Childhood AutismBY MARGARET EVANS

Is there a common denominator between equine neo-natal maladjustment syndrome in newborn foals and children born with autism?

According to a University of California, Davis, press release, foals born with maladjustment syndrome seem detached, don’t recognize their dams, and they have no interest in nursing. The condition, also known as dummy foal syndrome, occurs in three to five percent of live foal births. However, with intensive care, 80 percent of the foals recover.

For years, the syndrome was thought to be caused by hypoxia, or insufficient oxygen during birth. But hypoxia results in serious, permanent damage. Most foals with maladjustment syndrome, though, not only survive but they have no lingering health problems.

Veterinary researchers at the University of California, Davis, wondered why and began looking for other pos-sible causes. They were drawn to the foals’ sense of de-tachment which was eerily similar to detachment symp-toms displayed by all autistic children.

“The behavioural abnormalities in these foals seem to resemble some of the symptoms in children with aut-ism,” said John Madigan, a UC Davis veterinary profes-

sor and an expert in equine neonatal health.The maladjustment syndrome in foals also caught the

attention of Isaac Pessah, a professor of molecular bio-sciences at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and a faculty member of the MIND Institute (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders).

Madigan, Pessah, and other veterinary researchers teamed with their colleagues in human medicine to in-vestigate possible connections between the disorder in foals and childhood autism. One common link seemed to be abnormal levels of naturally occurring neuroster-oids which not only sustain pregnancies in horses but keep the foal with its long legs and tiny hooves relatively quiet in the womb. But immediately after birth, the foal must be ready to scramble up, know its mother, nurse, and be able to run in the face of predatory danger. Somewhere in the birthing journey, a biochemical “switch” must activate the process and that switch could be the physical pressure exerted on the foal’s body dur-ing passage through the birth canal.

“We believe that the pressure of the birth canal dur-ing the second stage of labour, which is supposed to last 20 to 40 minutes, is an important signal that tells the

IN THE SHADOW OF EQUUS

UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

professor and researcher John

Madigan, inspects a maladjusted foal at

Victory Rose Thoroughbreds in

Vacaville, California, on January 21, 2015.

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foal to quit producing the sedative neurosteroids and ‘wake up,’” said Madigan.

Curiously, many foals with maladjustment syndrome were either delivered by cesarean section or had a very rapid birth. In both cases, maybe the pressure switch didn’t get activated.

The research team has found for the first time that neurosteroids persist, and their levels often rise, in the bloodstream of foals born with maladjustment syn-drome. These neurosteroids can cross the blood-brain barrier and impact the central nervous system.

The researchers have now discovered that they can re-duce maladjustment signs by using several loops of a soft rope to gently squeeze the foal’s upper torso and mimic the pressure normally experienced in the birth canal. When the rope pressure is applied, the foal lies down and appears to be asleep. After 20 minutes, a typ-ical time in the birth canal, the rope is loosened and the squeeze pressure released.

Initially, the foals given the procedure have re-sponded well, some rising to their feet within minutes, bonding with the mare and nursing.

The theory is that the pressure triggers biochemical changes in the central nervous system critical to the transition from the relative quiet of the fetus in the womb to the boisterous wakefulness of the newly born foal. The technique is now called the Madigan Foal Squeeze Procedure.

The early findings have compelling implications not only for the health of newborn foals, but also for pos-sible links to autism, which includes a group of complex brain development disorders.

“The concept that a disruption in the transition of fetal consciousness may be related to children with aut-ism is intriguing,” said Pessah.

Using data from the foal research, Pessah and Madi-gan are working with researchers at the MIND Institute to investigate neurosteroids in children with varying de-grees of autism and a recent study has reported elevated levels of neurosteroids in autistic children.

The interlinking research between challenged foals and babies continues to astonish and amaze researchers.

“The concept that some disorders in animals and hu-mans may be related to a failure of transition of con-sciousness at birth is a novel idea,” said Madigan. “Evo-lutionary biological mechanisms for survival and adap-tation after birth are important concepts, whether it’s a newborn foal or a newborn infant. In this case, it may very well be that the horse is allowing us to learn some-thing about ourselves.”

Visit our website to see the video of the Madigan Foal Squeeze Procedure, at

www.HORSEJournals.com – Horse Care section.

The upper torso of this maladjusted foal is squeezed using several loops of soft rope to mimic the pressure normally ex-perienced in the birth canal. Madigan’s research has found the squeezing to help the foal recover from Neonatal Mal-adjustment Syndrome, sometimes within hours.

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http://www.HORSEJournals.com

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