IV AAEP News February 2018


ASSOCIATION


AAEP establishes Performance Horse Committee Committee to provide leadership on performance horse health, industry issues


The AAEP has elevated its Performance Horse Task Force into a standalone committee. The move will help AAEP effectively address issues pertaining to English sport horse and Western performance horse disciplines and facilitate the care of equine participants in these fields.


The Performance Horse Committee is chaired by Dr. Mark Baus, founding owner of Grand Prix Equine in Bridgewater, Conn., and composed of 16 members whose practices revolve around performance horses. The charge of the committee is to:


 proactively identify and address issues of importance to equine veterinarians and horse show entities;


  performance horse that affect the health and welfare of the horse and the integrity of the competition;


 - ers AAEP positions and recommendations on those issues; and


 te AAEP members and stakeholders on best practices and ethical care of the performance horse.


For more information, including a list of committee members, visit the “Committees and Councils” section of the website under the “About” tab at aaep.org.


ETHICS When a second opinion does more harm than good, continued


Veterinarians are called to be advocates for the horse; as such, we strive to provide clients with the best information and recommendations possible. This can only be offered when complete and accurate infor- mation is considered. Nothing is lost by a simple conversation. Unfortu- nately, given the competitive nature of the equine industry, this collegial interaction often does not occur.


In the previously described case, if some type of communication between the two veterinarians would have occurred, they would ultimately


have agreed that the chip actually was an old OCD lesion and not the cause of lameness. However, the new joint effusion combined with the training style of the trainer would indicate that further diagnostics and time off would be the best course of action despite the horse being so close to a race. Diagnostic arthrosco- py should be considered as a reasonable recommendation if further diagnostics like nuclear scintigraphy were not an option in order to more fully investigate the cause of the increased fetlock effusion and persistent lameness. Counterintu-


itively, diagnostic arthroscopy might even creep higher on the recommen- dation list if the lameness could not be directly tied to an obvious radio- graphic abnormality. Additionally, the rest period following surgery would allow for bone remodeling to occur, which would mitigate the risk of fracture and significantly reduce the amount of time off following injury.


As veterinarians, we owe it to our patients to pick up the phone and have a simple conversation. Even if we “agree to disagree,” we owe it to the horse.


Dr. Joe Lyman


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