A new exhibit devoted to advances in the veterinary care of racehorses is scheduled to open July 20 at the National Museum of Racing in Saratoga, New York. According to the Museum's new curator Beth Sheffer, the exhibit is slated to run for two summers in the Museum's McBean gallery.
The exhibit will focus on veterinary care that great racehorses receive. These include Secretariat, who developed laminitis in the late 1980s, Ruffian, who broke her leg during the famous match race in 1975 against Foolish Pleasure, and of course, Barbaro.
I am delighted that the exhibit will highlight the advances in veterinary care that have been achieved over time and I only hope that enough recognition is given to the owners of horses, not all of them Triple Crown winners or even thoroughbreds, who are instrumental in attaining these advances. Just as human medical knowledge is built on trial, error and experience, so is veterinary medicine and it is precisely because owners are willing to push the envelope, that new techniques are discovered.
A case in point is the story of Hoist the Flag, a magnificent New-York based grandson of War Admiral who, in 1971, seemed to be poised to replicate his grandfather's legacy and win the Triple Crown. His workouts at Belmont were blistering. And then, on March 31, during his routine morning exercise, Hoist the Flag took a misstep and shattered his right hind leg. The prognosis was grim: a fractured and dislocated canon bone and a shattered long pastern bone. His veterinarians recommended euthanasia.
In a last ditch effort to try and save the colt's life, veterinarians Jacques Jenny and William Reed (the same one who would try unsuccessfully to save Ruffian's life several years later), decided to try the techniques that had been so successful in treating human fractures in Switzerland. The innovative concept of repair was based on compression, in which bones were reconstructed and then stabilized with screws and plates. It was untried in 1100 pound horses who could not support themselves on three legs.
Jenny and Reed put Hoist the Flag's canon bone back together with a metal plate and secured it with screws. The pieces of the shattered long pastern bone were too small to be bolted together so the vets wove the largest shards together with wire and then grafted bone from elsewhere in the animal onto the fracture. They wrapped the leg in a cast--the first time fiberglass was used to fashion a cast for a horse--and then they waited.
Tomorrow I'll tell you what happened when Hoist the Flag woke up.
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2 comments:
It is absolutely amazing what advances have been made in veterinary care. I was thrilled to read in "Bellweather" the amazing innovative treatments that U Penn is offering, not only for horses, but for small animals as well.
I feel that owners who go that last mile in the attempt to save their horses are heros. It is indeed sad that so many people don't get it, and attribute these
courageous and costly treatments are only done to save the horse for breeding. They don't realise that the cost of that care often far exceeds any monies that they might receive from stud services.
Additionally, with young horses who have not been proven in the breeding shed, there is no way to ascertain if they would be successful, anyway.
And as these new techniques develop, let's hope that a cure for Laminitis will evolve. But without the willingness to "push the envelope" that many of these owners courageously demonstrate and the dedication to healing that the veterinary profession offer, this would not come to pass.
Can't wait to read your follow up post about Hoist the Flag.
Jo
http://frequentlyfeline.blogspot.com/
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