Contemporary horseracing news has identified a small medical trend in which assumedly disease-free racehorses are suddenly expiring before their time

Most experienced trainers will know from bitter experience that a seemingly tiny wound can have a big impact if a horse is unlucky enough to sustain a penetrating injury right over a critical structure like a joint capsule or tendon sheath. Collectively, joints and tendon sheaths are called synovial structures,  and synovial infection is a serious, potentially career-ending and sometimes life-threatening problem.

Over the last two decades the Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB) in England has funded substantial research to understand how various body systems respond to training. For example, because of this HBLB investment we now know that the hearts of Thoroughbred racehorses get bigger as a response to athletic training and that big hearts are typically associated with better performers. 

The Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB) in the UK has invested over $11 million to protect racing and ensure horse welfare by disease surveillance and research on prevention of equine infections over the last decade. Infection with bacteria is one of the important causes.

When a horse runs badly, lameness or respiratory disease tends to immediately spring to mind, and indeed these are the most common causes—in that order. The heart comes in third, albeit quite a way behind these other body systems. If sudden death occurs in an equine athlete, a heart problem is usually the first thing that’s suspected. A new study, published in The Equine Veterinary Journal, provides significant insights on the cardiac rhythm abnormalities that can develop during and after racing in Standardbreds.

If backstretch workers encounter conditions they can’t tolerate, they have an option of walking away. Horses don’t have that luxury. Whether a racetrack’s backstretch is horse-friendly or grossly indifferent, the horse remains. He relies on his trainer and his trainer’s staff to act in his best interest.

The Thoroughbred Racing Industry is experiencing greater scrutiny than it ever has in its long and distinguished history, with the amplitude of debate and criticism from opponents of the sport on the basis of ethics and welfare reaching an unparalleled decibel.

The single biggest area of debate currently in the Thoroughbred racing industry is the issue of racehorse medication. Medication is often characterized by the media and by people within and outside the industry as a black and white issue where one side of the argument is framed in terms of “hay, oats and water,” and anything else is considered permissive medication.

Around 35% of the veterinary research and education budget is spent on projects to understand musculoskeletal disorders, improve their treatment, and prevent and minimize injury to racehorses.

The devastating flu outbreak that rampaged through the Australian horse population in 2007 was an important wake-up call reminding us that equine influenza virus is an ever-present threat.

The Hippocratic oath, which encapsulates the concept that it may be better to provide no treatment than to intervene but as a result do more damage, is a central tenet of medicine introduced by the Ancient Greeks.