According to research over the past six years, at least one in five and potentially one in two pleasure horses are overweight or obese, leading to conditions such as laminitis, equine metabolic syndrome, chronic inflammation, arthritis, heart issues, heat stress, and bone, tendon, and joint problems.

In the July/August 2017 issue of Canadian Horse Journal, we celebrated Canada’s 150th anniversary with stories of 20 exceptional horses that have reflected our values and fired our national pride. One of those horses was Cam Fella. Cam Fella, the brown stallion by Most Happy Fella out of Nan Cam was bred by W.R. Cameron and foaled May 14, 1979 in Lexington, Kentucky. He was sold as a yearling at the 1980 Tattersall’s sale for $19,000 and just a year later in 1981 was sold for $140,000.

Three-year-old Daisy had done relatively well at Hastings Racecourse in Vancouver, BC. She had won her first race that season, and had placed in many others. When she came home that fall, we decided to breed her. She would have some downtime before going off to the stud farm in early spring. But over the winter, I realized our smart, high-strung filly would need some retraining to reinforce basic manners not only for safe handling, but for her future as a pleasure riding horse.

Every day, thousands of horses are shod as part of normal maintenance of foot care. But have you ever wondered whether the placement of a horseshoe affects foot skeleton stress in racehorses and performance horses? At Australia’s University of Queensland School of Biomedical Sciences, research team leader Dr. Olga Panagiotopoulou says that musculoskeletal injury is one of the main animal welfare concerns in the racehorse industry.

It is common knowledge that a horse must achieve optimal physical fitness in order to deliver a peak performance, but what kind of impact does psychological condition have on equine performance? In a competition environment, equine athletes in any discipline may show symptoms of stress, but to what degree does the expression of that stress affect the quality of a jumping round, dressage test, reining pattern, etc.?