Horsing Around
- Alexa Brentlea Pinter
- Dec 10, 2018
- 12 min read
Portfolio Section 1
Description
My horses name is Tineke and she is a registered and microchipped 4 year old Friesian mare. Tineke is a pure black Friesian, her fathers registry however allows for 15.6% white. She stands at 16.2 hands Her father Fridse 423 Sport is 17 hands, sired by Teunis 332 Sport and is proven hydrocephalus and dwarfism free. Her dam is Trude W and is 16 hands, sired by Ulbert and is dwarfism free but is a carrier of hydrocephalus and chestnut genes.
Photo of Tineke's Dam, Trude W
Photo of Tineke's Sire, Fridse 423 Sport
This being said, although Tineke is not tested as we haven’t considered breeding her yet, she is not a carrier of dwarfism but has a 50 percent chance of being a carrier of both hydrocephalus and chestnut genes. While chestnut genes affects only the coat of the horse, hydrocephalus can cause foals to be still born and be fatal for the dam. Had Tineke’s dam been tested prior to breeding she probably would have been culled. For this reason Tineke will not likely be used as a brood mare.
Tineke’s name was selected because per breed registration policy, registered Friesians have to be named with a certain letter starting their name depending on the year. Dutch names are encouraged but not required, Tineke however is a Dutch name. In the year she was born, 2014, she was the only filly named Tineke as not more than one filly can have the name per year.
History and Facility
Tineke was conceived via Artificial Insemination, her sire’s breeding contract only includes shipped semen. She was foaled and started at the home and ranch of Geerta Vandergoot on their facilities where they breed and train Friesians for showing, driving and riding. There she was started under saddle and is being trained for dressage and eventually carriage riding. While there, she was being riding and trained everyday after I got out of school for a few hours.
She was there for the first few years of her life before I brought her with me to Cal Poly in the Spring of 2018. I waited to bring her over and had Geerta continue to train her while the new facilities were being built. Once in San Luis Obispo, I began boarding her at the Cal Poly facilities and ride as frequently as the arena is available and I am free. It this point with my schedule I am not able to ride as frequently as planned, I am considering putting Tineke into a 90 day finishing program while my schedule is packed so that I know she is still getting the work she needs. Additionally, while I plan to eventually train her for carriage, it is not an option while she is being boarded at Cal Poly to have the equipment, time and space needed to do so.
Conformation Analysis
Tineke’s conformation, while not perfect, looks well balanced overall. The Friesian Horse Association of North America (FHANA) sets the breed standards for conformation and their guidelines are what I am analyzing tinker from. Starting from the front, one downfall of Tineke’s conformation is that her neck is a bit shorter than it could be. It still holds the breeds signature arched crest but a lightly longer neck could allow for better motion. Overall, she has decent muscling but due to her lack of work at the moment she is overweight and could use some conditioning. Her leg conformation overall is sound, her only inconsistency is her hind legs being lightly cow hocked. The FHANA also states that the front pastern angle is a 45 degree angle and the hind leg pasterns should be a 55 degree angle which can be seen drawn onto Tineke’s photo. Friesians should also have a 1:1:1 body ratio as is drawn onto Tineke that is very proportional.
Since Tineke has a nice conformation with pastern angles, and body proportioning, she has a nice stride and gait with good overall composition that should hold strong throughout her life. Overall she should stay sound based on her noticeable body conformation.
Behavior Modification
While I am not able to start Tineke under carriage, I am working on desensitizing her to be able to begin once the opportunity presents itself. In order to do so I am desensitizing her to the basic setup of a carriage on the ground with various leads, ropes saddles and more. As suggested by https://www.equisearch.com/articles/put-horse-horse-cart I am going through a 5 step process to get her ready to pull. Included in this process is long lining, which included saddling up the horse and attaching two long lines, one on either side to duplicate the driving reigns and longing the horse to get them uses to the feeling. Eventually, the harness will be used in the desensitization and ropes can be added to the rear end with a tire attached to get the horse used to the additional weight it is pulling before adding a carriage. In addition to using a tire, a noise object like the trough in the video link below can be used to get the horse used to the extra sounds.
In addition to training Tineke the ground work of carriage, I also want to work more on desensitizing her to water so that we can go riding on the beach. In order to do so I am slowly introducing her to low stress water situations (small puddles, slow moving water etc) and using positive reinforcement to reward her when she does well by it. In doing so I am setting a baseline for larger bodies of moving water. Once I am comfortable enough with how she is doing with small bodies of water, I will bring her to the beach and first lunge her far away from the water before getting gradually closer and letting her walk through the water and giving positive reinforcement when she reacts well.
Resources Section 1
Portfolio Section 2
Physical Exam
When performing a physical exam on a hors there are many factors that come into play. First, the age, breed and activity of the horse must be taken into account to determine if certain issues need to be checked for specifically. For the following section, refer to this picture to see the body parts being referenced.
The legs (9-20) can be checked such as being pigeon toed, camped out or other naturally occurring conformation faults. In addition, the front legs should be checked for splints (15) which can be felt along the leg as a result of trauma or poor conformation. Tendonitis can be checked by an inflammation of the leg above the fetlock (above 14) and can take a long time to heal due to severe strains, wear and tear or poor conformation. A final common fault horses should be checked for is Ringbone which results in a bony growth between the pastern-coffin bone joint and pastern joint (11-14), it can not be fixed but attempts can be made to slow progression. The hind legs should be checked for thoroughpins which are fluid filled sacks near the hock (19) and bone spavins which are bony enlargements near the hock.
Hooves (12) should be checked for conformation such as flared or club foot as well as Navicular disease which is caused by something being wrong with the navicular bone resulting in the horse walking on its toes and having temporary lameness.
After inspecting the legs, the resting heart rate can be taken by either listening to the heart with a stethoscope or by feeling the pulse. A normal heart rate should be 32 to 36 beats per minute. The number of breaths per minute can be taken as well which should be 8 to 12 in an adult horse. Using a thermometer, the temperature of the horse should be taken from inside its rectum and should be about 99.5 to 101.5 degrees farenheit. Skin pliability and capillary refill time should also be tested and take no longer than 3 seconds to return to their normal state.
Following all of this the horse can be walked and/or trotted to determine the level of lameness in the horse. Lameness is judged on a scale of 0-5, zero being the horse has no lameness under any circumstances and 5 being that the horse can hardly more or cannot move at all. Lamenesses can often be determined by the head dropping down on the opposite of when the injured leg is touching the ground.
Case Study Photo and Video Documentation
For the case study portion, my group was assigned Oakee who is an 8 year old Quarter Horse gelding. He performs light to moderate riding typically but currently does no riding and is turned out to pasture.
When evaluating him physically we found that he had to straight of a shoulder and to short of a neck but had a good back length. Structurally, he had straight pasterns and was cow hocked in his hind legs. He also was lacking muscle definition and had no definition between the stifle and gaskin, overall he was overweight. There was also an excess amount of ticks on his underside, attributed to being turned out to pasture.
When palpating Oakee’s legs we found that his right front digital pulse was higher than his left front and thoroughpins were found on his legs. He continuously kept pressure off of his left hind leg and had signs of dermatitis from scratching. There was also signs of metacarpal inflammation especially on the medial side.
When testing the hooves he had a positive response to the heels of both of his front feet and immediately tried to move way.
As demonstrated in the first video, Oakee shows a tenderness in his front legs and walks as if he is on eggshells he also showed a sensitivity on his right hind. Even when being walked he would frequently try to stop and never wanted to turn around. This was especially evident on the rocky ground as demonstrated in the following video where he didn’t even want to trot.
Based on both the physical exam of Oakee and the walking/trotting tests we determined that he had bilateral navicular disease which was confirmed and is justified because he has navicular bone cysts and has previously been blocked for it. It makes sense that he has navicular disease because of his straight shoulder and narrow feet which causes more concussion on both of his front feet and causing the pain in his heels.
Due to this diagnosis as well as his physical condition otherwise, we gave oak a AAEP lameness score of 2 because he displays intermittent lameness under certain conditions. When he is standing he appears normal and his lameness can be detected especially on the gravel and turns but not always determined at the walk.
Condition Research and Alternative Therapies
In order to diagnose your horse with navicular bone disease officially it should be seen by a vet. There are a few ways in which they can determine that they do in fact have navicular disease. One being they can administer blockers to the assumed afflicted areas and see the difference in the horses movement after they have been administered. This technique is demonstrated at the following link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JjXA4HcMfk by Doctor Vernon Dryden.
Two other, less invasive tests that can easily be performed at home are called the wedge test and the frog pressure test. The wedge test places the hoof on a wedge of wood and the opposite hind leg it held up in the air. After a while you trot the horse and to should be able to tell an increase in lameness. The frog pressure test is having the horse stand on a small piece of wood like a hammer handle and holding the opposite leg in the air before again trotting them and seeing if there is an increase in lameness.
Veterinarians can also perform a radiograph of the front, side and flexor surface to see how many pathologies are present on the navicular area.
There aren't many real solutions for navicular bone disease that ensure it will go away for good but there are steps that can be taken to make it less painful for the horse. One of the most recent developments in treatment are two drugs called Osphos and Tildren which were approved by the FDA in 2014. The main difference between these two drugs being that Osphos is an intramuscular injection and Tildren is administered intravenously over 90 minutes.
Besides these two drugs, correctional action can be made like having your horses feet trimmed or putting on therapeutic shoeing which helps about 30% of horses. This along with rest of the horse and medicinal treatment is shown to work for a good amount of time, however, after many years of horses being treated, they often become unresponsive to treatment.
Section 2 Resources
Portfolio Section 3
Wellness Program
Tineke’s body condition is currently a 5 going onto a 6 going into the Winter months. Her neck currently blends smoothly, has rounded withers and a level back but she is starting to have fat deposited behind the shoulder, the ribs feel a bit spongy and the fat around the tail head feels soft.
Tineke weights in at 1,400 pounds and is a mature, moderately working horse, this means she should be eating about 1-2% of her body weight in forage, .75-1.5% in concentrate and 1.75-2.5% of her body weight in total each day. This means that she should be eating between 14 to 28 pounds of forage per day and 10.5 to 21 pounds of concentrate per day. Additionally, based on the 2 ml/kg/hour for water maintenance, Tineke would need about 7.93 gallons of water per day.
Tineke is up to date on vaccinations for Eastern and Western Equine Encephalomyelitis, rabies, tetanus and West Nile Virus. Come this March, she will need to be revaccinated for all 5. Additionally, when she is given the shots she will also be dewormed, with her next deworming in September.
Based on Tineke’s pedigree analysis, which was aforementioned in the first section, she is a carrier for hydrocephalus and the chestnut gene and for this reason she should not be bred. The chestnut gene is not detrimental to the horse however hydrocephalus can lead to still born foals and possibly the death of the mare.
The Cal Poly equine facility was just opened in 2018 and Tineke is being boarded there in one of the stalls in the Thompson Barn. These stalls allow for Tineke to be in one of the nicer and larger stalls. She is fed on the regular Cal Poly schedule which is often worked by the Cal Poly students.
When new horses are brought onto the site, they have to be put into quarantine before being put near the general population. In order to do so for Tineke, she was placed in the small turnout pen near the breeding barn. She was here for about a month before she was moved into her stall once it was determined that she didn’t have any communicable diseases.
To prevent outbreaks, all horses at Cal Poly must be up to date on vaccinations prior to arrival and during their stay there. Should an outbreak occur, it should be treated as soon as possible and the horses affected separated from the rest of the population on till it is deemed safe for them to return.
Illness Case Study
In my group’s case study (study number 2), we were presented with a 16 year old Quarter horse mare with lateral recumbency with normal mentation early in the morning, vocalizing to other horses on property and eating food when it was offered, the case being in September of 2002.
By asking various questions such as level of activity, location, weather, recent travel, former injuries, medical history and more we received the rest of the information on the mare. It was found out that the other horse in the pasture had been put down 10 days prior where it was assumed that the horse coliced after having involuntary recumbency. Additionally, it was discovered that she had not been vaccinated against West Nile Virus, which is know to be present in Canada where the horse resides. This, along with the fact that the mare grew increasingly unresponsive for the next 12 hours and thrashed uncontrollably with a swollen and bruised ride side of her face lead us to conclude she had contracted West Nile Virus.
Treatment was attempted but the mare was put down after approximately 24 hours.
West Nile Virus commonly takes 5-15 days to appear and is prevalent in May to October as it is transferred by mosquitos. Treatment depends on the horse and the severity of the case, making sure they get fluids is most important. If a horse is to recover it usually takes 5 to 7 days; however, 33% of horses die from West Nile, 17% will relapse and 50% will fully recover. While there aren't many treatment options, there are prevention methods. It is important to vaccinate horses for West Nile, especially if it is an area where it is prevalent. In order to get rid of mosquitos that may be carriers, get rid of any standing water and stable horses during heavy mosquito times.
One Health Application in Equine Industry
While the equine industry is often considered one of hobby, there are practical applications and benefits of having horses as well. Horses have been used for hundreds of year to perform various jobs and while they may be far more limited, they are useful none the less.
For starters, horses produce only renewable energy and resources through their manure which can be used to improve soil quality both in farm and fallow lands. They also support local ecosystems as they wander from region to region and can spread seeds, manure and more as well as maintaining grass growth through rotational grazing.
In addition to their ecological benefits, horses can provide something unique to people that nothing else can. They give a sense of comfort that can’t be described but only demonstrated. One example of such bond is through the story of one Sarah Smith, who suffered from abuse which eventually led her to have severe drug abuse issues and mental illness while living on the streets. She found help through a program called Pathways to Independence and attended Cal-State Long Beach with a 4.0, all with the help of an equine therapy program where she found peace and a connection she had never had.
This just goes to show the power that one horse can have either in the environment or to an individual. While the horses job may have changed, I would nearly argue it has become more important as it helps people to change their life around in a way they may never have seen as possible.
Section 3 Resources
This portfolio is an accumulation of work and research for my Equine Science class at Cal Poly, I do not own any of the horses presented. The horse referred to as Tineke and the situations surrounding her are hypothetical.
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