This week’s blog takes a look at horse’s whinnies, overweight horses and overtraining, before testing how much you know about your equine’s heart.

But first, a happy story about a young foal who is able to walk again after pioneering treatment in Belgium. After a healthy birth, the filly Vittel suddenly lost movement in his hind legs and developed incontinence when he was three weeks old. She was found to have a cyst that was compressing her spinal cord and this was removed using ground-breaking laminectomic surgery.

According to TheHorse.com, a pulley and sling-system was used every two hours on Vittel to rehabilitate the horse by gradually introducing it to standing and walking again.

The feed company Dodson & Horrell Ltd have announced on their website that new research in partnership with a variety of equine charities has found that overweight horses may weigh more than their scientifically validated weightape may suggest.

In conjunction with World Horse Welfare, The Horse’s Trust and the Royal Veterinary College, they have studied over 2000 horses over the last 3 years. By weighing the horses, using a weight tape and fat-scoring their initial results showed that equines that score 4 or more using the 0-5 conditioning scale weigh more than the reading on their weightape suggests.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

According to Dr Teresa Hollands, the weightape were originally calculated using 3000 horses “with fat score 3 or less”. The extra bodyweight is thought to be due to internal fat which the weightape cannot detect – research at Liverpool Vet School has found “that for ever kg that your horse is overweight, then 50% of that weight is due to fat around their internal organs”.

Owners worried about their horse’s condition or weight and advised to contact their local nutritionist or veterinarian for advice on their horse’s diet and weight control.

Every owner loves it when their horse whinnies at them from their stable or across the field, but now researchers at the University of Rennes 1, in France, have been studying whinnies to see what social information they convey.

Whinnies are used by horses to maintain long-distance contact with other equines within their social networks.

An article on Horsetalk.co.nz explains that by analysing the whinnies of 30 adult domesticated horses – an equal mixture of mares, geldings and stallions – the scientists found that the frequency and timing of the whinnies carried information about the horse’s sex, body size and identity, although they could not detect the age from the sound the equine made. This was detected by playing back recordings of the horses to a group of horses (some of whom were familiar with the equines on the recording) and noting their responses.

Something for our Canadian readers – the remains of an ice age horse have gone on display at Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre. Found in 1993 by gold miners at Klondike in the Yukon, the partial carcass has been invaluable for scientists studying life 14,000 years before man inhabited the region.

The equine is estimated to be 26,000 years old and is thought to have died after becoming stuck in mud and attacked by wolves. The horse is known as equus lambei, according to Horse&Hound Online, and is smaller like a pony with a hide similar to a Przewalski’s horse.

Vetpulse.v is a great website featuring veterinary science blogs, and a recent post by David Watson discusses some findings of Dutch researchers on the overtraining of equines.

Researchers at the Utrecht vet school in The Netherlands measured nocturnal growth hormone secretion through equine blood tests. The release of the hormone is an indicator of overtraining syndrome since it induces stress as well as growth. Their study enabled them to diagnose overtraining syndrome and the hope is now that further work can be done to determine how to prevent and treat the condition.

At present there is no diagnostic tool for the same condition in human athletes, so this new equine research could prove useful in the world of human sport science too.

Overtraining can occur in horses of any discipline, but is more commonly seen in eventers and racehorses.

And finally, a new equine radio show is being launched at the beginning of September on an Australian community radio station. ‘The Equine Show’ starts on Thursday 3 September from 9-11am (GMT +10 hours) it covers all areas of the equestrian industry and will be considering some science topics too, such as limb deformation in foals. The good news is that it is available to listen to online via the 3SER website so you can listen to it wherever you are in the world!

This week’s trivia question for you all now:

How much does the average horse’s heart weigh?
1. 4 pounds?
2. 9 pounds?
3. 14 pounds?
4. 21 pounds?

The answer can be found on my profile page by clicking here.