Total budget: 39.949.000 HUF

Project manager: Dr. Annamária Nagy-Schuller tot Peursum

Duration:

from 1st September 2021. to 31st August 2025.

 

Summary:

Horses’ bones undergo changes in response to training. Bone tries to adapt to exercise and initially these bony changes do not cause pain. However, if the intensity of exercise exceeds the bone’s ability to respond, the changes can progress, cause lameness and may become career-limiting or fatal. These injuries most commonly occur in the fetlock joint and radiography has major limitations for their diagnosis. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been used to detect these bony changes in performance horses, but it is often difficult, if not impossible to determine if an abnormality is a normal adaptive response to exercise or clinically significant pathology. Computed tomography (CT) has higher resolution than MRI, provides greater anatomical detail and can complement MRI results. In our study we will follow a group of Thoroughbred racehorses and showjumpers in full training and perform sequential MRI, CT and radiographic examinations. This will allow us to describe how training-related related bony changes develop and at what stage they become clinically significant and cause lameness. This will help veterinarians advise on appropriate management and prognosis and therefore our results will contribute to improving the welfare of performing horses. All examinations will be performed in standing sedated horses, avoiding the risk and costs of general anaesthesia. Our study is unique in that no other groups have investigated development of training-related injuries in live performing horses by sequential examinations. Moreover, no other academic institution is equipped with a high-resolution CT that allows examination of the limbs in standing horses.