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[RC] [Guest] horse deaths at rides - Ridecamp GuestNicki Young nickiyoung@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx I am a veterinarian that works on large and small animals and I do vet some rides but mainly compete in endurance. My partner in also a veterinarian and is board certified in both anatomic and clinical pathology and works at NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine. He is also a rider who has judged competitive trail and competed in CT and endurance. Just giving our creditals. Performing a necropsy on a horse is no small task and is not one I am prepared to undertake at a ride in the middle of a field. It also would not yield the results that I think the majority of people think it would. It would be good to show colic caused by strangulated bowel etc but would be close to worthless in yielding results for cases of metabolic crisis. In my partners opinion and mine it would be much better to transport the horse (it would need to be removed from the ride site anyway) to a diagnostic lab. On site, if the horse is still alive, blood is the best sample to determine metabolic problems and once the horse has died then samples should be taken of the aqueous humour to determine metabolic abnormalities. At a diagnostic lab a thorough necropsy could be performed and tissue samples taken for microscopic examination. I do not come to the rides I vet prepared to necropsy, sample tissues and properly preserve those samples until they can be processed and examined. If AERC decides that the ride vets need to be able to do this then I will no longer vet rides. I am prepared to pull blood samples and aqueous humour samples at any ride and properly transport these. My partner said if these samples were taken at or soon after the time of death then a necropsy could be performed within 24 to 48 hours and would yeild much better results than a field necropsy. Just my two cents worth but some things to think about before passing any new rules. Nicki Young,DVM AERC 18000 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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