Denise Steffanus, Author at Horse Racing News | Paulick Report

You Can Lead A Horse To Water, But Study Shows He’ll Only Drink If It’s The Right Flavor

You can take a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. A new study says adding a little flavor to the water may solve that problem. Tessa Van Diest, a second-year veterinary student at Washington State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital, and Dr. Jamie Kopper, associate professor at Iowa State University, were concerned that […]

Steffanus: Blessed Be Dr. Phyllis Lose, Faithful Sage To Mare Owners

Every breeding and foaling season since 1978, countless mare owners have turned to their bookshelves for help from America’s first woman equine veterinarian, Dr. M. Phyllis Lose. Her two indispensable manuals, Blessed Are the Broodmares and Blessed Are the Foals, inform and entertain first-time broodmare owners as well as experienced breeders. She presented important information […]

Colic And Weather Changes: What You Can Do To Protect Your Horse

Veterinarians will tell you that when certain types of weather are forecast, they can expect a rise in colic cases. Some correlation between weather and colic is easily understandable. Frozen water supplies in winter and a combination of drought and increased sweating in summer may prevent a horse from drinking as much water as it […]

The Weighted Pad That’s Helping Veterinarians, Exercise Riders, And Trainers

When Dr. Philip Shrimpton was a racing commission veterinarian assigned to oversee the starting gate, his most important duty was to ask the stewards to scratch a lame horse—a responsibility he did not take lightly. Frustration arose when the same horse he scratched would jog sound back at the test barn. “I’d see a horse […]

Intranasal Vaccines: When They’re Right For Your Horse

It’s November, a time when breeders concentrate on getting their broodmares in top health for foaling and breeding season and horsemen ship yearlings to trainers for breaking and introduction to race training. An important part of their preparations is to vaccinate those horses before they leave home. Most vaccines are administered by injection into the […]

Steeplechasers: How Do They Stay Sound And Happy?

This is Part 2 of Denise Steffanus’s two-part series on steeplechasers. Find Part 1, which details the departure of Mr. Hot Stuff from flat racing to steeplechasing, here. Gill Johnston worked her way up through the horse industry from a groom to a trainer and owner. When she arrived in the USA from England in […]

A Second Career On The Racetrack? Why Flat Runners Sometimes Excel As Steeplechasers

In this two-part series, Denise Steffanus explores the factors that enable flat-racing Thoroughbreds to excel in second careers as steeplechasers, competing over jumps at distances up to three miles while carrying 140 to 158 pounds every few weeks. How does a trainer discover their flat racer may be good at steeplechasing? How can steeplechasers stay […]

Cribbing And Colic: Which Comes First?

If you have a cribber, chances are that horse is going to colic sometime during the period you own him. Not every cribber colics, but the two conditions often go hand in hand. Most scientific papers on colic include cribbing as one of its risk factors. The mystery is no one knows why cribbers are […]

Need For Speed: Cow Study Shows Short Sprints Crucial To Healthy Bone Development

An ongoing controversy in the racing industry is whether training and racing young horses is detrimental to their growing bones. Naysayers claim athletic demand on immature bones causes them to break, but scientific research supports early training, because bone is living, dynamic tissue that becomes stronger and more resilient in response to the demand placed […]