Fractures in Thoroughbred racing and the potential for pre-race identification of horses at risk.

Risk rates for and predisposing factors to fractures occurring in Thoroughbred racing that have been published in peer reviewed journals are documented. The potential for currently available techniques to identify horses at increased risk for fracture is discussed on the bases of principles, practicalities, advantages, disadvantages and current data. All are reviewed in light of justifiable decision making and importance of fractures to horseracing's social license.

Intracortical remodelling increases in highly loaded bone after exercise cessation.

Resorption within cortices of long bones removes excess mass and damaged tissue and increases during periods of reduced mechanical loading. Returning to high-intensity exercise may place bones at risk of failure due to increased porosity caused by bone resorption. We used point-projection X-ray microscopy images of bone slices from highly loaded (metacarpal, tibia) and minimally loaded (rib) bones from 12 racehorses, 6 that died during a period of high-intensity exercise and 6 that had a period of intense exercise followed by at least 35 days of rest prior to death, and measured intracortical canal cross-sectional area (Ca.

Classification of racehorse limb radiographs using deep convolutional neural networks.

Purpose: To assess the capability of deep convolutional neural networks to classify anatomical location and projection from a series of 48 standard views of racehorse limbs.

Materials And Methods: Radiographs ( = 9504) of horse limbs from image sets made for veterinary inspections by 10 independent veterinary clinics were used to train, validate and test (116, 40 and 42 radiographs, respectively) six deep learning architectures available as part of the open source machine learning framework PyTorch. The deep learning architectures with the best top-1 accuracy had the batch size further investigated.

Design and preliminary experience of a transportable equine operating theatre.

Background: Equine surgical facilities are not always available, even in situations where high-value horses are involved in relatively high-risk activities.

Objectives: To develop a self-contained equine surgical unit that can be relocated and transported by road.

Study Design: Proof of concept.

Stress fracture of the palmar, distal cortex of the third metacarpal bone: A diagnostic challenge with a good prognosis.

Background: Transverse stress fracture of the palmar cortex of the distal aspect of the third metacarpal bone (TSF PCD McIII) is poorly documented.

Objectives: To describe the typical signalment of this injury, the common clinical and radiological signs and prognosis.

Study Design: A retrospective hospital-based case series with follow-up of racing records.

The effect of stress fracture occurring within the first 12 months of training on subsequent race performance in Thoroughbreds in Hong Kong.

Background: Racehorses are at an increased risk of stress fracture within the first 12 months of racing and when resuming training after a break. Research in these high-risk periods and on the effect of performance post-recovery is limited.

Objectives: To describe the occurrence of stress fractures, diagnosed by nuclear scintigraphy (NS), in racehorses' first 12 months training in Hong Kong, and their impact on racing performance and career length.

Using time-series analysis techniques to enhance the understanding of musculoskeletal injury in Thoroughbred racehorses.

Background: Many racing jurisdictions monitor race-day musculoskeletal injury (MSI) but fail to evaluate injuries occurring during training. Additionally, previous risk factor analyses have failed to explore temporal trends in injury occurrence.

Objectives: To use time-series analysis techniques to identify trends, cyclicity and peaks in MSI incidence, in racehorses training and racing at the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) from July 2010 to June 2018.

Controlling the misuse of cobalt in horses.

Cobalt is a well-established inducer of hypoxia-like responses, which can cause gene modulation at the hypoxia inducible factor pathway to induce erythropoietin transcription. Cobalt salts are orally active, inexpensive, and easily accessible. It is an attractive blood doping agent for enhancing aerobic performance.

Microstructural changes in cartilage and bone related to repetitive overloading in an equine athlete model.

The palmar aspect of the third metacarpal (MC3) condyle of equine athletes is known to be subjected to repetitive overloading that can lead to the accumulation of joint tissue damage, degeneration, and stress fractures, some of which result in catastrophic failure. However, there is still a need to understand at a detailed microstructural level how this damage progresses in the context of the wider joint tissue complex, i.e.

Evidence of purinergic neurotransmission in isolated, intact horse sweat glands.

Background: Fluid secretion by sweat glands in response to heat and exercise is underpinned by increases in intracellular calcium. In horses, this is primarily via β2-adrenoceptors, but studies in equine sweat gland cell lines have indicated a possible role for purinergic agonists. Knowledge of equine sweating stimulus-secretion mechanisms in intact glands from healthy animals would allow future comparison to determine whether these mechanisms are affected in equine anhidrosis.

Comprehensive surface-based morphometry reveals the association of fracture risk and bone geometry.

Surface-based morphometry method is advantageous in its objectivity and increased capability in detecting focal morphological changes, but has not been applied in bone-related research. Orthopedics research in human has confirmed the association of the bone geometry in proximal femur and its fracture. In this study, surface-based morphometry is used to test the hypothesis that there is relationship between bone geometry and fracture risk of the proximal sesamoid bone (PSB) in forelimbs of Thoroughbred racehorses.

Brittle tail syndrome is an emerging infection in horses caused by a keratinolytic fungus Equicapillimyces hongkongensis gen. nov., sp. nov.

The newly described brittle tail syndrome causes weakening and breakage of the tail hair of horses. Extensive mycological and molecular studies showed that a novel fungus Equicapillimyces hongkongensis gen. nov.

Statistical analysis of bone mineral density using voxel-based morphometry-an application on proximal sesamoid bones in racehorses.

Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) is a computational technique that has been used to analyze statistical differences between groups of MR brain images. This study outlines a new VBM pipeline, designed for determining statistical variation in bone mineral density (BMD). CT images of proximal sesamoid bone (PSB) specimens from the right forelimb of six racehorses that had suffered PSB fractures were compared with six age-matched control specimens.

Managing the effects of the weather on the Equestrian Events of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

This paper describes a 3 year project to investigate and manage the effects of the local weather conditions on horses competing in the 2008 Olympic Games. The first part of the investigation involved estimating the expected heat load on horses during competition and suggesting measures to ensure their safety based on data collected from dedicated weather monitoring at both Olympic venues during August 2006, 2007 and 2008. The aim of the second part was to establish a reliable system of point forecasting to monitor and predict inclement weather that might affect the competitions.

Evaluation of detailed training data to identify risk factors for retirement because of tendon injuries in Thoroughbred racehorses.

Objective: To identify the risk factors for premature retirement because of tendon injury in a Thoroughbred racehorse population.

Animals: 175 Thoroughbred racehorses (cases) at the Hong Kong Jockey Club that were retired from racing because of tendon injury between 1997 and 2004 and for which the last preretirement exercise was at a fast pace were each matched with 3 control horses that were randomly selected from all uninjured horses that had galloped on the same date as that last exercise episode.

Procedures: Training data for all horses were examined.

Circularly polarized light standards for investigations of collagen fiber orientation in bone.

Bone exhibits positive form birefringence dominated by and dependent upon the orientation of its collagen. The biomechanical efficacy of bone as a tissue is largely determined by collagen fibers of preferred orientation and distribution (and corresponding orientation of mineral crystallites), and evidence is accumulating to demonstrate that this efficacy extends to function at the organ level. This study has three aims.