A Delphi Study to Determine International and National Equestrian Expert Opinions on Domains and Sub-Domains Essential to Managing Sporthorse Health and Welfare in the Olympic Disciplines.

The public is increasingly questioning equestrianism's social license to operate. While the focus historically centered on horseracing, increased scrutiny is now being placed on how dressage, showjumping, and eventing are addressing equine management and welfare concerns. Nominated equestrian federation and equestrian organization experts ( = 104) directly involved in international and/or national-level horse sports took part in a four-stage, iterative Delphi to obtain consensus on what factors should be considered essential to manage sporthorse health and welfare.

Effects of Pre-Cooling on Thermophysiological Responses in Elite Eventing Horses.

In this study, we examined the effects of pre-cooling on thermophysiological responses in horses exercising in moderate environmental conditions (average wet bulb globe temperature: 18.5 ± 3.8 °C).

Subjective and objective evaluations of horses for fit-to-compete or unfit-to-compete judgement.

At Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) competitions, horses undergo veterinary inspection for judgement of 'fit-to-compete'. However, FEI Veterinary Delegates (VDs) often differ in opinion. The aim of the present study was to evaluate intra- and inter-observer agreements of fit-to-compete judgement and compare these with objective gait analysis measurements.

Case series: periocular habronemiasis in five horses in the Netherlands.

In tropical and subtropical climates, infection of periocular tissue by larvae is a recognised cause of conjunctivitis or blepharitis. To the authors' knowledge, only a few cases of habronemiasis have been described in Western Europe, and it has not been documented previously in the Netherlands. The objective of this report is to describe the occurrence of five cases of (peri)ocular habronemiasis in the Netherlands, of which four date from the past few years.

A prospective study on a cohort of horses and ponies selected for participation in the European Eventing Championship: reasons for withdrawal and predictive value of fitness tests.

Background: Eventing is generally recognized as a challenging equestrian discipline and wastage figures for this discipline are relatively high. There is a need for information that provides insight into the causes of wastage and withdrawal from competition, for animal welfare and economic reasons. The aim of the present investigation was to conduct a prospective study following the entire national selection of event horses (n = 20) and ponies (n = 9) in the Netherlands that prepared for the European Championship in 2010 (ponies) and 2011 (horses), noting causes of withdrawal and monitoring fitness using standardized exercise tests (SETs), with heart rate (HR; beats/min), speed (V; m/s) and plasma lactate concentrations (LA; mmol/L) as measured parameters.