A quarter century of better health

grazing horses

Photo: Myrna MacDonald.

During the mid-1970s, you could count the number of equine veterinary specialists and researchers living and working in Western Canada on the fingers of one hand.

Once tractors finished replacing horse power in the 1940s, the incentive to improve horse health care had stalled in every western province. The region’s closest sources of advanced equine education and research were American veterinary schools, and a few western Canadian veterinarians had travelled across the border in pursuit of post-graduate training. But most practitioners relied on all they had: decades-old treatment practices and their practical experiences to treat equine patients to the best of their abilities.

Ironically, the region’s horse industry was enjoying a boom: the popularity of performance sports, the growth of the PMU (pregnant mares’ urine) industry and the demand for working ranch horses were all contributing to a steady climb in the horse population during the 1970s.

Horse health in Western Canada needed rejuvenating, and that fact wasn’t lost on Dr. Ole Nielsen, then dean of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM).

“He wanted the college to initiate equine research and to use the research program as a means for training specialists who would eventually use their expertise in the horse industry,” recalls Dr. Hugh Townsend, a 1973 WCVM graduate who was practising in Australia during the mid-1970s.

“But he also recognized that the horse wasn’t seen as an agricultural animal anymore. We couldn’t count on government agencies to assist us. We needed the involvement of horse people themselves to make this work.”

While Townsend was home visiting family in 1976, Nielsen asked him to contact members of Alberta’s horse industry and to propose the idea of creating a fund for horse health research and education. Townsend met with several people including Fred Mannix Sr., a longtime horse enthusiast and businessman, and Irv Parsons, chairman of the Alberta Racing Commission. Another person who was receptive to the idea was Rob Peters, Townsend’s brother.

“Of course, I was interested in getting involved because of Hugh. But I was also keen about it because the idea made a lot of sense,” says Peters, a Calgary businessman who owns a ranch and commercial stable south of the city. “This seemed to be a good, intelligent way to get some well-qualified people out in the field and to improve the overall state of horse health care.”

In the fall of 1976, after Townsend had returned to Australia, Peters joined several local horse people at the Ranchman’s Club in Calgary for a meeting. Soon after, four men pledged $15,000 each over a three-year period to start up the fund. Three of the original four were from Calgary: Mannix, Peters and Ron Southern, co-founder of Spruce Meadows. The fourth contributor was George Golden, a businessman and rancher from Edmonton, Alta., who had made earlier contributions to WCVM for research and equipment purchases.

“We were simply trying to help the University of Saskatchewan do more research on horses. I don’t think we had particular projects in mind — we were all just interested in the horse business and the health of horses,” says Golden, who became the first chair of the Equine Health Research Fund’s advisory board in 1977.

The board, whose members represented Western Canada’s horse industry, formed some ground rules that are still in place today. The fund would concentrate on two main goals: helping young graduate veterinarians gain specialized training in horse health care and supporting equine research projects conducted by WCVM students and faculty.

Based on recommendations from WCVM, board members would select and support studies that met two important requirements: the projects had to have scientific merit and the work had to be relevant to Western Canada’s horse industry.

Next, the fund needed its first equine research fellow and Townsend was the natural choice.

“I remember the phone ringing at about two a.m. at my home in Australia,” recalls Townsend. “It was the dean [WCVM dean Dr. Ole Nielsen] telling me, ‘We have a job for you here … and if it all possible, we’d like to have you here within a month.’”

Fellowship of the fund

Grey horse looking off into distance

Photo: Myrna MacDonald.

Since that first fellowship, EHRF has paid the salaries and research expenses for more than 100 equine residents at the WCVM. Many took their specialized knowledge and returned to practise equine medicine in communities across Canada, while some went on to complete further graduate studies at the WCVM or at other North American veterinary colleges.

Some former research fellows have gained international reputations for their research, while others are renowned for their work in the field.

One example of the latter is Dr. Dan French, a 1983 graduate of WCVM and an EHRF fellow (1986-88) whose early enthusiasm for the profession stimulated one of the EHRF’s original founders to back the fund.

“Our first support of horse health research in Western Canada was to try to focus some of the expertise available on to the specific area of show jumping in horses,” says Southern. “As well, I was highly motivated by the interest of young Danny French, who, at the time, was thinking of entering a career in veterinary medicine. It’s interesting to note that now, in his profession, he is certainly in the first rank of practitioners for show jumping horses in the world.”

French, now a surgical specialist at the Okotoks Animal Clinic, says his combined WCVM residency-EHRF fellowship offered him greater flexibility in designing a graduate program that fit his interests.

“Other schools had a much more structured three-year residency with more formal course work. My program was able to efficiently condense the course work and surgery requirements into a two-year fellowship. Because I had been out of school for a few years, I knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish in terms of surgery skills and research. It was the ideal program for me.”

Dr. Bill Crawford, an EHRF fellow from 1981 to 1983, credits the fund for keeping him in the veterinary profession and for inspiring him to specialize in surgery.

“I knew there was a better way, but I didn’t know how to do it, and that’s what brought me back to school. In fact, if I hadn’t got my residency, I was ready to quit and become a commercial fisherman. I was fed up —it was just too frustrating,” says Crawford, who practised in B.C. and Alberta for nine years after earning his veterinary degree from the WCVM in 1972.

Crawford’s research work, which focused on the effect of racetrack design on the gait of standardbred horses, helped him gain a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin where he taught for seven years. In 1991, Crawford returned to Innisfail, Alta., and started an equine practice with his wife, Dr. Sue Young (a 1984 WCVM graduate). The Young-Crawford Veterinary Clinic is now well known for its advances in equine surgery and for giving young veterinarians valuable surgical experience.

“I think the fund is great — how could I think anything but? It helped me at a critical time in my training, and it’s continued to train equine practitioners to superior levels. Look at all of the people who have been supported by the fund and are now major researchers: John Caron, Mark Hurtig, Bruce McLaughlin … not only have they contributed to the health of western Canadian horses, but to the health of horses around the world,” says Crawford.

A major spin off from the fund is that today’s average WCVM graduate has had much more exposure to equine health-related issues than a graduate of 30 years ago. Through WCVM faculty and graduate veterinarians who are directly involved in equine research, students are learning about the latest equine health issues that are being investigated right at their own veterinary college.

“These ‘new DVMs’ carry an equine health knowledge level into the field that pays immediate dividends to the equine industry of Western Canada,” says Crawford. “For me, that’s been the biggest impact of the fund.”

Research that makes a difference

Photo: Caitlin Taylor.

During his two-year residency, Townsend conducted research that focused on the biomechanics of a horse’s spine. It was foundational work that stood for nearly 20 years, giving researchers as well as practitioners a better understanding of what causes back problems in horses.

It was the first time that EHRF-supported research had an impact on the equine industry — but it certainly wasn’t the last.

“Some very good science has been done by researchers here in Western Canada,” acknowledges Les Burwash, a longtime EHRF advisory board member who represents Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development’s horse industry section.

For example, EHRF has sponsored work that has challenged the efficacy of equine influenza vaccines, contended the use of an accredited surgical procedure called periosteal stripping and enhanced ranchers’ understanding of horses’ natural breeding behaviours. Other projects uncovered the true function of equine guttural pouches, identified HYPP (hyperkalemic periodic paralysis) in quarter horses, and described a regional foal disease called congenital hypothyroidism

“Those kinds of studies are very good for the industry, and they’ve had enough merit to change the practices of all veterinarians in the field,” adds Burwash.

EHRF has also gained a reputation for backing pilot studies in new or often-ignored areas of equine health. Dr. Hilary Clayton joined WCVM’s faculty in 1982, mainly because the veterinary college was one of the few place in the world equipped to do locomotion analysis in horses at the time.

“Back then, this whole discipline was just beginning, and EHRF was the first organization that supported my work. Later, when the research became better known, I received support from the Grayson Foundation and from Sport Canada for a study that I did at the Olympics. But to get that kind of money — you have to build a track record, you need someone to believe in you. That’s where the fund was very helpful,” says Clayton, who now holds the McPhail Dressage Chair in Equine Sports Medicine at Michigan State University.

In the early 1980s, EHRF made another move that would have a lasting impression on Western Canada’s horse industry: for six years, the fund provided full salary and research support fro equine nutrition specialist Dr. Nadia Cymbaluk.

“The fund was instrumental in starting my research career and supporting essential research in horse nutrition — an area that had never been funded in Western Canada,” says Cymbaluk, now managing veterinarian at Ayerst Organics Ltd.’s Linwood Equine Ranch near Carberry, Man.

Cymbaluk’s work concentrated on filling in fundamental “blanks” in Western Canada’s understanding of horse health and nutrition: discovering the basic nutritional needs of horses during winter and summer months, studying the effect of pregnant mares’ diets on foals’ health and the prevention of diseases, comparing horses’ digestion to cattle, measuring the nutritional values of regional horse feeds, and conducting standard equine digestibility studies.

“Based on those studies, we now give owners better advice on managing their horses’ diets. We couldn’t have accomplished that without the fund,” says Cymbaluk.

Grassroots support

With backing from its four original donors, EHRF’s pool of supporters steadily grew in its first few years of existence. In 1978, Alberta’s thoroughbred and standardbred racing industry  began a longstanding tradition of supporting EHRF, and other provincial racing commissions from B.C., Manitoba and Saskatchewan soon followed suit.

Another consistent source of major funding dollars has been the North American Equine Ranching Information Council (NAERIC), an organization that represents more than 400 equine ranchers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and North Dakota. The ranchers make annual donations to EHRF through a voluntary check-off program on their deliveries of pregnant mares’ urine.

Norm Luba, executive director of NAERIC, says the equine ranching industry clearly recognizes the value of supporting WCVM’s equine research and education programs.

“Qualified, informed, progressive veterinarians are critical to the science-based management approach utilized on our ranches. The training students receive at WCVM in equine medicine and surgery is second to none, and we need to do all we can to ensure that they stay in Western Canada.”

The fund has also gained the steady support of businesses involved in the equine industry. One of the latest contributions was from Bayer Animal Health that sponsored a two-year sales loyalty program for Canadian veterinarians. The program garnered more than $35,000 for EHRF.

“I’ve been with Bayer for 18 years, and I’ve witnessed the fund’s positive influence on the equine profession in Western Canada. It’s certainly been helpful for putting a definite focus on improving the capabilities of new graduates and practitioners in equine medicine,” says Dr. Don Wilson, Bayer’s director of technical services.

Of course, the greater number of EHRF donation cheques continue to arrive from the hundreds of breed associations, pony clubs, 4-H clubs, riding and driving organizations and individual horse owners who continue to support the fund. Over its 25 years of existence, WCVM’s Research Office has received letters bearing postmarks from Roche Percee, Langley, Virden, Hinton and hundreds of other communities across the country.

Two years ago, two of those individual horse owners gave EHRF the largest single donation of its history: a B.C. couple decided to contribute more than $1.4 million to EHRF in honour of the horses they had lost in the past. The donors, who asked to remain anonymous, have given the fund long-term stability and a wider range of options for generating equine research and educational activities at WCVM. They also hope their donation will motivate other horse owners to find ways of contributing to the fund — support that’s essential to EHRF’s future.

“We’re supported less and less by government-related organizations on a percentage basis, so we really are dependent on the organizations and people in the industry to keep the fund on course,” says Townsend, chair of EHRF’s management committee.

“Our contact with the horse industry — understanding their needs and communicating our results to horse people — is as important as ever.”

But besides money, Western Canada’s horse industry has provided the fund with guidance, advice — and horses.

“We have done studies on ranches, farms and at racetracks where we’ve had incredible co-operation and good will from the industry. They did it because they wanted to help us, and we couldn’t have done it without their help,” says Townsend.

The current EHRF equine research fellow, Dr. James Carmalt, took his undergraduate veterinary training at Cambridge University in Britain. As he points out, the access to large numbers of horses in Western Canada allows scientists to perform research on a level only dreamed of in other countries.

“Where else can you map a disease’s progression through large herds of horses? Where else can you find enough horses to perform randomized, controlled clinical trials?”

What lies ahead for EHRF?

On February 1, 2003, people from all parts of the western Canadian horse industry will gather at Calgary’s Spruce Meadows to celebrate what EHRF has achieved in a relatively short period of time. Twenty-five years after a handful of horse owners invested in improving horse health in Western Canada, the mighty little fund has accomplished just as much as many other larger, international funds with larger revenues — something that Townsend hopes people will recognize and appreciate on EHRF’s big day.

“There’s a real need to stop and reflect on where we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished. I think February 1 will help people understand that yes, EHRF is a very good investment, that this idea works, that the fund is necessary, and that it should continue.”

What’s in store for EHRF’s next 25 years? That question is on the minds of many people whose interests revolve around horses and who care about the long-term viability of the fund. Traditionally, EHRF has invested the majority of its revenues into supporting education and research, but Townsend says fund directors have discussed other options such as raising money for building equine research facilities or purchasing specialized equipment.

“There are limitations to what we can do under the existing circumstances. If we don’t have facilities and equipment that are on the leading edge, it’s difficult to become a centre of excellence for horse health.”

These aren’t easy decisions, and no one wants to jeopardize the success of EHRF at what it does best: raising equine education and research to a much higher level in Western Canada. But, as Townsend stresses, the fund’s caretakers must also ensure that EHRF remains a viable, dynamic organization that continues to put the health and welfare of horses first.

“We all have responsibilities here. Clearly, the veterinary profession has the responsibility to be very concerned about horse health and about improving it — but we can’t do it by ourselves. We also need the help of everyone who is involved with horses and relies on them for success in their businesses or in their lives,” says Townsend.

“If we’re going to use horses and enjoy them, we need to find better ways to take care of them. They deserve that much.”

This article was originally published in the Fall 2002 issue of Horse Health Lines, news publication for the Townsend Equine Health Research Fund. 

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