Tuesdays with Tony – Holy Hairy Horses!

Tuesdays with Tony – Holy Hairy Horses!

While Dr. Lacher was off gallivanting at the Grand Canyon last week, I was helping Dr. Vurgason groom her horse for the Racehorse Reclaim benefit horse show. As we were brushing his coat to a glorious shine, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a clump of long hair! I couldn’t believe my eyes: Smokey was already beginning to grow his winter coat. “Is this normal?” I inquired to Dr. V. She replied that yes in fact, a horse’s winter coat begins to grow in response to hormonal changes within the brain. These hormones are triggered by changes in length of daylight.
   You may have noticed your evening rides being cut short recently because it is getting dark by 8:00 already. Well, horses have noticed this too. The brain actually has a very intricate system of glands that produce hormones that stimulate other glands that produce other hormones that stimulate organs elsewhere in the body.
    That long hair coat comes way too early for Florida.  It makes for some hot horses.  In particular, if your horse has heaves (asthma in horses), or is a non-sweater, this time of year is no fun.  Unlike me, your horse likely can’t come in to the air conditioning to get out of the heat.  This means it’s time to fire up the clippers and get rid of that hair.  Sometimes that hair can be an indication of a problem.
  Cuchings horse is hairy!  Long hair at the wrong time of year can mean one of the glands in charge has gone AWOL. In horses, the pituitary gland is the most likely culprit. Nobody knows why, but many older horses will grow a tumor on their pituitary gland called an adenoma. This tumor applies pressure to the gland as it grows, and causes it to over-produce its hormones (namely, adrenocorticotropic hormone, or ACTH). This condition is known as Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction, or more affectionately, Cushing’s disease.
   Cushing’s disease can lead to a whole slew of problems. For one, overproduction of ACTH can confound the whole winter-coat-growing system, so your horse winds up with long, curly hair in the hottest summer months. Failure to shed out completely or patches of long hair (not in the Fall) are often early signs of Cushing’s disease. Through mechanisms which are not completely understood, Cushing’s disease can cause lethargy, muscle loss, potbellied appearance, fat deposits, laminitis, and recurrent infections. Hmm, maybe I have Cushing’s disease…?
   Luckily, our Docs have ways to determine if your horse’s long hair is from Cushing’s or if they are just getting ready for winter.  First they draw some blood, then it goes on a trip to Cornell University where they test the ACTH levels.  When I was a kitten, ACTH levels couldn’t be pulled in the Fall since the levels go up in the Fall and the humans didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t.  They have fixed that problem with some research.  Now Fall is a great time to test since horses who are just beginning to show signs will have really high levels in the Fall.  Also….Springhill Equine has a contest going on now where you can get your horse tested for FREE!!!!  Free you say? Yep, FREE.  Just click on this link to the “Does my horse have PPID?” form, fill it out and Voila! You are entered.  That’s easier than getting Beth to share her tuna fish sandwich with you.

Tuesdays With Tony


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Well Tuesday was so crazy I didn’t manage to catch up until Wednesday! The day after a long weekend is always hard on management. I have spent the weekend ensuring sunbeams are properly tracked across the floor, making sure the chairs don’t move in the office, and knocking any stray papers off the desk. Meanwhile, Dr. Lacher was busy seeing emergencies all weekend. Actually you guys were pretty nice to her and she only had to see a few. Dr. Lacher and Dr. Vurgason don’t really mind emergencies when they are true emergencies. The only time I hear them upset is when the horse has been very sick for a while and the humans wait until 10:30pm on a Saturday night to call but I digress.

One of this weekend’s emergencies was a common Fall problem: laminitis. Why Fall you ask? Well let me answer. This time of year your crazy horses are getting ready for Winter. That’s right: Winter. The brain of the horse is tuned to seasons in a very particular way. It has to change the metabolism, hair growth, foot growth, and a million other little tweaks so that the system is ready for whatever the coming season will require. Horses, having evolved in cold climates, start getting ready for Winter around August 15th. To do this the pituitary gland increases its production of about 5,000 different hormones. All is fine and dandy unless your horse also has Cushing’s or is pre-Cushingoid. If that’s the case too many hormones are released and voila!! Laminitis happens.

The good news is these laminitis episodes are relatively minor, even if sometimes they don’t look that way, and are quickly controlled with some anti-inflammatories like bute or previcox, a little help from some thyroid hormones, and changes in trimming or shoeing. Knowing your horse’s ACTH levels if they are a suspected Cushing’s horse helps the Docs manage these guys if they experience a flare up.

In other goings on this week, Dr. Vurgason treated another one of those things called a pig at the office. They really are rather adorable until they open their mouths. I was grateful she anesthetized him so that she could perform a castration. Dr. Lacher saw several horses for lameness, along with a few dentals and other routine health stuff. I think she might get some kind of perverse pleasure from making her technicians run around in circles since she makes them do that a lot! She claims this is so she can watch the horses move after stressing different parts of their bodies but I have my doubts.