Sid Gustafson
Novelist and Veterinarian

Equine Behavior Statement
Revised and Expanded
January 2010
Sid Gustafson DVM

In consideration of the horse’s nature and behavior, horsewomen and horsemen are obligated to provide horses an appropriate environment, unconstrained neonatal development and formation and fulfillment of the mare-foal bond, adequate nutrition, sufficient sociobehavioral circumstances, as well as training and horsemanship modalities based on the horse's innate perspectives and sensitivities.
By nature the horse is a precocious grazer of the plains, a social and herd animal, and flighty. Horsemanship and training are best accomplished through behavioral appreciation of the horse and facilitation of the horse’s nature, rather than by force or coercion. Horses are best trained in a relaxed, calm state. Training that puts the horse into the flight or sympathetic state generated by fear and punishment while restricted by rigs or round pens is discouraged, and not in accordance with acceptable standards of animal training. Horsetraining and horse teaching methods are best based on scientific studies regarding the nature of the horse. Horses learn preferentially in a relaxed state from a calm experienced handler with adept communication skills.
Social behavior in natural feral settings is the 'natural' behavior that 'natural' horsemanship utilizes to appreciate the nature of the horse.
As to dominance, the science reveals that free-ranging horses form social hierarchies that are complex and rarely linear. Under natural open range conditions with adequate resources, horses seldom have the equivalent of an alpha individual because the roles of leadership and defense are more critical than domination. Dominance theory as a training modality is not only discouraged, but appears inappropriate. The formation of order in horse groups sustains collective welfare and enhances group survival, and reflects leadership rather than domination.[1] It is important veterinarians and students of equine behavior appreciate this science.
There is no alpha. Leadership is shared and alternated and variable and context dependent in established harems in natural settings. Dominance is rare, and certainly not prevalent. When present at all, it facilitates group protection and stability. Horses share leadership. Survival is herd based, rather than individual based. The lead mare leads the horses to water and grazing and resting places. She drinks first to make sure the water is safe, rather than because she dominantes the others. Students of equine behaviour appreciate shared leadership and herd stability. Horses seek competent leadership and are willing to accept competent leadership from humans.
The horse is special in retaining the ability to thrive in feral conditions independent of man. This allows us to study their true nature versus their stable nature and to apply that knowledge to their welfare as it pertains to training.
Horse retains the ability to survive without us, and survive well.
It behooves humankind to take care with horses. Sensitive horsefolk respect the 60 million year development of the horse’s social behavior and development. They appreciate equine intelligence in regard to both training and husbandry, and what the future might hold.
Stabling is unnatural. Horses graze and walk together 60-70% of the time under natural circumstances, eating and moving from spot to spot independently but within a few meters of the next horse. Stable managers and horse owners should make every effort to accommodate or recreate these long-evolved herd grazing and life-in-motion preferences for proper physiological function and mental health.

Horses require other horses for proper health and prosperity. Horses prefer the constant companionship of other horses. A horse should seldom be kept alone. Horses being mixed with other horses and expected to share resources should be properly acclimated socially, and be given the required space to adjust to new herds without injury or undue stress. Every effort should be made to provide horses with the social benefit of appropriate companion horses through times of stress and illness.
Horsewomen and men need to appreciate the sensual nature of the horse, and understand the physiological needs of the horse. Horses prefer the open view. If they cannot be in physical contact with other horses, they need to see and smell other horses for proper behavioral functioning and responsiveness.
Water is the most important nutrient, and must be provided in consideration of equine behavioral preferences. Salt is the most important mineral, and should be provided daily in some fashion.
Grazing is the preferred and predominant equine activity. Horses did not evolve to metabolize grains and non-structured carbohydrates, or to remain stationary for even short periods of time. Serious metabolic issues develop when horses become sedentary grain eaters, and this lifestyle should not be imposed on horses.
Play and sleep are naturally occurring preferences that require accommodation however horses are housed or stabled, as deprivation results in behavioral deterioration.
Horses are physiologically dependent on shared social grooming and sensual contact companionship. If stabling precludes these preferences from fulfillment, then every effort need be applied to replace or recreate these needs on a daily basis.
These behavioral considerations apply to horses in transport, and for those horses too, however unwanted, man is obligated to provide the proper environment, social functioning, nutrition, medical care, and exercise to sufficiently assure health and comfort.
As to performance, every care and precaution need be taken to avoid exceeding the adaptability of the horse. All of the horse's normal natural sensation should remain fully intact and functional without undue pharmaceutical influence. The horse's metabolic, physical, medical, and behavioral limitations are best be monitored by equine veterinary professionals on an intense comprehensive basis.
Professional veterinary societies and organizations are encouraged to provide education regarding equine behavior.

Equitarian philosophy promotes safety; eventing safety, equestrian safety, and equine safety. Fatigue and exhaustion cause spills such as this. Horsemen need to become more aware of their horse's metabolic state. As horses tire, they lose coordination, speed, and judgment. Regulatory veterinarians need to be more involved in eventing making sure fatigued horses are pulled before spilling.

Naturally Equine Education Series

Dr Gustafson offers five online courses that provide instruction regarding his successful and popular natural approach to equine health, performance, and horsemanship.
Equine Nutrition--Feeding horses naturally for growth, development, conditioning, and performance
Healthy Stable Management--recreating natural circumstances for confined horses to achieve optimum performance and success
Equine Behavior--learn the essentials of equine behavior required to succeed with horses. Gain perspectives on how horses learn and what horses want and need to succeed.
Equine Disease Prevention--natural approaches to disease prevention, eradication, and management. Appropriate vaccination protocols.
Lameness Treated Naturally--prevention and resolution of lameness. Bodywork, massage, myofacial integration. Acupuncture, acupressure, cervical and lower leg adjustments. Accurate diagnosis is essential to treat lameness appropriately.

May 22, 2008, New York Times
A Veterinarian’s Take
By SID GUSTAFSON
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.
There are medical and cultural human-animal issues in the thoroughbred industry that warrant exploration and acknowledgment.
A prudent horseman could begin with the essential topic of stabling: how do we move forward to best recreate the natural preferences and tendencies of stabled racehorses? More intense issues such as racing age, medication, track surfaces, and breeding can be better addressed in subsequent articles after the nature of the horse and the implications of racetrack confinement are addressed.
The Fetlock Epidemic: When horses break their legs in races and have to be euthanized on the track, we have clearly exceeded the adaptability of the horse. Racetrack breakdowns are endemic, if not epidemic, in America, an undeniable veterinary reality of which I have first-hand experience. There are at least 60 identified factors which contribute to breakdowns, the leading one of which is a lack of prerace scrutiny by the trainer, his veterinarian, and the regulatory veterinarians. There are accidents, bumps, missteps, and bad luck, yes, but in my experience the vast majority of breakdowns are predictable, and most breakdowns are a result of running horses with fetlock lamenesses. Fetlocks are among the thoroughbred racehorse’s most vulnerable and complex joints. The fetlock gathers a vortex of anatomical structures that are intricately interdependent and essential. Inflammation, pain, or swelling in any one of the structures alters the essential biomechanical synchronicity for proper function and support of the critical joint.
As a professor equine studies, I attempt to teach my students appropriate moral reasoning regarding the well-being of the horse. Acquiring an academic and intuitive understanding of the horse’s nature enhances moral reasoning. Time spent with horses combined with intellectual academic pursuit helps us realize when equine welfare standards are exceeded by our competitive pursuits. This is not an easy task, as horses have been utilized intensely and harshly, assertively and aggressively through time, a cultural ideology that does not fade easily, although significant progress is taking place. In situations involving the welfare of animals progress is sometimes all we can ask.
Understanding horse behavior is necessary to refine our contemporary relationship with the horse. I attempt to engage my natural horsemanship students in analytical thinking regarding the management of confined horses in the context of the well-being of the horse, and in consideration of the intimately connected physical and mental needs of horses, especially the mental. Thoroughbreds are one of the most intensely stabled breeds. Mental and physical health become challenging to manage in confinement scenarios. After their yearling year, many thoroughbreds spend the rest of their performance life stalled, contrary to their nature. To restore confidence in thoroughbred racing, we could begin by trying to modify stabling practices to better accommodate horses’ nature, allowing the horses to develop stronger and more durable physiques in a natural fashion; to become more psychologically content and physically sound athletes, to become less dependent on drugs and surgeons. We need to place more focus on the horses’ racetrack environment and take steps to design appropriate stables and training facilities to accommodate the horses’ sociobehavioral, nutritional, and physiological requirements and preferences. To make horseracing a safer sport for horses and riders the industry could best be served by attempting to improve racetrack stabling practices, a topic on which most horsemen should find common ground in which to contribute appropriate practices and facility ideas to improve the horses’ racetrack life.
The contemporary racetrack-stabling scenario significantly displaces the horse from its natural preferences. Little semblance of a horse grazing the plains with its herdmates is apparent in a shedrow stall, where today’s racehorse spends over 90 percent of its time, depending on the trainer and his or her regimen of training and enrichment. Somehow, certain effective trainers recreate enough natural preferences for racing success despite this restrictive stabling. Their horses train sound and win races and return sound and uninjured in the best circumstances. These trainers create success for their horses; make it easy for the horses to succeed by fulfilling their inherent needs. Other trainers fail to adequately fulfill their horses’ needs. Adaptation is exceeded. Their horses become injured, sometimes because of inappropriate conditioning, and subsequently become prone to break down, as certain conditions really never return to normal function. An injury in one location, or two or three as can be the case, significantly disrupts the synchronous movement of the horse, stressing multiple joints and legs, an interdependence demonstrated so unfortunately by Eight Belles, fracturing not one, but two fetlocks.
How do we strengthen legs? Improved husbandry and stabling practices can offer remedy when the horses’ adaptability is exceeded. How can we better recreate the natural needs and conditions of stabled racehorses? All horsemen have ideas about recreating natural circumstances to fulfill natural tendencies of horses, like friendship and play, sleep and grazing and walking together. If we design the stable and manage horses in a more horse sensitive manner, horses have the potential to race stronger and safer. Many trainers adequately fulfill these needs in horses. Certain individual horses require more fulfillment than others, they are less adaptable to stabled life, require more patience and understanding to facilitate gate relaxation and acceptance.
What improvements in stabling facilities and exercise paddocks can be implemented to improve the horses’ mental health and physical endurance? Let’s ask the horsemen. Let’s ask those who study horses. Let’s attend The Horse display at the Museum of Natural History. Let us look to many venues to understand the horse. Can natural approaches improve the durability and safety of thoroughbreds? Can we create stabling conditions that promote the need for less medication while creating increased physiologic durability and mental health? Yes. Educational, informative articles make a difference for racehorses, literarily, medically, and journalistically.



June 4, 2008, New York Times, The Rail
Drugs and Racehorses
By SID GUSTAFSON
Phenylbutazone seemed a miracle drug when the stuff began entering the bloodstreams of racehorses in the 1960s. I was collecting the post-race urine that concentrated the metabolites of that drug during the ’60s, and as a teenager I became acutely aware of drugs and racehorses.
What a soothing anti-inflammatory effect bute brought to racehorses in those simpler days when its use first became widespread. The alleviation of certain lamenesses was dramatic. “Really sweet stuff,” I remember Wright Haggerty’s Kentucky groom telling me on the Shelby, Montana, backside in 1965 as he pestelled up tiny white 100-milligram dog pills he had received from my father, the attending and regulatory veterinarian (thus my job as urine catcher). The original medical plan, being that most racing jurisdictions back then prohibited the use of any and all drugs, was to use bute for training. The groom mixed the white powder into a mash, and fed his eager and waiting racehorse, who trained like Seabiscuit the next morning.
Bute cools hot joints and quiets inflamed tendons to desirable medical effect, allowing horses to return to training and racing sooner than otherwise, allowing them to maintain their conditioning. Tight, cool legs and hooves are necessary to continue conditioning the racehorse. If there is excess fluid in a joint, or swelling within a hoof, conditioning is generally counterproductive as further inflammation and damage follow exercise.
Bute was first used to facilitate continued training by quieting certain injuries or inflammations, and was especially effective when used conscientiously and conservatively. In a certain sense and in compassionate, knowing hands the drug provided humane relief to the rigors of racehorse life. The question quickly became: Could bute enhance performance? It was not a question for long. The answer was yes. Bute was and is the cleanest boost ever for a horse with mild inflammation in need of relief. The stuff could move a horse up, as they say, without a mental, or stimulant effect, but with an anti-inflammatory effect.
Two horses being equal, however, bute generally won’t make a horse with quieted inflammation run faster than a horse without joint, bone, or tendon inflammation. In a sense, bute restores normal overall biomechanical function. The nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug takes the heat out of mildly inflamed legs, feet, and joints, and this can be good in considerate hands.
Bute also became useful in the sense that it was diagnostic, or so the mind-set went at the time. If you administered bute and your horse went back to training and eating and being a sound horse after laming up a bit, then it was concluded that the condition was not significant enough to warrant rest, only to warrant bute. Bute, then, could be used to assess the severity of the lameness in racehorses. Some did not consider bute-responsive conditions serious, and this is one line of reasoning that eventually allowed the legalization of bute. There were medical arguments for its use in racing horses, medical arguments made by veterinarians and drug companies.
The conditions that bute administration does not resolve or effectively manage are considered problematic, and those conditions generally warrant rest, rather than more intensive treatment. Today, however, if bute does not manage the condition, more intense treatments are used, and more intense drugs are used.
Rest is the oldest and most effective treatment for lameness. In the history of horse doctoring, no treatment is more effective. The horse has a tremendous potential to heal musculoskeletal injuries if returned to natural pasture conditions, grazing the plains with herdmates. The problem is that it takes a full year of rest to cure many conditions racehorses develop, and at least months for others. No one has time to rest racehorses, to wait a year, and then take eight months to recondition the horse. With racehorses the clock is ticking, fast. If drugs can save time with racehorses, they are used for just that. And that is the case these days. The industry has transcended bute. The monthly veterinary bills at Belmont and Aqueduct often exceed the monthly training fee. Ask any owner.
If conditions are diagnosed accurately and thoroughly, and drugs are dosed properly and administered in a timely manner, doctors can reduce problematic inflammation in a given leg or joint, which in turn protects the rest of the horse by minimizing the risk of extra strain on other joints and limbs to compensate for the painful injured joint. However carefully dosed and administered, however, this brand of racehorse sports medicine puts more pressure on the weakened, and now treated joint, and herein lies the danger. In addition to systemic medication given intravenously to treat joint inflammation, cortisone is injected directly into joints and tendon sheaths to get a significant anti-inflammatory effect. Cortisone is in a different class of drugs called steroids, which can be used more specifically than bute to reduce the inflammation in a specific joint.
When there is swelling in a joint or tendon sheath, excess synovial fluid is secreted, distending the joint structures, and in some cases, deforming them, making for irregular movement. The reason for excess fluid in a joint is most often damage to the sensitive joint structures; damage to the synovial membranes, articular cartilages, ligaments, tendons, and underlying bone, any or all of the above. Damaged joints are weakened joints. They are inflamed joints, and in racehorses, many become cortisone-injected joints: weakened joints that are quieted down with cortisone. Why? Horse joints need to flow smoothly. Imagine an abraded joint surface, or a tendon that loses its lubrication as is passes over a running, moving joint, the resultant pain, swelling, inflammation, increased friction, and impaired function. If there is rough movement in one joint, the roughness is relayed throughout the horse’s musculoskeletal system, increasing the burden on the other legs and joints.
Intra-articular injection of a joint with cortisone is a potent treatment. In certain veterinarians hands it can be used beautifully. The most commonly injected joint is the fetlock, which is also the most commonly fractured joint. The reality is that most of fractured joints were cortisoned joints, although this information is inaccessible because of medical confidentiality. Bute is less intense, less potent, and a more conservative, safer remedy. The original idea was that legalized bute would replace joint injections, or that was part of the intent. That has not been the case.
Phenylbutazone, or bute, abbreviated from the early popular brand Butazolodin, is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug very similar to aspirin. Those who understand the pharmaceutical principles of aspirin understand phenylbutazone. Bute reduces inflammation, and subsequent to that, pain. That is the sequence, anti-inflammatory first, with subsequent pain relief. As a result of reduced inflammation, there is restoration of function accompanying relief of the joint pain.
If you consider aspirin a painkiller, then I suppose you can consider bute one, as well. Bute lasts longer, a day or two, while aspirin is more quickly metabolized in the horse, a matter of hours. The sustained anti-inflammatory effect of bute is especially therapeutic to horses. Prolonged anti-inflammatory relief allows the interdependent musculoskeletal system of the horse to redistribute weight appropriately. Lameness anywhere imbalances the horse. In a sense, bute can improve the balance by providing anti-inflammatory relief of the inflamed parts.
Initially, drugs for racehorses being illegal, bute was used to facilitate training and not so much enhance racing. That came next. The medication got to working pretty darn good, and in time trainers began administering bute to their horses closer and closer to racing, and soon the testing folk started picking it up. Matt Lytle was one trainer who taught me about bute, the smile it put on his face until Croff Lake, one of his horses, suffered a bad test after winning the Oilfield Handicap in Shelby, Montana, one of those years in the mid-’60s. Lost his purse and sort of soiled his reputation all because of a shade of bute in the urine.
Later, I heard him defend the drug, and his use of it: he gave it for the horses well-being, he claimed, and knowing Matt and his connection to his horses, I did not doubt his intent and compassion. Pain relief is compassionate, especially the sort of racehorse pain relief bute provided. The problem today is that a good thing, bute, or medication in general, has been taken too far. In the passion of competition and in a world of big money, horses have become victims of a misguided pharmaceutical culture.
My dad, having dispensed the bute, sampled Matt’s horse after it won the Oilfield Handicap. I was the one who caught Croff Lake’s urine, which tested positive. Then the next spring a winning horse tested positive in the Kentucky Derby. Rather than further restrict drug use to remedy the situation, the industry legalized drugs. From that time, horse racing shifted from a covert medication culture to an overt medication culture, which has been recently brought to its knees.
After hundreds of other doping incidents, there came a general consensus that if so many felt the need to use bute, maybe it should be O.K. to run on. After all, it was only a type of aspirin. And perhaps its legalization would eliminate the need for other more abrasive medications, such as opiates and amphetamines, and local anesthetics. Some even thought it would reduce the urge to administer intra-articular injections of cortisone. Not the case.
By the time I graduated from vet school and began practicing at Playfair Racecourse in the late ’70s, I could legally treat racehorses with nearly everything except stimulants, opiates or depressants. That left a lot of anti-inflammatory drugs, antihistamines, hormones, steroids and bleeding medications to administer to running racehorses, not to mention a multitude of vitamins, amino acids and minerals thought to help a horse endure the rigors of confinement training and racing.
Now virtually all racehorses run on bute and Lasix, and now with too many fractured fetlocks the medication has to be reduced. Bute wasn’t enough. No drug is. Legal bute engendered a drug culture. The ideology that more conservative use of potent medications would follow legalization of bute did not prove up. More intense drugs and medical treatments followed, rather than less. The pharmaceutical adaptability of the racehorse has been exceeded. Horse racing has to wean itself from its addiction to drugs that no longer help, but instead weaken horses. Racing jurisdictions are in the process of rolling back drug use. The trend should continue as a part of the remedy to reduce breakdowns. Foreign horse racing jurisdictions run without medication, and their safety records are better than the United States’. Horses running clean are less likely to break down than those running on medication.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.




June 7, 2008, New York Times
It’s Hot Out Here for a Horse
By SID GUSTAFSON
Horses don’t like heat. They evolved in cool, even sub-arctic climates and are generally poorly-suited to deal with hot, humid weather. Heat makes horses sweat. Horses dissipate 75 percent of excess heat by sweating. The remainder of the heat is blown off by respiration. High humidity reduces the horse’s ability to dissipate heat by sweating, making it more difficult to keep the body temperature normal.
Hydration and electrolyte balance are critical in the racing thoroughbred. Muscle, nervous, pulmonary, cardiac, and joint function are vulnerable to electrolyte imbalances. Most electrolyte imbalances in thoroughbreds are caused by excessive pre-race anxiety and perspiration (washing out), which can be exacerbated by the use of race-day Lasix.
Potassium is one of the critical electrolytes depleted by washing out, as are sodium and chloride. Lasix depletes calcium and magnesium. These electrolytes are all essential for proper nerve, muscle, and circulatory function, and they all must be balanced in relation to one another.
When electrolyte dysfunction begins, wobbliness and weakness ensue, stressing the musculoskeletal system. After electrolyte imbalance becomes marked, the syndrome can move into thermoregulatory dysfunction, and the core temperature of the horse becomes elevated, causing further and more serious consequences. Although, high temperatures cause exercising horses to sweat heavily to dissipate the internal heat, susceptibility to heat stress is not solely influenced by ambient temperature alone. Excitable temperaments are the biggest culprit. Calm horses can generally maintain a normal body temperature and minimize sweating utilizing their ability to remain quiet and relaxed. In hot weather, anxiety-riddled horses can become electrolyte imbalanced before the race begins.
Other factors that may make horses vulnerable to heat include failure to be acclimated to hot temperatures and high humidity, tendency to sweat, and withdrawal of drinking water before racing. Racehorses may lose to 10-20L of sweat in a one-mile race. Fluid loss thickens the blood, making it flow more slowly, delivering less needed oxygen as the race perseveres. Additionally, hot horses redistribute blood flow to the skin in attempt to cool the blood off. This combination results in less blood being available for critical racing muscles, resulting in muscle weakness and cramping, weakness that may become especially noticeable in the last half mile of a one and a half mile race.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.





June 8, 2008, New York Times
Horse Racing Prevails
By SID GUSTAFSON
Big Brown burst from the gate fresh and fast. He immediately veered out, causing some concern that he was getting off the left front hoof (or was he just shying a bit from the starter in light of his freshness?). Despite his best efforts, Kent couldn’t contain his horse’s energy and settle him in. Checking can take the timing, balance, and rhythm out of a horse, disordering their physiology, expending their energy.
The heat, Brown’s rankness, the rough-going in tight company early, the necessity of having to rein heavily, the lost conditioning due to the quarter crack, the quarter crack itself, three races in five weeks, one mile and a half in the heat; all adequate reasons for the altered performance from the veterinary view. No surprises in the realm of equine medicine, at least.
The day was very hot; Brown was washing and foaming between the thighs. All the trouble the horse had to contend with early in the race expended needed energy not later available at the top of the homestretch. Down the backstretch Brown’s head was bobbing significantly more than the other racing horses, suggesting the onset of exhaustion.
Medically, the media and veterinary consensus thus far is that Big Brown is fine. Kent Desormeaux’s decision to pull the horse was commendable in light of the knowledge that a medical problem existed in his foot. No one wanted to risk the horse injury, especially his rider. The pressure was on to bring the horse home sound, and Kent did that. Big Brown expressed his displeasure at being held back, fighting with Kent, unfamiliar with having a herd of horses leave ahead of him, wanting to go on as Kent was bringing him to a stop in front of the grandstand. It appears our fallen hero was more likely exhausted than injured, for which we are all grateful.
Big Brown had a bad day, but things have could have turned out worse, as we all know. Horses humble men on a regular basis. Here is to the smooth and steady Da’ Tara, the sweet-riding Alan Garcia, and a superb conditioning job by Nick Zito.
The beauty of horse racing is overcoming great odds to win, rising out of the dust to prevail in the big race. The Da’ Tara team did just that, especially impressive in Saturday’s hot weather.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.




June 10, 2008, New York Times
About Those Steroids and Big Brown
By SID GUSTAFSON
Lack of steroids did not appear to be the reason Big Brown tanked the Belmont. I went over the reasons I thought were significant in my last article. Big Brown is a stallion. Horses are seasonal breeders. Anabolic steroids are naturally occurring. As days lengthen the endogenous anabolic steroids, those produced internally by intact male horses, are increasingly secreted into their bloodstream.
The days have lengthened considerably since April. Whatever Winstrol was excreted or metabolized by Big Brown before the Belmont Stakes had by and large been replaced by race time with his increased secretion of seasonal anabolic steroids. By this time of year most stallions have established higher levels of androgenic steroids in their bloodstreams by secreting their own endogenous hormones in response to the lengthening days.
Although steroids can improve performance in horses, steroid administration in itself does not assure enhanced performance. Generally speaking, horses are adequately big, strong, and fast enough. Steroid administration is not always a beneficial thing, especially over the long run. There are adverse reactions and side effects aplenty. When the dosage is excessive, or sometimes even with small dosages, difficult behavioral issues often arise. The biggest problem is that horses become hard to manage and handle. They act rank. With horses control is essential to safety and performance. It seemed Big Brown was plenty frisky as he broke out of the gate for the Belmont. Behaviorally and physically, there appeared to be little appearance of a lack of steroids in the big horse’s system.
Since steroids can indeed at times improve performance for some horses, they should be banned. There is little doubt that life will be healthier and safer for racehorses when steroid use is restricted. Artificially enhanced performance means that some medicated horses will exert themselves more than they might without steroids, putting added stress on their legs and muscles, leading to more injuries than would be the case without the added juice. Additionally, there are significant deleterious side effects due to the injudicious use of anabolic steroids: subsequent sterility, cancer, heart disease, unhandleabilty, psychological confusion, and other troubles.
Are there justified medical uses for anabolic steroids in racehorses? Yes, but justified medical use does not include enhancement of performance beyond what would normally be a horse’s inherent ability. What then are anabolic steroids used to appropriately treat? Anabolic steroids are given to help horses recover from certain medical conditions involving weight loss, reduced appetite, and loss of muscle mass. There are also valid medical uses for anabolic steroids to help horses recover more quickly and heal stronger after undergoing arduous surgical procedures, prolonged stress, and racing and training injuries. Anabolic (building up the protein) steroids induce metabolic protein retention, resulting in the incorporation of additional protein into the muscular and other structural tissues, bulking up the horses and athletes on the stuff.
Any other uses? Well, yes. Horses that are given significant amounts of catabolic steroids may need anabolic steroids to allay the protein loss the catabolic steroids induce. Catabolic steroids or cortisone (those steroids that break down protein and cause it to be excreted) are often administered to race horses to reduce joint, bone, tendon, ligament, and muscle inflammation, as well as to treat a plethora of other medical, immune, and metabolic conditions (pulmonary disease, hypoglycemia, tying-up, allergies, and many other medical issues).
Joints are injected with cortisone, and cortisone is also given systemically (intravenously, intramuscularly) to be absorbed into the bloodstream. Anabolic steroids compensate for the deleterious side effects of cortisone injections. If the use of catabolic steroids is limited, this will eliminate the medical indication to use anabolic steroids to compensate. If the industry is going to move forward in the best interests of race horses, they should significantly limit the use of cortisone as well. This will level out the drug-playing field, and bring our medical racehorse morals up to the standard of the rest of the civilized world.
Are there other examples of where one drug needs another follow-up drug to compensate for the side effects of the original drug? Yes. Phenylbutazone (bute), in addition to its vaunted non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory effect, thins the blood, increases the clotting time, and can increase the potential for bleeding into the lungs during racing (exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage, EIPH). If we ban the bute, the horses hopefully won’t bleed as much, and we can then reduce the need for Lasix.
Without bute and other NSAIDs in the horse’s system, the racehorse will be less likely to bleed. Both anabolic and catabolic steroids cause fluid retention, which also increases the possibilities to bleed with the increased blood volume. Lasix, a diuretic and lung-blood-pressure reducer, is used to eliminate this excess fluid.
The horse racing industry could begin to restrict the original allowed drugs bute and cortisone, thus reducing the need for Lasix, anabolic steroids, antibiotics (steroids impair immunity) and other drugs which tend to be needed to mitigate the side effects of the original drugs.
The preference of many is that race horses should run clean. Drug-free racing is safer. It favors sound horses. Fewer drugs, then, allow horses to race sounder and longer, and drug-free racing might protect the horseplayers a bit. If horses are treated with the drugs veterinarians determine they need to be treated with, then the patients should not be allowed to race until the resultant therapeutic drug levels have subsided to insignificant levels.
Will this no-drug policy then push trainers to use drugs that cannot be detected? Yes again, but then attempts to gain advantage with drugs have always been problematic in horseracing. Legalizing the use of bute and Lasix drugs did not curtail this activity, it simply enhanced it. Allowable drugs “clouded” the tests, hiding other drugs. Lasix diluted illicit drugs in the urine, making them harder to detect.
The 35-year-old raceday-drug horseracing experiment has failed, or is failing. Too many fractures. Too many wrecks. Too many injured jocks. Too many down, dead horses. It is time to start running American racehorses clean like horsemen do in the rest of the world. The cleaner, the better. Racing jurisdictions gave veterinarians and trainers the go-ahead to use drugs liberally in the 70s. And, as is apt to happen with drugs, some individuals abused the dosages and administration of those drugs. They topped allowable drugs off with more drugs, and in doing so did their horses and patients and the thoroughbred industry a significant disfavor.
The ethical rule of equine veterinary medicine is this: First, do no harm. When drugs are implicated with harm, then it is time to re-evaluate their use. The argument that legal drugs somehow help horse racing is getting weaker and weaker. Legal drugs engender the use of more drugs. Some drugs may have their place in racing horses, but we need more evidence to overcome the contradictory evidence that drug use is diminishing the public’s confidence in horseracing.
We’ll never forget those images of Eight Belles trying to rise on two broken legs. None of those who witnessed that misfortune will, not even Big Brown. But that image will fade and be less-likely to be repeated if we all get together to make racing a more reasonable sport for the horses’ sake, for everyone’s sake. It is a good feeling to win a horse race with a thoroughbred, but the ultimate good feeling in horseracing comes when a horse runs clean, wins, and returns to the barn fit and sound. Let’s get that feeling going, now.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.

June 11, 2008, New York Times
Horsemanship and Horse Racing
By SID GUSTAFSON
I have to be careful writing about jockeys and riding as I still do veterinary regulatory racetrack work from time to time representing the horses and jockeys safety and welfare on race day. I try to stay out of debates involving riding strategy, so as not to have jockeys lose confidence in me should I happen to perform regulatory work at their track in the future. In order to effectively carry out regulatory duties, veterinarians have to maintain trusting working relationships with the jockeys. On the other hand, proper horsemanship is essential for horse racing safety, and regulatory veterinarians are certainly responsible for that.
I teach natural horsemanship at the University of Montana Western, where I have the good fortune to ride in all of the horsemanship classes. We study the nature and behavior of horses and base our training on this understanding of horses.
After the gate opened in the Belmont Stakes, Kent was dealing with a Big Brown anxious to sprint to the lead. Brown seemed to shy sideways to the right away from the starter standing in the track after he slipped out of the gate. Kent reacted and Brown did not respond to the rider’s initial reaction and instruction like Kent had anticipated, and the rider had to apply a large amount pressure to the reins, repeatedly, wrestling the horse in one direction then the other. The early issues between horse and rider cascaded, and the partnership between horse and rider deteriorated out of the gate well into the first turn.
It seemed that the Brown team knew that a deficit in the connection between Kent and Brown existed when they last observed Kent gallop Big Brown. It was reported by the trainer through the media that the horse was all over the place on a morning gallop with Kent aboard.
The general horsemanship belief is that once a horse gets his way with an unassertive rider through the course of a gallop, the horse will attempt to have its way with the rider on future rides by ignoring the cues the rider gives with the reins and legs. According to the news media and Dutrow, Brown got the best of Kent the last time Kent galloped him. Kent was not able to get Brown to respond to his cues on the gallop.
Apparently, the trainer observed the horse get his way with Kent on the last gallop and did not take measures to correct the racehorse’s relationship with the rider before the race. Subsequently, the horse did not respond to Kent in the race. In essence, Kent had to retrain the horse to respond to his cues through the first quarter mile.
If Brown understood he could get away with refusing to answer to Kent’s cues appropriately on gallops, Brown is not going to react any better to Kent’s cues in a race.
Dutrow’s description of Kent’s last gallop of Big Brown seemed to match the subsequent race ride Kent gave Brown, which is what horsemanship studies would expect, and even predict. In trying to find answers as to what might be done differently to prepare Big Brown for future races with Kent up, the horsemanship issues between horse and rider regarding response, connection, and communication need refined before the race.
Nothing is simple in horseracing, and most race finishes are the result of many, many factors and sequences of factors. Horses’ reaction times are lightning quick. However practiced, a human’s reaction to a horse’s reaction is not always a rhythmic thing when extenuating pressures and surprises arise, or when preparation has been lacking. In retrospect, it now seems that it may have been inappropriate to let Brown get away with a disobedient gallop with Kent up before the race. Brown also could have been better prepared mentally for the race, so to have been in a partnering mood with his rider. This is of course all very complex, and horses regularly fool horsemen. Developing a better understanding of equine behavior is the goal of all horsemen, but much of our learning is trial and error.
I do not share these horse behavior observations to place blame, but to clarify an aspect of horse training and memory. Certainly, losing the race was not Big Brown’s fault. He is in the hands of people, the training, the riding, the conditioning, the medication; everything the horse does is at the hand of man.
In natural horsemanship, we teach that the horse is never wrong. Riders have to develop partnerships of confidence, respect, and connection with each horse they ride, and consistently maintain all aspects of those partnerships to ensure a responsive partnership. If people are not consistent with horses, horses will not be consistent for people.
Not only was Big Brown unwilling to respond evenly for his rider, Desormeaux, Big Brown did not work as evenly as hoped for his regular exercise rider, Michelle Nevin, before the race. Horsetraining is in order for Big Brown, refinement of the basics of confidence, respect, and connection going both ways between horse and rider, all Brown’s riders. The owner and trainer’s idea to resume medicating Big Brown with Winstrol is a mistake, as anabolic steroids are notorious for making horses less trainable and responsive. Big Brown needs to get more connected with his riders, and anabolic steroids can contradict that goal.
If Desormeaux rides Big Brown in the coming races, the horsemanship issues between the horse and rider should be refined so that the horse and rider connection is more secure when the Haskell or Travers roll around.
Sid Gustafson is a novelist, social commentator, and former thoroughbred attending and examining veterinarian licensed in New York, Washington, and Montana, where he has had significant experience in the regulation of racehorses, especially as it pertains to soundness and breakdowns.

Sid Gustafson DVM
Curriculum vita
Novelist, Veterinarian, Equitarian


Equine practitioner-1979-present, natural approaches to horse health and well-being


University Experience
• Assistant Professor of Equine Studies, UMWestern, 2006-2008
• Equine Studies Program Coordinator, UMWestern
• Natural Horsemanship Program Coordinator, UMWestern
• Supervising Professor of Natural Horsemanship Classes
• Lecture Professor for Equine Behavior and Equine Care and Nutrition
• Resident Associate Professor, Montana State University, substitute college professor for Ann Raven DVM, MS 1990-1995 equine anatomy and physiology, lameness in horses
• Former Lecturer for Montana State University Agriculture Extension Service, Natural approaches to Equine Health, Reproduction, Disease Prevention, Safe and Humane Handling and Transport of Horses and Cattle 1986-1994
• Instructor for sustainable ranch management seminars, 1986-1992
• Teacher with Bozeman Public Schools Adult Education, teaching classes in natural approaches to horse health, lameness prevention and management, reproduction, and equine business development 1989-1995

Areas of Assigned Teaching Responsibility Natural Horsemanship Program Coordinator and Equine Studies Program Coordinator for UMWestern.
Professor of Natural Horsemanship Classes.
Behavior and evolution of the horse, nutrition, equine anatomy and physiology, equine diseases, lameness and biomechanics, equine facilities management, preventive health, history and culture of the horse.
Selection of new NH students.
Manager of the Academic Center for Equine Studies
Equine Faculty coordinator

Education Washington State University
Pullman, WA:
DVM, Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine 1979
Equine emphasis
BS in Veterinary Science 1976 cum laude
Montana State University 1973-1975
Bozeman, MT biology major, pre-med
United States Air Force Academy 1972-1973 life sciences Colorado Springs, CO
Vietnam Era Veteran
Conrad High School, Conrad, MT 1972

Equine Employment History • Practice owner and veterinarian for 28 years⎯mixed animal veterinary service, conventional and traditional equine medicine, athletic and pleasure horses, preventive health, pasture breeding, sustainable pasture utilization, environmental approaches to disease prevention, equine dentist and farrier, nutrition, growth and development, natural approaches to equine health and fitness, structural integration, endurance physiology, mental and physical aspects of health and physiology, horse and horseman psychology, behavior, animal welfare, safety.
Additional Equine Specific Experience
• Equine career mentor⎯for ten years my Bozeman practice sponsored internships for pre-veterinary and animal science students attending Montana State University. I provided veterinary practice experience and animal health guidance in preparing them for careers in equine medicine and animal husbandry. Over a dozen students gained admittance to veterinary school after internships at my practice. See Professional references, Doctors Paul McCann and Jeff Osborne, former interns.
• Lifelong horsemanship student and horsetrainer: cattle and performance horse and racehorse specialty
• Sequential clinics with Monte Foreman, premier horsemanship instructor in America in the sixties and seventies.
• Employee of Pat Wyse for 3 years, Montana reining and cutting horse trainer since 1970, started 20 colts a year for later refinement by Mr Wyse
• Former rodeo competitor⎯Marias Fair Steer Wrestling Champion, 1977, with self-trained bulldogging team
• Father of equestrian daughter, jumping, dressage, and eventing competitor with foundation in Natural Horsemanship
• Equine regulatory veterinarian⎯Montana Board of Horse Racing, director of the Equine Health Program, examining, paddock, and starting gate veterinarian⎯2005, a perfect season, no horses broke down, none euthanized
• Gate Vet of All-Indian Gate Crew at Missoula Fair Race meet, 2005, not one horse scratched at gate, not one horse flipped in gate
• Official Veterinarian, Administrator of the Equine Health Program, State of Montana Board of Horseracing—2005
• Icelandic Horse specialist, annual visits to Iceland to participate, explore, and research the health and training of the Icelandic Horse, healthiest herd on the planet, home of Holar, the only other university of natural horsemanship on the planet besides UMW
• Veterinarian for Buck Brannamen during the development of his horsemanship career, and other equine trainers, advising and consulting regarding the humane aspects of horsetraining, horse stabling, and athletic eventing
• Equine Veterinary Authority:
• Examining Veterinarian Finger Lakes Racing Association, situational employment to resolve adverse racing conditions for thoroughbred racehorses⎯Sept-Nov 2004, Stuart Raney, contact; State Steward, New York Racing and Wagering Board, One Watervliet Ave Ext. suite 2, Albany, NY 12206
• Animal welfare commentator on Equine Sports, quoted by newspapers including the NY Times regarding Barbaro, and Seattle-Post Intelligencer regarding horseracing practices and animal welfare.
• Thoroughbred Veterinarian Spokane, WA Playfair Racetrack 1979-1984, Randy Scott DVM, contact, (see professional references) Spokane Thoroughbred racetrack practice, breeding farms, hunter-jumper and polo ponies
• Standardbred Veterinarian Batavia, NY. Buffalo Raceway and Batavia Downs —1979-1980, Jack Wilkes DVM, contact, Standardbred Racetrack and Breeding Farm practice, polo ponies and hunter-jumpers
• Current Licensed and Accredited Regulatory and Practicing Veterinarian
• Deputy State Veterinarian, Montana Department of Livestock
• APHIS Veterinarian, United States Department of Agriculture
• New York Racing and Wagering Board Thoroughbred Veterinarian
Horsemanship related professional experience:
• Horse Show Manager, Bob Miller Memorial Horseshow, Bozeman, MT show manager and producer, 1985-1986
• Competitive Endurance Ride Veterinarian, official veterinarian for endurance rides throughout Montana, 1987-1994
• Broodmare Manager for Rumney Ranch, managed breeding, training, and health for a thoroughbred, quarter horse operation, 1984-1998
• Social commentator⎯Animal welfare, welfare of the horse, training practices
• Novelist⎯literary fiction, Horses They Rode, second novel, finalist for High Plains Book of the Year, Montana-based storytelling


Professional Memberships • American Veterinary Medical Association
• Montana Veterinary Medical Association
• Authors’ Guild
• International Veterinary Information Service
• Icelandic Horse Export Health, in association with PlusFilm, Iceland, founding member
• Alpha Psi National Veterinary Honor Society,
• Phi Zeta Veterinary Academic Fraternity ⎯academic excellence in Veterinary school.



Recent Meetings Attended
HAMBELTONIAN EQUINE VETERINARY CONFERENCE, August 1, 2, 2007, Meadowlands Racetrack, Newark, NJ. Equine Veterinary Medical Conference featuring leading equine veterinarians from throughout the world.
Montana Veterinary Medical Association, Winter Meeting, January ’05, Summer Meeting, June ’05, Winter Meeting, January ’07, Montana Veterinary Medical Association

Recent Presentations Natural Approaches to Horse Health: Management Over Medicine, Montana State University Equine Conference, September ’06, MSU Bozeman, MT
Montana Festival of the Book, Missoula MT, September ’06 Reading and discussion of my second literary novel HORSES THEY RODE
“On the Rocks,” UMWestern, Dillon, MT, November, 2006, Scientific notions presented as literature in my novels HORSES THEY RODE and PRISONERS OF FLIGHT
The Novel Story, High Plains Bookfest, Billings, MT, novel writing panel The Novel Story with regional novelists, October 19, 20, 2007, featured writer,
Horses They Rode, nominated for High Plains Book of the Year
Featured Fiction Reader, Montana Festival of the Book, Missoula, MT, September 14,15, 2007, Humanities Montana Annual Literary Event
Poetry presentations and readings, poem featured in Poems Across the Big Sky, an anthology of Montana poets, Dillon, MT, Bozeman, MT, Missoula, MT, Billings, MT
Dances with Words, reading from my second novel, Horses They Rode, UMWestern, Dillon, MT, sponsored by the Department of English
• UMW English Department fiction writing special project professor ⎯novel writing
• Guest lecturer UMW Engl 102 class that read my novel HORSES THEY RODE


Publications Prisoners of Flight debut novel, The Permanent Press, Sag Harbor, NY literary fiction 2003 ISBN 1-57962-088-4 Former Prisoners of War downed in the Montana Wilderness encounter wolverines, trout, and lost sisters. Winter and wildlife surround their despair as everyone is forced to seek relief in nature.
Horses They Rode second novel, Riverbend Publishing, Helena, MT Sept 2006 literary fiction, ISBN 1-931832-74-9 Classic original Montana bildungsroman. A racehorse trainer returns to his tenuous ranching roots on the plains foothills of Blackfeet Indian Reservation under the Rocky Mountain Front
First Aid for the Active Dog a guidebook, Alpine Publications, Loveland, CO 2003 ISBN 1-57779-055-3 Educational instruction and preparation in administering first aid to injured dogs. Natural approaches to disease prevention and injury resolution, holistic health
Literary Anthologies:
POEMS ACROSS THE BIG SKY, An anthology of Montana Poets, poem The Big Open, 2007, Many Voices Press, Kalispell, MT ISBN 0-9795185-0-4
THE SUSPENSE OF LONELINESS, STORIES OF THE FORLORN, TEARDROPS, short fiction, Letterpress Edition, Birchbrook Press, Delhi, NY ISBN 0-913559-83-0
TALES FOR THE TRAIL, ADVENTURES IN AIR, LAND, AND WATER, SEQUEL, short fiction Letterpress Edition, , Birchbrook Press, Delhi, NY ISBN 0-913559-85-7 Cover story
FRESH FICTION FOR FRESH WATER FISHING, short fiction, DOLLY DICK, Letterpress Edition, Birchbrook, ISBN 0-913559-84-9
Published Short Fiction and Poetry
THE COLOR OF ELK, fiction, Big Sky Journal, Autumn 2007
TIME, short fiction, Big Sky Journal, Bozeman, MT, cover feature Winter 2004
THE BIG DRY, short fiction, Big Sky Journal, Bozeman, MT Winter 2003
1973, short fiction, Thema Magazine, Thema Literary Society, Metarie, LA fall 2003
UNVANQUISHED, short fiction, Thema Magazine, Thema Literary Society, Metarie, LA summer 2003, ISSN 1041-4851 Nominated for the 2004 Pushcart Prize
PRISONERS OF FLIGHT, short fiction, Thema Magazine, Thema Literary Society, Metairie, LA, Autumn 1999. Nominated for the 2000 Pushcart Prize.
AGE, fiction, Inkwell Magazine, Manhattenville College, Purchase, NY May 2000
HI-LINE, fiction, spring 2003, Thema Magazine
WHISTLE, fiction, Zone 3 Literary Magazine, spring 2003
PLUME, prose poetry, The School of Southern Literature, DeadMule.com 2001
BRAKEMAN, fiction, Montana Crossroads Magazine, Livingston, MT 1997
SPRINGSPRUNG, Ariel XVII, Poetry Anthology of Triton College, Chicago, IL National winner, Salute to the Arts Poetry Competition, 1999
FALLEN LEAVES, Tributary Magazine, poetry, Bozeman, MT December 1998



Awards, Honors, and Recognitions
Finalist for HIGH PLAINS BOOK OF THE YEAR, 2007, established to recognize regional authors whose literary works examine and reflect life on the High Plains, including the states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.
UNVANQUISHED, short fiction, Thema Magazine, Thema Literary Society, Metarie, summer 2003, ISSN 1041-4851 Nominated for the 2004 Pushcart Prize
PRISONERS OF FLIGHT, short fiction, Thema Magazine, Thema Literary Society, Metairie, LA, Autumn 1999. Nominated for the 2000 Pushcart Prize.
SPRINGSPRUNG, Ariel XVII, Poetry Anthology of Triton College, Chicago, IL National winner, Salute to the Arts Poetry Competition, 1999

Research Activity Annual trips to Iceland to assess the horsemanship and husbandry practices responsible for the healthiest herd of horses in the world. The benefits and adverse effects of vaccination in exported Icelandic horses.
Philosophy and practice of management over medicine.
Natural approaches to equine health
Equine welfare pertaining to training practices (the basis of natural horsemanship)

Licensure
Currently licensed to practice veterinary medicine in the following states: New York, Washington, Montana
Licensed by the New York Board of Racing and Wagering as a thoroughbred veterinarian
Licensed by the Department of Agriculture and APHIS to perform federal regulatory assignments
Deputy State Veterinarian—Montana Department of Livestock
Consulting Consultant-sustainable health management of a 6000 mothercow sustainable native-grassland ranching operation in Central and Eastern Montana (71 Ranch).
Prepurchase examinations and consultations for clients at Saratoga Fasig-Tipton Thoroughbred Yearling Sales, Saratoga Springs, NY.
Sustainable alternatives for horse and livestock management.

Animal
Welfare

Specialist representing the horse and other species in regard to training, research, stabling, racing, and other uses, helping to promote human understanding of animal psychology.
Professional Development Exploration of bioethics, difficulties encountered teaching ethics with animals, man’s ethical responsibility to domestic animals, especially training practices for horses.
Exploration of the evolution, biology, and behavior of the horse and its application to the training and teaching of equids.
Developing an understanding of natural approaches to equine health.
Continued publication of novels, poetry, and non-fiction books

Vision To develop the finest academic horsemanship program in America

Insight into the reduction of the incidence of Eczema in the exported Icelandic Horse

Sid Gustafson DVM, friend of the Icelandic Horse. Presented for medical debate, discussion, preventive health guideline development, and research consideration at Landsmót 2008 with the goal of reducing the incidence of Eksem in exported Icelandic horses.

It is apparent that the Immunology of the Icelandic Horse differs to some degree from that of other breeds of horses, and that exported horses suffer from a high incidence of immune mediated eczema. Reports range from 20% to as high as 50%, with great variations in severity and few reports of remission once the condition is expressed. Principles of disease prevention appropriate for other breeds may not be appropriate for the exported Icelandic Horse.
It is important to consider that unvaccinated Icelandic Horses do not develop eczema, as all the horses in Iceland attest. In addition, there are no reported cases of an unvaccinated exported Icelandic Horses succumbing to eczema. Horses affected with eczema have a history of repeated vaccinations with a wide variety of antigens and adjuvents. The evidence for vaccination as a contributing, causal factor for the development eczema is significant, if not overwhelming. Research could further corroborate or refute this obvious iatrogenic immuno-pathophysiologic pathway.
Eczema develops an average of five years after export, supporting the vaccinosis pathogenesis. Nearly all, if not all, affected horses have by this time received multiple, annual and semi-annual vaccinations for a wide and expanding variety of diseases. Diseases routinely and repeatedly vaccinated against include Eastern, Western, and Venezuelan encephalitis, tetanus, influenza (multiple strains), rhinopneumonitis (multiple strains), strangles, West Nile disease, rabies, Potomac Horse Fever, and many, many others, in various combinations with various adjuvents, most all by intramuscular injection, and often administered altogether at once--a bit much for an Icelandic Horse to sustain immunological health in my experience and observation.
No medical issue is simple, and many factors contribute to eczema, vaccination just being one of them. Nonetheless, if vaccination is part of the cause, as it appears to be, and vaccination offers no other overwhelming contributions to horse health and wellness, which appears to be the case, then vaccination in the exported Icelandic should be reserved for special cases and situations, rather than being embraced as the norm of preventive health programs. Unfortunately, as vaccination becomes more prevalent, so does eczema.
Contributing evidence suggests that episodes of dermatitis are aggravated by vaccination. Eczema lesions often develop at or near the vaccination sites, and frequently relapses of the condition occur following vaccination. Certain vaccines are more inciting and immune-alienating than others, and are therefore less appropriate to utilize. Research needs to be conducted to evaluate specific vaccines and their relation to eksem.
Based on this information, an epidemiologist must assume that immunizations conducted on Icelandics using certain vaccines, dosages, and frequencies are more likely to cause health problems than prevent them. In light of this, the risk benefit analysis of vaccination in exported Icelandic Horses needs to be revisited and reconsidered.
Fortunately, Icelandic Horses come with ready-made resistance to infectious disease. When infectious pyrexia swept through Icelandic Horse herds causing 100% morbidity, mortality in the population was statistically insignificant. Less than 10 horses died, all with aggravating or pre-existing complications. In this epidemic, a reflection of the Icelandic Horse's constitution and innate immunity was demonstrated. Icelandic horses proved to be resistant and resilient to unknown infectious disease.
The application of continental veterinary vaccination practices may not benefit Icelandics. Icelandics have proven to be more sensitive than continental breeds to untoward side-effects of vaccination. Risk must be carefully assessed before vaccination programs are instituted in Icelandic Horses. Despite a lack of disease threat and the knowledge that Icelandics are prone to immune-mediated disease, intense vaccination continues despite evidence of beneficial results.
The effective treatments for eczema indicate that the condition is vaccinosis associated.

So--

Should Icelandics not be vaccinated at all, ever? No.

But vaccination should be carefully considered. Protocols should be extremely conservative in regard to frequency and dosage. Intranasal IgA vaccines are unlikely to contribute to the development of eczema, and can be effectively and appropriately administered to prevent respiratory disease. When using injectable vaccines, it is important to discern that a single vaccination is one thing, and that subsequent vaccinations are a different kettle of fish, immunologically speaking. The terms hypersensitivity and immune-mediated accurately describe eczema of the Icelandic Horse, and special care and consideration regarding the manipulation of the Icelandic Horses's immunity are in order, here.
Insect bites and the saliva of the female gnat obviously play a huge role in the pathogenesis, but they do not play the only role, and many cases of eczema appear to occur in the absence of insects, while many horses remain healthy in the presence of those insects. There is empirical, anecdotal, and scientific evidence that immunological manipulation by vaccination plays an equal, if not predisposing role, in the development and susceptibility to eczema. Genetics is of course crucial, and obviously the Icelandic Horse genome plays a role in the pathogenesis, there is no doubt. The entire herd appears sensitive, some lines perhaps moreso than others, as is the case with many diseases. Identification of those lines is welcome.
In the meantime, I believe it would be wise to consider that Icelandics can be kept optimally healthy without any vaccinations at all, as I know this to be the case, outside Iceland as within, and that reduced vaccination protocols have the potential to reduce the incidence and severity of eczema.


Unvaccinated horses do not develop eczema. If you do not want your Icelandic horses to develop eczema take care to not vaccinate them inappropriately. Preventive health programs that focus beyond vaccination are much preferred to those that rely on vaccination. Proper nutrition, healthy environments, and mental and physical enrichment are more important to health and disease resistance than pharmaceutical interventions and immune system manipulation of an unknown entity. Develop creative strategies to maintain Icelandic Horse health. Emulate Icelandic husbandry practices. Use vaccines cautiously, if at all. Nurture the constitution and health of your Icelandic horse using appropriate natural approaches.

Sid Gustafson DVM
Assistant Professor of Equine Studies
University of Montana-Western
Natural Horsemanship Program Liaison
406-683-7334
swgustafson@​yahoo.com

Montana Western Professor Featured at Dances With Words
Monday, March 19 2007

The University of Montana Western English department is sponsoring a series of readings of area writers and poets during the 2007 Spring Semester titled “Dances With Words.”

The third reading features Sid Gustafson, Bozeman author and University of Montana Western professor of Equine Sciences, Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 7:30 p.m. in The Cup, located on the lower level of the Swysgood Technology Center.

Gustafson will be reading from his novel “Horses They Rode.” “Horses They Rode” is a dramatic story of love, family, and changing cultures.

“Gustafson has the rare ability to take you from your seat and place you directly in his novel,” said Justin Easter of the Montana Quarterly. “He accomplishes this in “Horses They Rode” not with the all-too-common literary tactics we are used to, but through the use of fascinating imagery. While giving the reader familiar points in Montana to use as reference, Gustafson brings his readers into a different countryside than the one we see from our windows. If you are interested in opening a book that will captivate your imagination while encouraging introspection, you need not look further than “Horses They Rode.” You may put this novel down wondering about the spirit of the mountains, the relationships you have with people around you, or even the relationship you have with yourself. This is, of course, not surprising when you realize Gustafson is using his own experiences to masterfully shape his characters. Expect to read one of the finer stories related to quickly dissipating Montana culture, and one of the most impressive novels written by a Montana author this year. Hold on to your emotions, because there will most likely be an instant when Gustafson is able to open your mind in a way that is truly fascinating.”
Gustafson is a practicing veterinarian and also the author of the popular guidebook, “First Aid for the Active Dog”. He is an authority on horses and was quoted in a New York Time’s story on Barbaro, the injured racehorse.