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I found this article by Kieran Nicholson from The Denver Post quite interesting. I hope that you do too! Stem-cell research by Colorado State University staffers using bone marrow from horses to heal joint injuries on the same animal is making strides, and researchers have great hope that the project will lead to human medical applications. A team with CSU’s Equine Orthopaedic Research Center reports that adding stem-cell therapy to traditional arthroscopic surgery on horses has significantly increased success rates. Horses that had follow-up, stem-cell treatment were twice as likely to return to normal activity as those that did not, said David Frisbie, an associate professor of equine surgery with CSU and part of the research team. “We’ve doubled it, conservatively,” in treating cartilage damage in the knee, Frisbie said. The team had results of its work published last year in the journal Veterinary Surgery. Some lesions in the meniscus of horses that could not be treated by surgery have been successfully mended using stem cells alone. “Western performance horses, reining and cutting horses, and barrel horses are very prone to meniscal injuries,” Frisbie said. Beyond meniscus damage, researchers also have focused on tendon lesions in the lower leg, which typically strike race horses. Horses that suffered a tendon lesion had about a 66 percent chance of reinjury after surgery. Add stem-cell treatment and the reinjury rate drops to 21 percent, Frisbie said. “It beats the old standards of therapies,” which included cortisone and use of other steroids, Frisbie said. Part of the newer, promising process

A friend if mine sent this article to me and I thought you might find it interesting. I hope you see something new from your horse’s perspective. Linda P Article by: Troy Griffith in Horse Health + Care Our horses see the world very differently from us in many ways. These differences in vision, due to the structure and placement of their eyes, have a profound influence on how they react to visual stimuli and should be thoughtfully considered in all aspects of horsemanship. The differences include: field of view, color perception, light adjustment, motion detection, acuity and much more. In this article I hope to detail some of the nuances of horse vision and how they relate to training, riding and caring for our equine partners. Field of view Most zoologists will tell you that the horse’s eye is the largest of all land mammals. Because of their size and how the eyes are set, the animal has nearly a 360° field of view. The horse cannot see directly in front for a short distance, nor directly behind, unless they move their head. This is why we are all taught never to approach a new horse from either of these directions and to always make them aware of our location as we pass behind them. It is important to note that even though the horse can see in nearly a complete circle, only about 20% of that vision is binocular and the remaining 80% is monocular vision. This means that most of the field of