It's off to the race track for the not-so-ready-to-bet country vet

For the better part of 20 years, I worked on the horses that required veterinary care at the local race track. It was a real change of pace from country practice and I never knew what kind of a situation the next day would bring.  

Since most of the horses at the meet were green two-year-olds that had never seen a starting gate or been off the farm, minor injuries and viral upper respiratory infections were quite common. 

 It was not unusual to have a respiratory disease epidemic a few weeks after the meet started. The horses that had been in training all spring would then get sick just before they were to race. The real race would be to try to get them well in time to run.

 Two-year-olds that were being fitted up to run would commonly come up with “bucked shins,” an inflammatory condition in the growth membrane over the shinbones of the front legs. This could easily keep them from competing during the entire race meet. So, trainers naturally tried any remedy that held the promise of a quick return to soundness.

One of the favorite treatments was the use of a “blister” (the practice of rubbing on a chemical that created inflammation at the site).  This in turn, increased circulation in the area and therefore could enhance the healing of the lesion.  

Perhaps, one of the greatest benefits of the procedure, however, was to enforce a rest period during which the horse could heal.  

An old race-track veteran had told me years before, “It does just as much good if you put it where the saddle goes.”

 One race day, I passed a gravel-voiced little Irishman whose horse I had worked on a few weeks before.  I asked how the horse was doing. “He races today, Doc,” he said.  “You had better bet your clinic on him.”

 But, when the horse came in fourth, the Irishman was nowhere to be found.

(Dr. Fred Conkel is veterinarian of Westgate Clinic in Libby.)