NEWS NOTES

GI Surgery May Not Mean Lower Sales Price or Performance

A new study suggests that young Thoroughbreds that require surgery for a large colon displacement do not necessarily suffer in terms of sales price or racing performance compared with their maternal siblings.

Researchers from the University of Georgia, Athens, wanted to know if having a large colon displacement corrected by surgery affected the sales price or racing performance of the animal, which could decrease the return on the owner’s investment.

They retrospectively looked at the medical records of 110 horses that received surgery for large colon displacement and compared them with the sales and racing records of 299 maternal siblings

that did not. The horses were younger than 2 years old and the surgeries occurred between 1998 and 2016.

The researchers found no significant difference in the median sales price between the 2 groups. There was also no significant difference in the number of starts during the 2-to-4-year period that was reviewed. However, horses that underwent surgery had a lower number of starts in the 2-year-old year compared with their siblings (1 start vs. 2.32 starts; P<0.001).

“With this information, it will be easier to make informed decisions to take young horses to surgery,” the researchers wrote.

For more information:

Edwards VL, Loux S, Embertson R. Sales and race performance of juvenile Thoroughbreds with surgically corrected large colon displacements. Equine Vet J. 2022 Dec 26.https://doi.org/10.1111/evj.13914 https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/evj.13914