Page 8 - The Game January 2006

8 The Game, January 2006 Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper
LONG DISTANCE SHIPPING EQUALS SERIOUS STRESS
Imagine being one of the first horses being shipped to the New World with Christopher Columbus. Trapped in a gloomy standing stall far below decks for months at a time, you'd breathe stale air and stand in ever-deepening layers of soiled bedding. Thirst would be your constant companion, because fresh water had to be rationed on long ocean voyages. As the ship groaned and swayed and rolled, you'd tug at your tie-rope and yearn desperately for a chance to stretch your legs -- or even just turn around. Small wonder that more than half of the horses who left Europe in those early trans-Atlantic crossings never lived to set foot in the Americas!
Thankfully, today's horse trailers offer somewhat more hospitable conditions than the hold of a 16th century sailing vessel. Still, travelling remains a significant source of stress for horses. Most horses learn to cope with the difficulties of short trips, but long-distance shipping can induce a number of adverse behavioural and physiological effects, including elevations in heart rate, loss of appetite, fluid and electrolyte imbalances, weight loss, coughing, increased levels of plasma cortisol (a hormone which is an indicator of stress), diarrhea, colic, rhabdomyolysis (tying up), embryonic death in pregnant mares, and respiratory infections commonly known as "shipping fever".
Just how seriously horses are stressed when confined to a van, trailer, or airplane is something we're just beginning to appreciate -- thanks in large part to data generated by the 1999 inaugural meeting
of the International Workshop on Equine Transport, which brought together many of the world's leading experts on the intricacies of equine long-distance travel. The Workshop, which was assembled largely to address the potential problems involved with shipping horses to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, served to identify many of the specific causes of shipping stress, and provided some management solutions to help horses cope.
Horses get stressed during shipping due to a number of factors: the unnatural sense of confinement, the noise and vibration of a moving vehicle, the challenges of balancing on uphill and downhill slopes and during acceleration and deceleration (not to mention sudden stops and turns), the stale air and high internal temperature of most closed trailers, the presence of exhaust gases like carbon monoxide, and the high concentrations of dust and moulds from manure, urine, bedding, and a haynet hung right at nose level. On long trips, dehydration is also a very real factor, and so is fatigue.
One of the biggest problems with most horse trailers is that the ventilation is very poor. Then we compound the problem by tying our horses' heads up short so that they can't squabble with their neighbours. Unfortunately, this means that they can't lower their heads to naturally drain and clear their respiratory passages of the dust, mucus, and gunk accumulated by breathing stale air and hay particulates. Studies show that horses confined with their heads elevated for 24 hours develop an accumulation of thick airway secretions
and increased
numbers of bacte-
ria in the lower
respiratory tract.
The build-up of
bacteria deep in
the lungs is often responsible for the onset of "shipping fever" -- a catch-all term for any number of respiratory diseases which may develop within 48 hours or so of long- distance transport.
The immune system can become depressed by the stresses of long-distance shipping, too. One Japanese study of young Thoroughbreds showed that during or immediately after a 38-hour, 1700 km journey, 43% of the horses developed a fever. Another study which examined horses shipped for 12 hours indicated not only that normal immunity was compromised, but that the immune system didn't bounce back for at least 36 hours after the journey.
There's still much more we don't know about the effects of shipping stress on horses. For example, no-one has yet measured the biological effects of the vibration and jolting of a vehicle on a horse's limbs, or quantified the anecdotal evidence that many horses seem less stressed when allowed to stand backwards on a trailer. But we do have some idea of how to minimize the adverse effects of shipping. Here are a few tips:
• Try to keep the total travel time under 12 hours (if you have further to go than that, plan to make overnight stops). This should reduce the likelihood that your horses will develop transport-related fever
or respiratory disease.
• If possible, pull over every three to
four hours, for at least 20 minutes or so. Take the opportunity to offer water, both with and without electrolytes.
• Clean the trailer thoroughly before and after each use. Don't leave manure or old hay in there to allow dust and moulds to contaminate the environment.
• If you can, leave your horse's head untied. On short trips, skip the haynet -- the particles the horses will breathe in by having it hang in front of their faces may outweigh its amusement value.
• Ensure some airflow in your trailer by opening windows and vents (or, on a two-horse trailer, by leaving the upper back doors open). Remember that horses are more cold-tolerant than we are.
• Vaccinate your horses against respiratory disease at least two weeks before you do any long-distance trailering.
• Don't ship any horse whom you suspect is already harbouring a respiratory infection. The stress to his immune system may be enough to send the disease raging out of control, resulting in pneumonia or pleurisy (a life-threatening infection of the pleura surrounding the lungs).
• After any long-distance trip, give your horse a few days to recover before you resume normal work. Don't expect him to unload and immediately give 100%.
Equine Health
by Karen Briggs
Dave Landry Photo
"Next year they'll become stars" is Sinelli's hope
By Harlan Abbey
Can you make a living with a two horse stable John Sanelli was asked recently?
"No, you can't," the long-time race tracker admitted, "I'm just trying to grind away and add to my pension. We keep them as long as they don't cost us money."
Sanelli, who is "of retirement age," has been a horse-lover since he can remember: "I always loved riding and had a farm with a couple of riding horses. I just enjoyed being around horses. Then a friend and I went to a Thoroughbred sale and bought Playboy Peter for $500 in 1968. He never broke his maiden. Then we started raising our own runners and did pretty well. At one time I had five or six horses at the track (he's been a licensed trainer since 1975) and my wife Louise looked after the mares and foals."
Sanelli, who has been at the Fort Erie Racetrack for several seasons, said his best runner was a homebred filly, Strategic Rhythm: "She won her first start, at age three, at Greenwood and won about $140,000 in allowance races. She
was claimed away for $25,000. Her dam had won four races for us and this was her first foal."
The Sanellis haven't been in the breeding end of racing for 15 or 20 years but John admits "I'm partial to fillies, even with their 'in season' problems. When it comes to making a decision on whether or not to keep a horse over the winter for the following season, it isn't always based on what the horse has done already, but what he might do in the future.
"Several of ours have improved, especially when they age from three to four, and especially the fillies. With them, I think it's more of a mental maturation than physical changes. It's sort of a 'change of life.'"
Sanelli currently has two horses in his stable, Majestic Deputy and Serendipity Vicky.
Majestic Deputy, a chestnut with a star, was claimed for $5,000 at Woodbine. Only a four-year-old, but with only nine lifetime starts, the gelding has his physical problems, Sanelli said, adding: "We like to put a lot of miles under them, and do lots of jogging before we ask for any speed. Deputy was
fourth in his first start this year, then won a sprint and then a mile and 70 yard route, coming from off the pace for jockey Mike Quong."
The filly has been another story: "We bought her at a farm; I just liked her looks. But she's been very nervous at the track and hasn't raced too well at the $12,500 level so we'll probably drop her down. With her it's mostly mental prob- lems, and we're hopeful for the future."
John and Louise Sanelli have two children. Daughter Lynn was involved in Pony Club but later lost interest and now lives in California. Their son Ray is an exercise rider who recently moved his tack to Fort Erie after breaking yearlings for Gardiner Farms and riding at Woodbine.
"This is what Louise and I enjoy and we plan to keep on doing it," Sanelli said. "I never want to retire fully. We own both of our horses, we take it easy, there's no pressure, so we just enjoy the sport. As long as they're running good, we live on the hope that the next year they'll become stars. And if they don't, we'll sell them as riding horses.
"I can't say that any of the horses we've bred and raced is or was a favorite. I think I liked them all the same and treated them all the same. You can always find something to like about a horse."
He also admitted that he was a bit hesitant about being interviewed for a newspaper story, recalling:
"Some years ago I was doing pretty good and was interviewed for a story. That got some attention and the other trainers took notice -- and claimed most of my stable away!"
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