ADVERTISEMENT
Your senior horse might have chronic laminitis even though he’s not lame, obese, or diagnosed with pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID, also known as equine Cushing’s disease). A study of sound older horses has revealed that subclinical laminitis—coffin bone rotation before the horse becomes lame—can’t be accurately predicted by body condition, cresty neck scores, or the hormonal biomarker that points to PPID.
Advanced age alone could mean “chronic changes within the hoof capsule have surreptitiously developed without overt signs,” said Nathalie Fouché, DVM, clinician at the Swiss Institute of Equine Medicine (ISME) at the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Bern in Switzerland.