Study: Four Risk Factors For Musculoskeletal Injuries In Racehorses Identified Sponsored by:
Musculoskeletal injuries continue to plague Thoroughbred racehorses around the world, despite ongoing research into their causes. Many injuries occur during training and are non-fatal, though many tracks report only fatal race-day injuries.
Drs. Kylie L. Crawford, Anna Finnane, Clive Phillips, Ristan Greer, Solomon Woldeyohannes, Nigel Perkins, Lisa Kidd and Benjamin Ahern sought to determine the risk factors for musculoskeletal injuries and see if these factors were different for 2-year-old racehorses and older racehorses. The resulting study was recently published in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal Animals.
The team focused their study on Thoroughbreds training in southeast Queensland. The team used injuries reported from training stables over a 56-week study. These injuries were diagnosed by veterinarians and included all types of injury that took place during racing o