Abstract: BACKGROUND: It has been previously shown that professional jockeys suffer high rates of fatal and non-fatal injuries in the pursuit of their occupation. Little is known, however, about differences in injury rates between countries. AIM: To determine the rate of fatal and non-fatal injuries in flat and jump jockeys in France and to compare the injury rates with those in Great Britain and Ireland Method: Prospectively collected injury data on professional jockeys were used as the basis of the analysis. RESULTS: Limb fractures occur four times more often in both flat and jump racing in France than in Great Britain. Similarly dislocations are diagnosed 20 times more often in flat and three times more often in jump racing. This difference is surprising given that French jockeys have fewer falls per ride than their British counterparts in flat racing, although they do have more falls than the British in jump racing. Similarly concussion rates seem to be higher in French jockeys, although there may be a difference in the diagnostic methods used in the different countries. By contrast, soft tissue injuries account for a far smaller percentage of injuries than in Great Britain. CONCLUSION: There are striking differences in injury rates between countries which may be explained in part by a difference in track conditions-for example, harder tracks in France-or different styles of racing--for example, larger fields of horses per race in France.

Abstract: The angular velocities of the hindlimb angles of 14 horses, including 6 Grand Prix dressage horses, 4 horses judged as good at the trot and 4 horses judged as poor, were analysed. The horse material was the same as previously used by Holmstrom (1994) in studies on conformation and trotting gaits in the Swedish Warmblood riding horse. Four consecutive strides of each horse and the corresponding pace were analysed and mean velocity curves (Xh) for each angle were calculated. Before calculation the data were filtered forwards and backwards with a Butterworth third order filter with a cut off frequency of 60 Hz. During the last 60% of the stance phase there were differences between the horses judged as good and poor at the trot in all the analysed hindlimb angles except the femur inclination. The angular velocity in the hock joint, pelvis inclination and hindlimb pendulation was larger in the good horses. The angular velocity of the hindlimb pendulation decreased with collection in the Grand Prix horses. During parts of the stance phase, there was also a gradual decrease in the femur angular velocity from trot at hand to piaffe. In the hock joint, there was no difference in angular velocity between trot at hand and passage during the last 30%. The higher compression of the hock angle and pelvic angle to the horizontal plane probably reflects a higher compression of the whole hindlimb. It probably contributes to the greater springiness in the movements of good young horses and Grand Prix dressage horses. The results from the present study confirmed the importance of storing elastic strain energy for the quality of the dressage horse gaits.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To compare financial returns between pinhooked yearling horses (ie, bought and trained for approximately 5 months with the goal of selling the horse at “2-year-olds in training” sales) that had mild or severe training failure and horses that had planned versus nonplanned training failure. ANIMALS: 40 Thoroughbred pinhooked yearling horses. PROCEDURE: During the period from September 1998 through and April 1999, 20 horses had mild training failure (1 to 11 days lost), and 20 horses had severe training failure (13 to 108 days lost). Horses were assigned to these 2 groups on the basis of frequency distribution (median) of days lost during training. Horses were also categorized on the basis of type of training failure (planned vs nonplanned training failure). The outcome of primary interest was financial return. Median financial returns were compared among groups by use of the Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: Median financial returns for horses that had severe training failure ($1,000) were significantly different, compared with horses that had mild training failure ($24,000). Analysis of results also indicated that median returns were significantly different among horses that had planned training failure (-$2,000; eg, horses with radiographic abnormalities detected during routine prepurchase examinations that required surgical treatment, resulting in days lost during training), compared with horses that did not ($10,000). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Training failure has an economic impact on revenues in pinhooked yearling horses. Lameness, planned training failure, respiratory disease, and ringworm were common and important causes of training failure.

Abstract: The major causes of accidents with cattle, horses, and other grazing animals are: panic due to fear, male dominance aggression, or the maternal aggression of a mother protecting her newborn. Danger is inherent when handling large animals. Understanding their behavior patterns improves safety, but working with animals will never be completely safe. Calm, quiet handling and non-slip flooring are beneficial. Rough handling and excessive use of electric prods increase chances of injury to both people and animals, because fearful animals may jump, kick, or rear. Training animals to voluntarily cooperate with veterinary procedures reduces stress and improves safety. Grazing animals have a herd instinct, and a lone, isolated animal can become agitated. Providing a companion animal helps keep an animal calm.

Abstract: In the local population of kea in Mount Cook Village, New Zealand, some keas open the lids of rubbish bins with their bill to obtain food scraps within. We investigated the extent to which this innovation has spread in the local population, and what factors limit the acquisition of bin opening. Only five males of 36 individually recognised birds were observed to have performed successful bin opening. With one exception there were always other keas present, watching successful bin opening. Seventeen additional individuals were seen to have benefitted from lid opening. Their foraging success was less than that of the bin openers. Social status of bin openers did not differ from scrounging males. Among the individuals that were regularly seen at the site of the bins but were not successful in bin opening, social status and the ratio of feeding directly from open bins correlated with the amount of opening attempts. We conclude that scrounging facilitated certain behavioural aspects of bin opening rather than inhibiting them. The fact that only 9% of opening attempts were successful, and the long period of time required to increase efficiency in lid opening shows that mainly individual experience, and to a lesser extent insight and social learning, play key roles in acquisition of the opening technique. The results indicate that the spread of innovative solutions of challenging mechanical problems in animals may be restricted to only a few individuals.