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Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances

Analysis of the Factors Influencing Fractures in Racehorses
Young Jin Yang and Gil Jae Cho

Abstract: The study population comprised 725 Thoroughbred racehorses with fractures over a 5 year period from 2007 through 2011 at the Korea Racing Authority’s Seoul racecourse. There were 371 racing-related fractures in horses, accounting for the highest proportion of 51.2% of the fractures, followed by training-related (33.4%) and management-related (14.1%) fractures and fractures defined by pre-qualification inspection factors (1.4%). Fatal injury by racing-related fractures had the highest proportion at 32.8% of all the fractures in the study horses. The proportion of leg fractures was as high as 96.6%; this can be explained by considering the skeletal function of horses and the burden of supporting the body weight. In terms of occurrence by age, among factors for racing-induced fractures in horses, fracture occurrence rate in horses of 3-5 years of age exceeded the average rate of 0.60%. In the analysis of fracture occurrence by sex, geldings were the most frequently affected followed by male and then female horses. In the analysis of factors affecting racing-related fractures, fracture occurrence was considerably high in racehorses in which the burdened weight exceeded the average value. For burdened weight over 54 kg, there was a fracture in 219 of the 371 horses with racing-related fractures and this proportion was relatively high at 59%. When the track surface was muddy or sloppy, the fracture occurrence rate was higher than that during fast, good or humid conditions.

How to cite this article
Young Jin Yang and Gil Jae Cho, 2015. Analysis of the Factors Influencing Fractures in Racehorses. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 14: 254-259.

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