UC Davis Center for Equine Health

A great big congratulations to our new #classof2021 graduates! Our student employees are essential members of our team and we are especially grateful to these four ladies for all of their hard work and dedication. Selfishly, the best part is that we don't actually have to say goodbye to them yet! Avery and Megan are headed to vet school here at UC Davis and Olivia and Jaritza are both staying on to work at CEH for the next year. We're excited to see where the future takes them! #ucdavisgrad

The UC Davis standing equine positron emission tomography (PET) scanner is officially in use at Golden Gate Fields racetrack in Berkeley! The scanner allows for imaging of a horse’s leg while under mild sedation, eliminating the time, cost, and health risks associated with general anesthesia. In use at the UCDavis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital since March, the instrument has been transported by a team of UC Davis veterinarians and technicians to the equine hospital at Golden Gate Fields once a week for the past month. All four fetlocks of a horse can be imaged in 15 to 30 minutes, and 12 horses can be imaged in one day! The scanner is currently available at the UC Davis veterinary hospital four days a week and one day a week at Golden Gate Fields. https://ceh.vetmed.ucdavis.edu//uc-davis-standing-equine-p

The Western States Horse Expo is back in person and will take place this weekend, June 11 - 13, at Murieta Equestrian Center! Be sure to stop by our booth to pick up copies of our Horse Report publication and learn about the latest advances in equine health. Tickets are available online and at the gate. Visit https://horsexpo.com/ for more information. We hope to see you there!

When you're trying to be cool like the big kids, but this whole eating grass thing is harder than it looks!

Our May #CEHHorseOfTheMonth is Django! Django, a Quarter Horse gelding, is a long-term CEH resident. A former pleasure horse, he was donated in 2000 and has been an integral part of our teaching herd. Django is credited with teaching students from 21 different DVM classes! He’s a quiet, kind, easy going guy and spends most of his time hanging out with his BFF Joey (our January 2021 Horse of the Month). At 30-years-young, Django was recently diagnosed with pituitary pars inter...media dysfunction (PPID), also known as Cushing’s disease. This disease affects hormone production pathways in the brain, specifically from the hypothalamus and pituitary glands. Normally, certain hormones such as adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) are tightly regulated. With PPID, ACTH concentrations are too high. Common clinical signs of PPID include a long, curly hair coat, delayed shedding, loss of muscle, poor immune function, and laminitis. To date, the only significant risk factor is age, with cases typically occurring in horses 15 years of age and older. There is no cure for PPID. Management is achieved through medication (pergolide mesylate), diet, and exercise. Django’s recent ACTH test, which measures the level of ACTH in the blood, was reported as 12.50 picomoles/liter. The normal reference range is 1.93-9.00 picomoles/liter, so Django’s levels are elevated. He also displays some of the characteristic signs of PPID, such as a long, curly hair coat and delayed shedding. After achieving a diagnosis of PPID, Django was started on Prascend, the only FDA-approved pergolide formulation for horses. Ongoing monitoring and retesting is important for horses with PPID, so his ACTH levels will be tested again and his care may be modified accordingly in the future. Other than his recent PPID diagnosis, UC Davis veterinarians gave Django a clean bill of health. With proper management of his PPID, he is expected to continue to live a happy life at CEH. Learn more about PPID, and the related equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) in our equine health database (https://ceh.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/health-topics) and the spring 2020 issue of the Horse Report (https://cehhorsereport.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/issues).