Quote:
Originally Posted by Princess Doreen
Just asking a question. Don't jump down my throat.
Is a soft tissue injury really a career ending injury?
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There are amazing things going on with soft tissue healing (tendons) currently in the equine veterinary world: in vitro tenocytes (growing new tendon tissue in a petri dish to transfer into tendons), stem cell therapy (bone marrow derived), ACell (porcine urinary bladder scaffolding for tissue repair), platelet-rich plasma, etc. combined with shockwave therapy, etc.
We just had an all-day seminar on soft-tissue injury repair, "state of the art" review, during Rolex at the Horse Park, and it was attended by about 50 vets. And some human docs doing research on the same at UKY spoke. The vet world is far ahead of the human world as far as using these therapies in actual clinical cases, and it's going to change the way horses are treated forever. Extremely exciting and promising.
That said, that's a shame about this horse, I was looking forward to him returning to racing.
Unfortunately, the Thoroughbred flat racer remains the elusive goal for full return to 100% previous function, although this has been repeatedly achieved in jumpers, eventers, dressage and even Standardbreds.
But certainly, alot can currently be done to treat a horse so that it can have a successful new career off-track, and not be limited to "pasture sound" or a well-managed stud career.