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Home | interview with/ Kevin Keane (You Are Here)

Keeping Performance horses fit

An interview with Kevin Keane...

Kevin Keane is one of the most switched on individuals I have ever met. A specialist equestrian vet (and one who has actually ridden, and is still riding a few jumpers and event horses), Kevin not only keeps up-to-date with the latest developments in performance horse care, he is also able to talk about the subject with enthusiasm and clarity. He is also very much a part of the Phillip Dutton Eventing Team, not only caring for Phillip’s horses at home - but acting as an adviser and helper at the major Three Day Events.
Last time I interviewed Kevin - at the first Rolex four star - many readers contacted us to say how much they enjoyed tuning into his wealth of information, so I jumped at the chance when we were at this year’s Kentucky Rolex**** Three Day Event, to find where Kevin’s thinking has gone in the past four years. Once again, sit back and enjoy a rollercoaster ride along the frontiers of veterinary science…
Have there been any great breakthroughs in getting horses fit?
"People have been getting horses fit for eventing for decades, and for racing, for hundreds of years, and I don’t think a lot has changed over that time. Essentially everyone has their methods for achieving fitness, and for tapering off the gallops as you get closer to the competition. There is some variation from trainer to trainer - some like to build to a crescendo five days before the speed and endurance day, others like to taper off a couple of weeks before the event."
"Essentially the biggest change I see is with new medications available, the management of the animals as they get fit. As we know in a galloping discipline such as eventing, the attrition rate with soft tissue injuries is greater than in pleasure horse riding, or other disciplines. The biggest change in the past four years has been the development and acceptance of nutraceuticals in the feeding management of horses. We are talking about the chondroitin sulphates and the glucosamines which have become extremely popular, and now there are a number of competing products on the market. Cosequin is sponsoring Phillip Dutton, who I work with, and they are one of the leaders in this area of nutraceuticals. We’ve seen this development in the area of joint management of horses. Again we’ve borrowed this advance from human medicine, where the practitioners have the opportunity to talk to their patients - whereas we have to try and interpret what the horse is telling us."
How do you measure the efficacy of the feed additives, is this merely anecdotal, or is there some quantifiable evidence?
"I think that is a very good question, and it hits on the key point - there is no way to quantify, all the reports are strictly anecdotal. One of the things veterinarians would like to know right now is whether some of these therapies, which they are recommending, and the clients are paying for, are in fact, beneficial, because there is no way to measure, other than a moderately subjective evaluation. Has the joint been improved by the use of nutraceuticals or not? We tend to rely on our palpation skills, subjective evaluation, but most importantly it is rare that we would use one isolated therapy in the management of a horse, and when the horse may have a combination of nutraceuticals in the feed, the use of some of the alternative therapies, along with traditional management - for example, cold hydro therapy - then it is difficult to credit or discredit any one treatment as the one that improved the condition of the animal. I would say that every horse that is being treated is receiving more than one treatment in relation to these problems."
Isn’t there some worry about the ability of herbivores to break down these ‘joint foods’ - the suggestion is that they work very well with dogs, and okay with humans but do zilch for horses….
"Basically what we can say at this point that there is some worry as to whether there is the same level of absorption for the chondroitin sulfates and the glucosamines with horses as there is for humans and canines; there is some question about the ability of the horse to absorb these substances."
So you would still be using injectable joint fluid helpers?
"The number one treatment for the management of joint conditions in horses, remains intra-articular therapy when the problem cannot be managed by more conservative means. Fortunately, and this is probably one of best improvements we’ve had in veterinary medicines in the past twenty years, is the gradual move away from strictly corticosteroids towards the use of hyaluronic acids, and PSGAG (polysulfated glycosaminoglycan) which in the United States is marketed as Adequan®. The benefit of those products is primarily that the corticosteroids do not so much allow for the healing of the joint as they do the reduction of inflammation. This is a personal opinion but I feel there is now a much greater acceptance on the part of the entire equine industry of the use of the hyaluronic acids and the PSGAGs - with judicious use of corticosteroids. It depends also on which joint is being treated, some joints are much more accepting of corticosteroids and others are not, and it is difficult to explain in a brief interview, but different joints have different types of stresses and forces, all of which have been scientifically tested."
"Some are subject to more concussive forces, other joints are more one bone sliding across the other, corticosteroids are more acceptable for the second kind of joint. Basically the big change in the last twenty years has been the development of the products that essentially promote a healthier joint - and in the joint that is sore or diseased, the quality of the synovial fluid, which is produced by the cells of the synovial capsule, and they are assisted by these products that are injected into the joint to continue to produce higher quality synovial fluid for a period of time - we think this is probably the best management of arthritis that we currently have."
One Australian vet turned eventing trainer, says that the only thing that stops him injecting Cartrophen every day, is the cost, is this your thinking?
"Interesting… it is a little hard to answer because we haven’t been faced with that, but I agree wholeheartedly that at the present time the only disadvantage to the use of hyaluronic acid or PSGAG is the cost. Every medication and drug has the ability to be used judiciously and at the same time, unfortunately the potential for over-use. These drugs all have half lives which are active for a certain period of time in the animals body or joint but essentially, weekly use of some of these appears to be extremely effective in managing certain forms of athridaties, and in many horses it is actually a synovitis which is a precursor to arthritis, in that we have inflammation of the synovial capsule - that’s when we might have excessive filling and soreness of the joint capsule, often this excessive filling is of synovial fluid of less quality which offers less cushioning in the cartilage surfaces."
What has been added to the repertoire….
"There have been developments in the areas they call alternative therapies - the use of lasers, and the use of therapeutic ultra-sound, now there is a shock wave therapy, which is the latest development in the management of certain muscular skeletal diseases in horses."
"Interestingly there was recently a scientific evaluation of the alternative therapies - massage, acupuncture, cold laser treatment, and therapeutic ultra-sound, and after a fairly scientific examination, ultra-sound came out on top, as being a helpful alternative therapy. I’m not saying that they might not all be helpful at some point, but ultra-sound was the one backed up by scientific data as actually being very valuable in the rehabilitation of soft tissue injuries. I’ve been using treatment more in the management of conditions like suspensory desmitis, or tendonitis."
You were saying the shock wave is the latest…
"We have had limited use of it, so my comments are limited. We have had several selected cases, each time with horses that have had a proximal suspensory desmitis, which is a lesion specifically isolated to the region at the back of the lower knee and upper cannon bone. This condition tends to present the same way but there are varying forms of different lesions that actually make up that same diagnosis. I have had a limited number of cases, but in speaking to my respected colleagues here at Rolex, I think the jury is out - we haven’t had enough time to assess how beneficial we think shock wave is going to be, although we are always hopeful."
Is OCD still a day to day challenge?
"It is, basically a lot of us who have been practising for over 20 years have been saying that we don’t know if we are seeing more cases of osteochondritis dissecans or whether we are better at detecting it. The sophistication of radiographs, either in the field or in a hospital, is now much greater, and we are seeing more OCD, but is it an increase of incidence, or increased ability to detect it, I don’t know. We see an enormous amount of OCD in this country in the Warmblood breed - and again we are battling to determine a cause so we can improve the prevention."
What do you think of the theory advanced by the vet at the Zangersheide stud, Dr Leo de Backer, that OCD is hereditary and that he has detected - and photographed - an OCD gene and that on the basic of 40 years of breeding records at Zangersheide, it is a simple recessive?
"It makes good sense to me, and with everything going on in human medicine trying to find genetic predispositions for a whole range of things from Alzheimer’s to Alcoholism, I have often had that in my mind as an unproven theory about OCD. The unwillingness of many horse owners to cull animals affected by OCD from the breeding is of concern. I wonder if the reason we are seeing so much OCD is that we have essentially allowed this genetic potential to continue by not removing the affected horses from the breeding program. Instead of using them as pleasure animals, they are often bred, and my concern is the weakening of the genetic pool, and I have seen this in the more than twenty years I’ve been practising and that has allowed for say, seven generations of horses in one line. Everyone is concerned with the future of some of these lines of horses, whether they be Thoroughbreds or Warmbloods."
While Phillip Dutton was away you were filling in as stable jockey?
"Basically when Phillip left to go to Australia for the Olympics, he divided the horses up amongst some of his students and some of the older amateur set - of which I am one, to compete. Because I am so tall, I got some of the bigger ones - and had some good runs this Fall, while Phillip was preparing for the very successful run at Sydney."