Approach to the poor performance

At the time of presentation to a veterinarian ‘poor performance’ in the horse is based solely on owner, trainer or rider perception. By taking a thorough history the veterinarian should begin to allocate the cause of poor performance to one of the following: (1) the horse is neither genotypically nor phenotypically capable of meeting expectations, (2) ‘extrinsic factors’ are precluding the horse from meeting expectation, (3) the horse has (subclinical) disease of one or more organ systems vital to athletic endeavour. The following considers these 3 options more closely. (1) Prior targeted examination of performance related factors (e.g. cardiac measurements) in the unproven horse are helpful in determining what could be expected but give no guarantee of talent, ability or willingness to perform. A horse’s records of past performance provide a reliable indicator of whether or not current performance expectations are realistic or not ...