Diligent care can minimize blemishes that may otherwise detract from sales appearance

by Cynthia McFarland

True, there is no such thing as a perfect horse. Yet successful sales consignors always strive to present a horse in a condition as close to perfect as possible.

Young Thoroughbreds, however, do not always stay out of trouble, and when accidents or injuries happen, the goal is to treat the resulting wound so that it heals quickly and with minimal scarring. Some injuries do leave a blemish, and in that case, it is up to the buyer to decide if it is merely cosmetic or something more serious.

We spoke with some respected consignors and buyers to find out their methods for treating wounds on sales horses, and on avoiding injuries in the first place. We also discovered that it takes more than a blemish to deter real horsemen from purchasing a promising youngster.

Veterinary input

Prompt attention and proper first aid go a long way toward getting an injury on the right track for healing.

"The initial discovery of a wound and how you clean it is very important," said Kevin Harbin, D.V.M., whose mobile equine practice is based in the Ocala area.

"Ideally, you want to get to the wound as quickly as possible. If it's a clean wound and you get to it before any contracture of the skin occurs, which usually takes place within a matter of hours, this gives you the best opportunity for healing with the least amount of scarring."

The location of the wound and its shape also play a role, Harbin said.

"If the wound has a flap, the skin tends to contract more quickly. For a flap wound on a leg, I always tell the client to hose the leg with cold water until I get there. This keeps swelling down and tends to get the debris out and any blood clots that might have formed."

After hosing, the wound is thoroughly cleaned with disinfectant and then bandaged to keep it clean.

For initial cleansing of a wound, Harbin uses gauze and alternates between Betadine surgical scrub and alcohol. (Although alcohol is good for this initial cleansing, it should not be used on a daily basis because it tends to be too drying.) If the wound is deep or has a good deal of contamination, clean, running tap water may be helpful to get debris out, rather than just irrigating with a saline solution.

Antibiotic ointments and Furazon are often useful as the wound heals.

"The body wants to heal, especially on a young horse," Harbin said. "The main thing is to keep a wound clean, prevent infection, and maintain good circulation. Time is your friend. If you have enough time, the wound will heal with minimal scarring. Even a bad-looking wound can heal up without being very evident if it's kept very clean."

To suture or not

How a wound heals depends more on the nature of the wound, how quickly it was treated, if the wound was contaminated, and how much circulation was compromised to the area, rather than if the wound was sutured or not, Harbin pointed out.

"You can heal almost any wound without sutures," he said. "Suturing can sometimes give you a head start on healing, but however [the wound] looks when you first suture it is not how it's going to stay. You're still likely to have to trim dead skin and possibly re-suture, or go ahead and treat it as an open wound."

Harbin has used a collagen powder product (hyCure) successfully on open wounds with a large raw area to encourage the skin to grow back with minimal scarring.

Antibiotics are usually given when a horse has a wound because there is always some degree of contamination, Harbin added. "This is probably more important if you close the wound with sutures. It's also important to give an anti-inflammatory, such as Bute [phenylbutazone] or steroids, in moderation, because in some cases this can prevent some of the pain and itching that will cause a horse to self-mutilate as he's healing."

Cosmetic issues

As yearling sales manager for Gainesway, Brian Graves recruits and purchases select yearlings for Gainesway consignments and manages them prior to sale. However, not all yearlings raised at the Lexington operation will be sent through the sales ring; about 20% are targeted directly for the races.

"At Gainesway, general care for a sales yearling and a race yearling are the same, but we're a little more aggressive about cosmetic issues if the horse is going to be sold," said Graves. "We spend a little more time on issues that won't affect a horse's ability to race on a sales yearling, just because we want them to be as spotless as possible. You don't want to see any scars, even if they don't affect how the horse races. It's a matter of pride and preparation in trying to make the horse as perfect as possible. We want it to be that what you see is what you get."

Graves uses various products and treatment methods, depending on the specific injury.

"The main thing with any cut or scarring issue is managing the flesh as it grows in," he said. "I generally use Furazon or a topical wound dressing under a bandage until the flesh has filled in. At that point, we may use scarlet oil or caustic powder. It's just a matter of making the scar tissue fill in flat, level, and consistent."

When he is shopping for horses at sales, Graves said there are few blemishes he cannot live with, and those depend greatly on the horse.

"In general, the higher the quality of the horse, the less the blemish matters to me," he explained. "I think blemishes are very unimportant on a high-quality horse, while they might be more meaningful on a very average horse. If you lead a beautiful horse out, and he has a good pedigree and looks like a racehorse, if he has a splint, people are less likely to care about it than they would on an average horse."

Graves will ask the consignor about a particular blemish and always feels it himself to determine if it is active or old. If he likes a horse but has any concerns that a blemish might cause problems later, he will have the horse checked by a specialist and consider that person's findings before purchasing the horse. For example, a knot on a tendon most likely would be cause for an ultrasound examination of the area.

Monitor wounds closely

"With horses that are going to sales, you do a little more aggressive wound care than with a pony horse or a broodmare," said Kip Elser, who sells an average of 50 to 60 two-year-olds per year. His Kirkwood Stables in Camden, South Carolina, is his breaking, training, and sales prep operation.

Whether the wound requires stitching or not, Elser said it is important to be sure that it is kept clean and that the edges are together. When an injury does require sutures, Elser likes to use a local veterinarian who also has worked on small animals in his practice. "His stitching work is neat and tight; he's the first person I call in those situations.

"In some cases we use a burn dressing that will help heal with less scarring," he said. "The biggest thing is to monitor the progress of the healing. It's not complicated; you just have to pay attention and keep after it."

When he is yearling shopping, Elser is not looking for the nonexistent perfect horse.

"Lumps and bumps and scars away from joints and tendons are basically of no consequence," he said. "Probably one injury we see the most are hind tendon scars. You can get in bad trouble if you assume it's only a scar, but if you like the horse and spend a little more time to ultrasound in addition to X-raying, you'll know if it's something to worry about or not."

When it comes to injuries and blemishes of the eye, Elser said it is difficult to have a hard and fast rule about what is acceptable and what is not. "You want the horse to be able to see well, so it depends on how recent and how severe the injury.

"There are plenty of things that will stop me [from buying a horse], but it's all a matter of degree," Elser said. "There's no one single defect or injury that we haven't lived with at one time or another. We've seen just about everything, and with nearly every injury, I can tell you a horse that ran through it at one time."

Elser always likes to be upfront with a potential buyer if the horse has any blemishes or past injuries. "I need to be able to look him in the eye and say, 'This horse has had this blemish since I bought him or since X amount of time, and it hasn't changed, and it doesn't bother him.' If something has happened, I point it out and let the buyer look at it and make their mind up."

Do not hide it

When an injury does happen, Murray Smith's main concern is swelling and scarring.

Her Murray Smith Training Stables is based in Ocala, and she consigns at all major United States two-year-old sales. Smith gained nationwide attention in 2001 when Monarchos, a colt she pinhooked as a yearling and sold as a juvenile, captured the Kentucky Derby (G1).

"You don't want to have white hairs," Smith said. "When we stand them up at the sales, it's like you're at a horse show. Most injuries don't bother their performance, but it's a cosmetic blemish. Good horsemen won't let this bother them."

Depending on the wound, Smith will use different antibiotics and has also found a variety of helpful products.

"We use Xeroform, a medicated gauze that sticks right to the injury and helps with healing," she said. "It can be put over sutures. I also use Biozide Gel (a providone-iodine product), and I love silver sulfadene, a product that is used on burn patients and limits scarring."

Other useful products in Smith's tack box include Cowboy Magic Krudbuster, "which really works for ringworm and the grunge they can get on their hind legs," Smith said, and Desitin ointment, which can be found in the baby section of any drugstore. "I put it on heels and pasterns to prevent dew poisoning, which can really make their legs blow up," she said.

As a buyer, Smith often considers herself a bargain shopper, and she said she has bought many horses with scars and was able to get them at a discount as yearlings.

"This is because yearling sales are more of a beauty show," she said. "You're judging them on how they look. With two-year-olds, it's a performance sale."

There are some deal breakers in Smith's book. "The biggest no-no is anything that affects the tendons or a sesamoid injury. These are kind of hard to overcome. Any injury to a sesamoid is not good. To me, as long as it's an external blemish, I'm fine with it. Internal blemishes are what hurt you. It's the ones you can't see that hurt you."

Anything that impairs the horse's vision 40% or more also is something Smith will not forgive when shopping.

As a seller, Smith does not believe in covering up scars or injuries. Sometimes an injury happens at the sale or just before. In this case, she will treat the wound and keep it clean, but she avoids applying blue lotion or yellow Furazon spray that draws attention. "Let people see the wound and that it's being cared for," she said. "Don't try to hide it or cover it up."

Some consignors will dye white hairs on a horse to keep potential buyers from noticing an old injury or blemish, but Smith does not agree with this.

"There's no reason to hide white hairs. Actually, with a tendon you'd almost rather have white hairs to prove it was a scar and not a bump on the tendon.

"The last thing you want is to buy a horse and get him home and find out something was hidden," Smith said. "It'd be like if you married a man with a great head of hair, and then after the honeymoon you found out it was a toupee and he's actually bald. It doesn't change his personality or anything else, but it's not what you thought you were getting."

Cynthia McFarland is a freelance writer based in Fairfield, Florida.