Os Phos: The Story of when it's right, and when it's wrong

In this episode, Dr. Brian Nielsen, expert on bone physiology from Michigan State University, weighs in the use of Os Phos in young horses. In this wide ranging talk, we discuss many issues of young horse health, from building better bone and minds, to the importance of pain.  We even get into the nitty gritty of bone biology and osteoporosis in women.  

Transcript

Kris Hiney: welcome to extension horses, Tack box talk series Horse stories with a purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney, with Oklahoma State University. And today we're going to be talking about. Again, some recent research presented at the Equine Science Society. So I'm delighted to have a first time guest for our podcast Dr. Brian Nielsen from Michigan State University. So welcome, Brian.

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Brian D Nielsen: Dr. Hiney, it's great to be with you today. I'm looking forward to this. So to give a again a little background. And we kind of talked about this a bit. in our last podcast with Dr. Alyssa Logan, I did my Ph d. With Dr. Nielsen back a few years. I don't know. It was only 2, 2, 3, 3 years. So But he has been working in the area of

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Kris Hiney: bone physiology and best practices for young horses and young animals. We talked about cows and sheep. I I suggested. You get zibu cattle and hair sheep next time, because that might be fun. I'm taking notes. Yes, very good, because they like to run a lot. So I think that would be very, very fun research. But There was a talk that we actually chatted a bit after the meetings, because I think it's a

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Kris Hiney: an important topic for people to understand and try to wrap their head around. And that is bisphosphanate. So that's not maybe something that most people even know

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Kris Hiney: what the heck it is, but they're commonly used in horses to treat kind of some bone issues.

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Brian D Nielsen: trade name is OS. Phoss. I don't think there's any other version, is there. I think that's the one that's most commonly used that people would be familiar with. There's a few others out there, but that would be the one that it certainly gets a lot of advertising. They they've marketed it, have the late like it is so that would be the one that folks would definitely know.

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Kris Hiney: All right. So I'm gonna hand this part to you. So bis phosphanates, what are they?

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Kris Hiney: And what did they do?

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Brian D Nielsen: There is a a lot of individuals who, if they have a horse that has any type of bone issue then they would tend to go ahead and with their veterinary guidance. we use OS Foss like again, the most commonly of the bisphosphonates, and it's used in the horse industry at this time, and

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Brian D Nielsen: I I should talk a little bit about bone physiology. So bone is constantly changing. It's constantly turning over,  people think of it as this hard tissue that's constant, and it is and the the bone turnover is done primarily, making it as simple as possible

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Brian D Nielsen: by osteo blasts, which build or form bone. Their bone building cells and osteo clasts, which tear it up down or remove bone.

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Brian D Nielsen: And so it's constant. You build bone. You take it away. You build bone. You take it away. It's constantly happening these. bisphosphonates inhibit osteoclast activity. So they inhibit the cells that take bone away. And for those that don't understand bone physiology. That sounds like a great thing. You want to make Skeleton stronger. Why do you want to take it away? You want to make it stronger. You want to build bone.

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Brian D Nielsen: that's really faulty, logic, because part of this bone turnover is repairing damage that's being done. And in order to repair damage. You have to take it away so you can put new bone back in there, and I guess the analogy I like to use is if you're repairing potholes. I live in Michigan, Dr. Hiney, you might remember living in Michigan. We're in pot holes in our road

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Brian D Nielsen: when you want to repair those pot holes. It's important to take away the damage. Stuff the crumbling stuff before you just put stuff on top of it, because otherwise you have a bad spot in the road. Even when you fix the pot holes it's still weakened, but that's where the analogy kind of So by going ahead and inhibiting osteoclass activity. Those of us who really, you know, spent our lives working in bone physiology.

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Brian D Nielsen: It's like this is probably not a good thing. And a few years back. as you may remember, and some of our listeners may remember.

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Brian D Nielsen: there were huge issues that were happening out at Santa Anita racetrack. There was a lot of horses that were breaking down, having catastrophic failures. Very strange injuries, And my opinion is, a lot of people wanted to blame the racetrack surface. And and I was saying, Okay, that's

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Brian D Nielsen: doesn't make any sense. I have been on the racetrack surface at Santa Anita. It's gorgeous. It's wonderful. I used to race horses here at Mount Pleasant Meadows, which is in Michigan, and it was basically a county fair track. And trust me, The surface paled in comparison, and I remember talking to the stewards one year, and then making the observation that they never remember a single horse cover breaking down Ml. Clause. And

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so all these people who wanted to blame the racetrack surface that didn't make sense. But one thing that had changed as people started using

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Brian D Nielsen: these drugs. and and I have preached against cortical steroid use for race horses. for years back in 2008 is when I first got on the

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Brian D Nielsen: my soap box about that, because one of the concerns, and that I'll explain how this ties into the whole of this phosphate is.

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Brian D Nielsen: you cannot repair a joint

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Brian D Nielsen: in 2 or 3 days. What you can do is you can take a joint that has an issue. Wouldn't it be wonderful

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Brian D Nielsen: that has problems inject into our cortical steroids. And with a day or 2 that inflammation goes down. The pain is gone. The horse doesn't know there's a problem somebody riding the horse doesn't know there's a problem. You have not fixed that problem. You have hidden the problem, and I have long preached that I think that's been a major reason why we are seeing horses experience

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Brian D Nielsen: catastrophic breakdowns. and

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Brian D Nielsen: and you can see a major improvement in performance. But again, you're having a horse race with a weakened structure. so let's go ahead and talk a little bit. Regarding the Os Foss, the other concern with it is, there is a belief that there is an analgesic property to it. And so, if you combine the 2 situations where you go ahead and have

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Brian D Nielsen: turn over basically impaired because you're no longer taking away damaged bone. and then you're also making these horses not feel the pain we have set up a perfect recipe

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Brian D Nielsen: for creating bone. That fails because animal doesn't know there's a problem because they can't feel it. And you're not properly repairing it.

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So that's been why we focused the last few years on exploring what's happening with this

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Kris Hiney: and and the final note. And then I'll actually let you talk a little bit. If you have specific questions like I do, you know me? I can. I can keep going forever. But even with human patients, and there are some legitimate reasons to use this drug. but they've seen like jaw fractures in humans. I mean, how often does your jaw just break right, unless you're a fighter. Right?

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Brian D Nielsen: They're using this for our people with bone disorders or older people. It's not your typical, you know, fighters, you know, boxers things like that. So yeah, those things are strange. and so.

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Brian D Nielsen: yeah, this is why it became a really big concern for us. And since this has

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Brian D Nielsen: since we started doing this research. You know, others in the industry have also become aware of it. and now there's rules prohibiting the use in racehorses, which is good. you know. And I I think we're still going to be fighting the issue of cortical steroids for a long, long time, because again, a a veterinarian looks like a superhero when they go ahead, and they inject your horse, whether it's

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Brian D Nielsen: the hocks or ankles, or whatever, and the horse looks like it's fixed but it's not fixed. You've hidden a problem.

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Kris Hiney: So yeah, maybe to familiarize people when you were talking about in in humans. Essentially, it's for osteoporosis. So for more of the elderly where you're trying to slow down

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Kris Hiney: bone loss. And I've always been curious why, you know, because we work together in the in the bone area. Why, they also don't focus on the build side. Right? So instead of just let's shut down one process because these things work together. And you would think in senesence, right? So aging, what typically starts to

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Brian D Nielsen: is the tear down out paces the build back right? It seems so interesting that we didn't balance it

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Brian D Nielsen: potentially. A lot of them regarding why osteoporosis tends to happen. in this. with humans. You reach your peak bone mass, probably in your early twenties. And after that it's a process of slowly getting rid of it. And we have this process called bone remodeling and with bone remodeling. What you are doing is it's this process of like removing older damage phone or replacing it with a new.

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Brian D Nielsen: And typically they match up pretty evenly. But once you've reached peak bone mass, then it's this situation where every time you go through one of these bone remodeling units

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Brian D Nielsen: you take away a little bit you add a little bit back in, but the amount you put back in isn't quite as much as what you took away. And so you were just slowly losing own mass. And till you get to menopause once a lady reaches menopause by removing estrogen.

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Brian D Nielsen: bone remodeling happens quicker. So estrogen kind of puts a break on how often bone remodeling happens, you remove that break, and it happens more often.

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Brian D Nielsen: And the problem is is again. Each time you go through one of these own remodeling units you put back a little less than you've taken out. And so that's why we suddenly see an increase.

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Brian D Nielsen: in how much bone is being lost in my Osteo porosis would be more common. in in post menopausal women as opposed to guys a and shout out to horses. Since this is a horse talk, I guess. there is a a treatment that's been used for many, many years estrogen replacement therapy, and where the original estrogen came from used for this was from the

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Brian D Nielsen: urine from  in a pregnant mares. So there is a drug, a Premarin, pregnant mare urine for all the use you have taken it. Now you know where that came from. I believe there is a synthetic form that's not commonly, but you know, horses and people together through history, even trying to

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Brian D Nielsen: combat medical stuff. So going back to the bisphosphonates you know. That explains why this drug was used is because it's like, well, we want to inhibit how quickly we take it out. But now let's go back to your very wise observation, which is, hey? How about trying to build it?

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Brian D Nielsen:  And the thing that I want to emphasize? And and I would love the world to fully understand. And I know you absolutely know about this, because you've done a lot of bone research. So bone responds to the load that you put on it, and I and I even see some very well mean but false information that's provided to humans regarding ways to reduce bone loss. And they talk about weightlifting and things like this. And that actually doesn't

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Brian D Nielsen: do anything in. And the the issue is, you need to load it. You need to have some force applied to a weightlifting doesn't do that. I am not saying weightlifting is bad and a fact for older individuals. It's actually good. It helps with balance. Coordination helps you.

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Brian D Nielsen: you know, prevent falls. You probably feel better. We're you're more inclined to actually do some physical activity. things that will go ahead and prevent bone loss. But you know you do see a lot of false information on so many levels, on so many things. Which is why it's so great that you're doing podcasts like this trying to bring a little science out there. but it is loading. And what's need is.

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Brian D Nielsen: the skeleton responds to the amount of force that's applied to it. And you don't need a lot. So with your research, we're you know, we were sprinting calves And and I, it's some of this really, really neat stuff. How few

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Brian D Nielsen: strides, in other words, You know

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Brian D Nielsen: how many times that skeleton is loaded. Very few of them are needed to actually maintain bone strength. Same thing applies with humans. You don't need to go out there and run 10 miles and, in fact, if you did a sprint now, if you're 90 years old, you might not be doing this, but those of us who are younger. you know, including a little bit of that a few times a week, actually is what it takes to maintain bone strength. So if you want run from? you know

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Brian D Nielsen: one side of your backyard to the other. Do that a couple of times a week. You're probably not doing any damage to your body, and you're probably doing some really positive things again. That seems a little weird. But that's how bone works, and that is a great way to try and actually build bone or reduce the loss of it. So

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Kris Hiney: well, that's a great plug for dog agility. Yeah, I do see senior handlers that are still like running with their dogs, and I always think like that is about the best thing that they could be doing for social interaction and physical activity, where? Because you don't see a lot of other seniors running. And so that's why a big shout out from a sport.

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Brian D Nielsen:  well, and the nice part is I I want to even cause like I've never watched it in person, but I've seen those clips, and they're fun, and and it's not like they're having to go hard out for a long, long period. they just have you know a short little sprint here, then to the next one there, and so it's not that. Oh, my gosh! I'm exhausted. I can't do this, but it is all the signaling that the bone needs in order to.

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Kris Hiney: get strong. Yeah. And you know, I like to try to seg everything in. We've also talked about in the last couple of episodes. how exercise is often such a therapeutic thing. And so we kind of talked about our older horses, or for weight loss and horses that we need animals to keep moving and keep going So that's Super key. So I do want to get back to our our OS phoss thing here,

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Kris Hiney: and talk a little bit more about the science. But I think another thing worth maybe emphasizing again. And where animals can get in trouble is when we use.

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Kris Hiney: whether legal or illegal drugs that mask pain or even if there is, but animals will often run through pain and create more harm to them. And so in these scenarios, if you're masking an injury, it really can.

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Kris Hiney: I mean, just result in catastrophic failure. So that's we don't want to to mask. So pain actually can be useful sometimes, you know I I've always emphasized that. again, do I like pain? No, but pain is a good thing. It tells you. Don't do this. I've had a couple of shoulder injuries. you know.

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Brian D Nielsen: My life that I've lived is not necessarily been gentle and So the the shoulder injuries of the first one. I think it was like 2016, and you know, I thought it was gonna have to have a shoulder surgery. But the doctor said, You know well, we can go ahead, and you know, inject cortico steroids. I'm like no because I'm dumb, and if you take away the pain.

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Brian D Nielsen: then I'm going to do something really stupid. And so it just. I allowed the time and the pain, told me what I could do or what I could do

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Brian D Nielsen: injured my left shoulder. Yeah, a few years back, same thing. And, as you know, at our meeting at the Equine Science Society Symposium one of the evenings because we were in Texas at Billy Bobs, and they had the old bucking machine out there.

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Brian D Nielsen: Dr. Hiney. It paid me so much to not get on that, and I woke up at 2 30 in the morning because, man, I used to be able to rock a bucking machine, and I know I could've won it. And it I woke up in the more, you know. 2 30. The morning thing I could have won. And then I also said.

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Brian D Nielsen: Yeah, but I can still move my shoulders without pain. And I'm that's a positive. And so, you know, when we mask the pain, it allows you to do stupid things and sidetracking. But it's such an important thing. There's a genetic, a very rare genetic disorder humans where they don't feel pain. And I remember watching a news story on it. And this one young girl her parents had to teach her that when you see blood stop

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Brian D Nielsen: so we we always think that pain is a bad thing. But no, it is there. It's evolutionary. It says, Stop what you're doing, and when we take it away from our animals, and we all want our animals to not be in pain.

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Brian D Nielsen: But when we take it away. That creates problem. Is there a time and a place for these? Absolutely? And I use the example. You know you have a 28 year old horse that just is, you know, kind of crippled up. You're not riding them. You just want to make them comfortable on pasture. I have no problems doing that when you go ahead and you have a young athletic course that's competing at a higher rate of speed going over jumps, doing anything like that where there is actual risk and you take away pain.

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Brian D Nielsen: that's a dangerous, dangerous thing, and I am certain that people have died as riders, jockeys whatever, because people took away the pain and the horse didn't know it in the riders. Yeah, I think that's maybe important to to try to differentiate. What you're talking about is chronic pain versus kind of a acute pain from an injury. So yes, we want to have animals comfortable, because that's a functional thing, right? Because, oh, if you're not

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Kris Hiney: ambulatory, then everything goes into a vicious cycle. So we need that to keep it moderate activity. But yeah, when we're asking animals to do

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Kris Hiney: high-level things, or, you know, running, jumping, all of that, there's a time in a in a place. So, and I want to go back. You brought up a great point regarding

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Brian D Nielsen: needing animals to actually move around to do things, and and you and I both understand the importance of turnout time, or living out on pasture as opposed to being confined totally in a stall. and and the veterinary community has caught on to the fact that just pure stall rest for most things is probably not a good thing. There are some things where it's absolutely critical.

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Brian D Nielsen: but it is amazing how quickly you can lose bone strength most of strength, etc., etc., by virtue of just putting an animal and a stall and not letting it out at all And and in a lot of cases it's not good. I'll use the example of a humans. you know, there was a time when you know you would have a grandparent fracture, their hip, and they'd be bedridden because of needing to have that

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Brian D Nielsen: hip repaired, and that's at the time was pretty much a death sentence once you did that because of the way they handle them. These days you have an elderly person or older person break their hip. They do surgery, and often they have them up walking that same day because they realized how critical it is that they get moving because

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Brian D Nielsen: that

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Brian D Nielsen: the body responds to, are you doing exercise? Are you doing things? And if you aren't well, it's not a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. And especially when I think about horses and and my listeners. Now I seg dogs into everything, because what I do, but also like you know that that whole crate rest, stall rest the the mind of the animal is also an important thing. So sometimes during that acute phase.

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Kris Hiney: we help the mind by like, okay, mind, you just need to chill out a little bit with the drugs. So we're able to get immediately back into some things because Otherwise we have that post inhibitory rebound. You can't just take it to horse and a stall for 2 weeks, and then be like, see you, Buddy, because

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Brian D Nielsen: disaster awaits right? So we need to move them. I I need to share a story, and I don't know if you ever heard Dr. Gary Potter. we we we both have lots of connections with it, Texas A and M He shared the story he was once visiting with an old racehorse trainer. He said so, or as the old trainer, he said, so what do you think your number one cause of of, you know injuries? And and the old trainer thought about it for a while, and then he said.

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Brian D Nielsen: respiratory problems and and Potter said respiratory problems And the guy goes, yeah, I don't know why, but anytime I have a horse at sick for a while, you know, after I put the horse back in training, it seems to get injured, and if you give that logic, you and I can both understand. Yeah, when you're laid up for a while.

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Brian D Nielsen: and then you go back into training at that same level. Well, your body is becoming weak, and it becomes weak pretty quickly and in terms of the skeletal structure. you know, I look at NASA. They've done a lot of bone research because there is.

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Brian D Nielsen: documentable, demonstrable

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Brian D Nielsen: loss of bone mass with as little as 3 days of space flight. which shows you how crucial it is to have loading, and when you're in 0 gravity you don't have much loading. How critical it is to have loading on the skeleton, and and as myself as a runner.

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Brian D Nielsen: e! When I have, for whatever reason, time off from running man, it really increases the likelihood of me getting injured. And it's interesting. There's this big push. I'm a huge believer in mental rest for horses.

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Brian D Nielsen: But there's also this thought that well, we need to. There's people who want to lobby and require race horses to have time off from racing. Well, that can be fine if they're all turned out on pasture and get to run and play as much as they want. You take that same horse, and you just leave them in a stall, or even hand, walk them, or walk them on a mechanical walker for a few weeks. They're skeleton. gotten weak during that period of time, and then you put back in training. They're probably going to get injured. If you you know, you

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Brian D Nielsen: rush how quickly you put them back in training. So yeah, there's there's lots of factors that a person needs to think about that.

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Brian D Nielsen: Probably the majority of people aren't fully aware, you know. In fact, since this is soap box time. the other thing that we could probably talk for hours on. This is the misbelief. That training horses while they are young is a bad thing. because we've talked a lot about bone remodeling, and that's where you take older damage. Bone away, put in new stuff.

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Brian D Nielsen: Rarely do I ever hear people talk about bone modeling, and this is the process by which bone grows and becomes stronger and change shape, and it primarily occurs

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Brian D Nielsen: in the young juvenile animal, and this is the process by which you can make skeleton stronger, and I'll go back to the road. Analogy. your time to make a road big and in as much as you want is when you're building that road and you can decide whether you're building a little

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Brian D Nielsen: 2 Lane country road, 4 Lane Highway, 8 Lane Super highway when you're building it. That's a great time to be able to decide that. Once that road is built well, you can repair it. You can fix the potholes, but it's a whole different deal to try and make this little country road into a huge one. So using that comparison

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Brian D Nielsen: with bone, your best time to make it stronger is when that animal is still growing. There's all these people who say, Oh, you should train horses until they're skeleton mature.

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Brian D Nielsen: They do not know anything about bone. If they are preaching that they are missing out on the fundamentals because they obviously have never heard about bone modeling. And you know, there's even this big push that you should not put a horse into training until their their knees are closed, and there's been very little research done on this, but there was a paper published in 1973, and the Australian Vet Journal that I love

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Brian D Nielsen: from the standpoint of. They had a a large group of 2 year old thoroughbreds, and they radiographed them to see if their knees were open closed, or somewhere in the middle, and then they track their their racing and, Interestingly, the horses that had open knees when they started training

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Brian D Nielsen: actually raced much more successfully. Fewer injuries than the ones that started after their knees were closed. it was 1973. This paper was published that was a year or 2 ago, and I understand the authors not wanting to believe their own results because they came up with excuses. Well, maybe it was something in the nutrition that caused these horses to have knees close early.

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Brian D Nielsen: They don't want to believe their own results, which made it so clear that actually training horses while young is actually a good thing, and if you look at all of the research that's been done.

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Brian D Nielsen: good quality research, it backs it up, you know. So I'm not saying

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Brian D Nielsen: you shouldn't be wise, and also one of the. There's lots of issues regarding. And we could again, we could talk for hours on this. What type of exercise is good. What type of exercise is bad? in the horse and just.

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And I I believe you had Dr. Alyssa Logan on, and whether they've heard that podcast she may have talked about circular exercise, because

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Brian D Nielsen: we we do circles with horses, you can't go in a straight line forever. And if you're in an arena even on a racetrack a mile racetrack, you come to turns, and hopefully your horse does turn but that's called uneven load or causes uneven loading of the joints. And if you think about what most people do with their young horses, there is a lot of lunging which is

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really bad for joints, and especially if you go fast, and small circle.

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Brian D Nielsen: So When we do the wrong type of exercise.

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Brian D Nielsen: it's not good, regardless of what age the horses. And I'm not saying you should do any of that. just

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Brian D Nielsen: people need to be aware of the potential damage that's causing and limit to the amount you need. We? We live in this world where you know, I drive past a a horse show and people off their lungs and their horses to death. And I'm thinking.

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Brian D Nielsen: Wow, why are you doing this? This is a show horse. I'm sure you could be riding it. You could, you know?

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Brian D Nielsen: Yeah, whole nother's 3 whole another time

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Kris Hiney: you talk about, you know. Maybe the bone being plastic at that portion of time and able to mold. So is their mind. Yeah, right? And so, modeling the mind, the correct way to be able to learn and have trust and confidence and environment like

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Brian D Nielsen: you can do both correctly. Yeah, that you can do both very incorrectly on those young animals, and blow up their body and their mind at the same time. Yes. Well, it. And since we're on this

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Brian D Nielsen: Well, again, we could chat on various topics. Keep going on going and going. the The one thing that I think causes us a lot of problems when we're training young horses is a a term that I made up feel free which is training by the calendar, and the thing is is, if if you were somebody who man, I'm not going to start my course until it was a 4 or 5 year old.

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Brian D Nielsen: You have a lot of patience, and so if you have a hiccup along the way, you're probably a person who's more inclined to like. Well, I'll give the horse the time it needs rather than rushing it.

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So, even though doing that is actually not good

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Brian D Nielsen: for the skeleton of the horse, because you haven't taken

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Brian D Nielsen: the opportunity when that that that skeleton is plastic, to use your term, which is a great one, where you can be molded and changed to accommodate whatever forces are going to be placed on it.

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Brian D Nielsen: Those type of people have the patience where, if you have an issue. You take your time. Those individuals who prefer to work with young horses. One of the reasons they often are doing. It is because we have a date on the calendar, and and I'll give you a little example as to where this dawned on me many years ago. I was at the the Great Lakes Quarter Horse Association's annual banquet. It was in January, and I had a horse that I wanted to have in a little stakes race. That was going to be in July, and that was where they revealed the stakes schedule. And I'm like.

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Brian D Nielsen: I, I actually had a speaking engagement in Vienna, Austria. That same time I was like, Okay, this sucks because

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Brian D Nielsen: I'm going to be out of the country. I can't race my. I had to send to somebody else, and it all turned off right. The horse ran third to make some money. A wonderful story. But thinking about that.

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Brian D Nielsen: how

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Brian D Nielsen: strange is that that on a day in January.

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Brian D Nielsen: I know what day in July, and I could probably get you pretty close to within the hour, because I know in the stakes races, we go off

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Brian D Nielsen: that that horse will be running. Now I have the patience. because I I work some for some very good individuals. One of them whose motto was.

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Brian D Nielsen: The horse doesn't, isn't ready. You just don't do it.

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Brian D Nielsen: and that's how it should be.

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Brian D Nielsen: That's not how it often is. This is when people go ahead and use drugs to hide problems. and that's both mental and physical platforms.

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Brian D Nielsen: And that's where they cheat and they do things in their training program to make the horse do what they want. as opposed to asking

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Brian D Nielsen: the horse to do what they want again. I'm not getting into details. I'm sure a lot of your listeners can understand. I what's being done. and that's a problem. So it isn't that we work with young horses. That's bad. That's a good thing for everything you just said.

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Brian D Nielsen: The problem is is

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Brian D Nielsen: when we train by the calendar and we have a date, and it's going to be ready on that date. regardless of whether there's problems or not. No, folks, you have to have the patience. And in, in, you know, a lot of people have heard of the term about you know.

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Brian D Nielsen: actually, I've been to mess it up. Maybe you can help me come up with it, you know. Love the horse, not the sport, or something. Where the point is

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Brian D Nielsen: you? You need to place greater emphasis on the well being of that animal than this work, because you could love the sport. But when competing

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Brian D Nielsen: over rules the well-being of the animal, then we have some issues. You you can live on both.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, I totally don't recall what that's saying is. But I think you get the idea. Yeah, no, I think that's that's pretty pretty close and that's just honoring that the animal and you can still go watch the sport. Maybe they can't do it that weekend.

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Brian D Nielsen: and it's so. you know I I've also lucky. So, professor at the University. I will never be stinking rich, but I'll never have to worry about feeding my family.

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Brian D Nielsen: I know, trainers, that that's not the case, that it's hard for them to. You know they have their expenses, and the income may not be matching it, and so I understand why people do what they do. It doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

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Brian D Nielsen: But I understand it. And I've been privileged. It's like, Yeah, you know what?

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Brian D Nielsen: We're not going to compete because the horse isn't ready. Great! I've I lost the money on this stuff, whatever. That's that's fine. I love money. There is nothing wrong with money is great. And if you want to pay me for this, podcast. I'll still be able to feed my family. But yeah, we do. We have to go back to where?

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Brian D Nielsen: we place the horse first. And

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Brian D Nielsen: but even when you place the horse first, you actually do have to understand the science, because a lot of the decisions. you know, the horse industry is so traditional and some of the tradition is good

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Brian D Nielsen: and some of it isn't because some of the things that we traditionally have believed are wrong. And it's

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Brian D Nielsen: that's why we do the science.

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Brian D Nielsen: Yeah.

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Brian D Nielsen: Good good segue. We're gonna bring her right back to our OS. Phoss and wrap that up. So you said it is now, and maybe I'm wrong on this. You said that it's not allowed in race horses anymore, or just only for navicular.

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Brian D Nielsen: Yeah, I've heard that. And my thought is the only reason that you're giving it to a yearling is because you have a yearling that had a problem, and you can't figure it out. And I've you know there have been published

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Brian D Nielsen: round table discussions and and you know, with veterinary and that yeah, anytime I have some bone issue that I can't figure out. This is what I go to

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Brian D Nielsen: Whoa. That's a problem, because what it means is you're hiding the problem, and you're probably not fixing the problem. You're just hiding it. But the race horse community. has followed the science to some degree, saying, This is not a good thing. a and a. Again it. It is a case of where, if your horse has been

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Brian D Nielsen: given it, they aren't allowed to race, is, I believe, the case. Now.

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Kris Hiney: how easy is it to test for it what you're saying some people might still do it, I guess I I just don't know about the testing like it. it! And the that part is, somebody could buy a horse

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Brian D Nielsen: that had been given it as a yearling, and the horse is now a 3 year old or 4 year old, and they have no clue. Right? And we've done some work at the looking at the the half life, the clearance life and

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Brian D Nielsen: So it. It clears out of the body, you know, out of the blood fairly quickly. But can they still test? I just don't know. This is where I'm getting into. I'm not comfortable talking with great authority as to if they tried to test for it. Can they actually find it like

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Brian D Nielsen: if you hand it as a yearling. Can you find it in the body still any testable form when they're 3 or 4? And I, that's all the future work that's coming. Yeah. And again, maybe they can. Maybe they can't. I just don't know. But you know. And here's the other thing is. So we we've done a bunch of research. We we were looking for that absolute Aha! This is

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Brian D Nielsen: a problem that we found with it. And so we've done some work in combination with the folks at Texas A and and Montana State, and not finding anything that's really obvious. Now, the problem is.

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Brian D Nielsen: you're also looking at, you know, bone markers which are systemic, you know. So we're looking at various things that we pull blood sample and look forward. you know, since I've been involved in this whole science thing going back to the early nineties. That's what we've all been looking for is that Holy Grail where you can take a blood sample and say, Oh, this horse is going to have a breakdown.

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that doesn't exist because one, it's systemic. And these things change so rapidly. And there's a lot of other things that we're looking for. But we haven't found that this is the absolute issue with it.

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Brian D Nielsen: Now we know what it is.

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and a couple of thoughts on it.

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Brian D Nielsen: One. The analagesics. Thing that in itself could be it like there, there is nothing more that you need to say you hide a problem, and the animal doesn't know it, and it performs because, hey, I'm good, even though your leg is

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Brian D Nielsen: experiencing some major issues. The other thing is.

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Brian D Nielsen:  are. You are kind of working. Hypothesis is that it inhibits repair.

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Brian D Nielsen: So if you have an injury, keep in mind most people that would give it to their horse. It was probably a problem. That's why they're giving it. And if it's impairing the repair. And this is happening in one little area of the body.

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Brian D Nielsen: It's not happening over the whole entire body.

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Brian D Nielsen: What might be happening in that very specific site

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Brian D Nielsen: might be very detrimental to that site. But you're not going to detect it by looking at a blood sample or some whole body type of thing. so we weren't able to come up with the app

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Brian D Nielsen: that Holy Grail like ha! Ha! Here is the thing that is absolutely the cause. but you know that's often how science works it. It's

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Brian D Nielsen: interesting watching young people going into grad school, and they think they are going to cure all the problems in one research project. Rarely does that occur? you know, I've been doing bone research for over 30, you know, years, and we've answered a lot of things, you know, like the work that you did, I thought was one of those.

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you know, very instrumental

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Brian D Nielsen: research projects that really help to answer some questions regarding how much exercise do you need or don't need in order to maintain bone strength? But you know you can spend a lifetime working on a a problem. Make some dents in it.

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Kris Hiney: Yup. But everybody's like, well, why can't they just solve this problem? Yeah, even when you you mentioned, you know, if you're most of our study populations, in at least in animal science, are typically healthy horses. We don't have access to, you know. Often our veterinary colleagues have the injured animal population. But but most injured animals, people want them fixed right? They don't want to be like, Hey, let's experiment on this, and

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Kris Hiney: you're in the control. So so that model of Oh, does it only really impact if there's an injury, guess what folks that's real hard work to do.

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Brian D Nielsen: Yes. Well, and you hit on a key thing, which is the difference between. I would argue science and medicine. And there's certainly an overlap science, you you, you. you typically have a control, you have a treatment, and you see if there is any difference, medicine. Well, you treat it. If the animal gets better, if it doesn't. Well, whatever. But oftentimes there isn't that control group, and that's the only real way to see if a treatment makes a difference. because

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Brian D Nielsen: often.

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Brian D Nielsen: unless an animal dies it gets better. You know I I'm a guy, and that's a flaw, because guys are often stupid. Sorry any guys that might be listening. The ladies will probably affirm that what I just said is true. And so, you know, as a guy, do you typically go to the doctor, if there's something wrong. No, and that's why a lot of guys die early at the same point. Oftentimes, whatever the problem was, it disappears. Now.

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Brian D Nielsen: if you had taken some medicine, or you got some treatment, you would say, well, that was what cured it. Where is in reality a lot of times

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Brian D Nielsen: time. and kills everything, or it doesn't. So yeah, that's the trick. And so there is a lot of

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Brian D Nielsen: therapies, treatments that I've been paying attention to over my career that I was like, you know, it looks like this is going to be the latest and greatest in 10 years later. It's not used at all, because eventually somebody did the science and found out that really wasn't the treatment. And we could talk for hours on supplements, and all these that people use And yeah, same thing.

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Kris Hiney: Well, this is, this has been great. And yeah, we have. This has been a wide-ranging one. But it's hard, because you just get on in a topic, and you know it takes you down to another another trail. But I mean, certainly the health and well being of our horses is what we're really focused on, and and wanting people to understand

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Brian D Nielsen: that we do have science behind recommendations. And you know, I always say, if something sounds like it's too good to be true. Well.

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Kris Hiney: well, Dr. Hiney, this has been a blast. Yeah. Anytime you want to come back. you know your place or mine just kidding. It's all zoom your your computer or mine. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So. well, I really appreciate your time out of your busy day, love catching up with you? and talking about, you know the current research so that we've got to make our horses lives a little bit better.

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Kris Hiney: So get the word out. I appreciate that we're going to do our best to do our best.

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Brian D Nielsen: Ready, Dr. Hiney. We will catch you on the next zoom or the next meeting, whichever comes first. Absolutely. So, thank you, everybody. And this has been another episode of our Tack box talk Horse stories with a purpose.