There is something uniquely beautiful about the neck of a horse. That curve, the arch of the poll, the dip towards the shoulder. In function, those elegant lines came to be out of necessity, with such length required to balance out long limbs, allowing them to reach to the ground to graze for up to 20 hours a day. With the head and neck making up about 10 percent of their total body mass, horses use their neck to maintain balance, stability, and their spatial awareness when they are in motion. Over time, the equine neck has shifted in function and importance, and in the factors that impact and promote its well-being, but the fundamentals have stood the test of domestication.

Racehorses need their breath to run their best. But inflammatory airway disease (IAD) can rob them of their stamina. New research in the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph shows the disease is much more common than previously thought.

For a prey animal that instinctively depends on sight for survival, a horse’s loss of vision or even the loss of an eye is devastating. Yet, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the most common cancer found in equine eyes and the second most common tumour in horses.