The vast improvement in horse safety at California tracks can be credited in part to research by Ph. D. candidate Sarah Shaffer, who was granted the Louis R. Rowan Fellowship in Equine Studies at U. C. Davis in 2019 by the California Thoroughbred Foundation.
Shaffer’s work has earned her the additional honor of the 2021 James M. Wilson Award for the year’s most outstanding research report, published in the Equine Veterinary Journal. Her potentially accident-preventing discoveries focus on proximal sesamoid bone (PSB) fractures in Thoroughbred racehorses.
The Center for Equine Health at the Davis School of Veterinary Medicine reported that previously there was no way to identify horses at risk for PSB fracture. Shaffer’s studies included discovery, characterization, and description of changes before such fractures, which put horses at risk for possible catastrophic accidents.
“Sarah’s research findings were key to developing injury-prevention strategies that contributed to the 41% reduction in California racehorse fatalities over the previous year,” said Dr. Susan Stover, who directed Shaffer’s research at the J. D. Wheat Veterinary Orthopedics Research Laboratory. “Knowledge of the warning signs of imminent catastrophic fetlock injury allow for detection of affected racehorses and their rehabilitation—saving horse lives and preventing jockey injuries associated with racehorse falls.”