In another era, Classical CD would be out in pasture by now, big with child.
Instead, the cutting horse from Longmont, who has earned her owners nearly $250,000, competed again this week at the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo, expertly cutting a cow away from its herd – dancing confidently from side to side to keep the animal separate.
While Classical CD looks spry, she suffers from “kissing spine” – a condition characterized by “bone-on-bone pain” and inflammation, said owner Gail Holmes.
Without newfangled treatments from Colorado State University, Holmes said, “she would just hurt too bad.”
Increasingly, the owners of equine athletes are seeking high-tech alternatives to the steroid injections, which help many horses and often become ineffective over time.
“Ultimately, most of these horses will be treated with gene therapy, stem-cell therapy in my opinion,” said CSU veterinarian Wayne McIlwraith, director of CSU’s Gail Holmes Equine Orthopedic Research Center.
Holmes and her husband have contributed more than $1 million to the research center.
Like human athletes, competitive horses are vulnerable to joint injuries, especially tendon and cartilage damage, McIlwraith said.
CSU researchers are using new techniques to reduce the inflammation associated with injury, he said, and even repair torn cartilage and tendons, which is notoriously difficult in horses.
Stem cells show promise.
CSU researchers, in collaboration with a team from California, are extracting stem cells from a horse’s own fat, building them up in petri dishes and injecting them in injured joints.
The stem cells migrate to injury sites, where they set about healing tendon tears or chipped cartilage, McIlwraith said.
CSU researchers have used the technique on several dozen horses so far, he said.
On occasion, the stem-cell treatment appears to trigger the horse’s own immune system, making the animal sick, and researchers are studying how to prevent that.
McIlwraith and his colleagues are also tapping into the cellular series of events that cause harm- ful inflammation after an injury.
Interleukin-1 plays a primary role in immune responses. “We consider it to be the worst mediator in inflammation disease because it’s the head of cascade in osteoarthritis, which results in destruction of cartilage,” McIlwraith said.
So the scientists figured out how to increase a horse’s own production of chemicals that block interleukin-1.
Today’s version of the treatment involves incubating some of the horse’s cells in an environment that encourages them to produce the helpful chemicals.
Soon, the treatment may involve putting altered genetic material back into the joint to fight damage more effectively.
Why bother using such sophisticated treatments on horses?
The cost of training a cutting horse is so high that an expert competitor can be valued at $250,000, said Meredith Lyons of the Western States Cutting Horse Association.
“The money in cutting horses … is second only to the money spent in racing,” she said.
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
