The Horse's Advocate Podcast

My wife placed a supplement ad for horses in front of me and said it was "interesting." She knows me, so she was testing me to see if this one was really special or just another waste of money. Rather than give the same old response about marketing ploys to take money without substantiating the product, I decided to go deeper. The expression "correlation does not mean causation" is familiar. But what about randomized, controlled studies - the "gold standard" of research? Do these expensive, precise studies live up to the hype? Not necessarily. Mendelian randomization is a new approach to randomizing a study population in a true and natural way. It reduces (or eliminates) biases by looking for variations in the genetic code that have occurred over millions of years. This podcast goes into SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) and GWAS (Genome Wide Association Studies) to see if this new research technology has come into horse research, and more importantly, if it can prove the use of supplements to make horses healthier.

Cornell Veterinary School is well established as one of the best veterinary schools in the world, renowned for specialties like wildlife, infectious diseases, and equine practice. A quick search of data shows that Cornell's vet school was ranked #1 from 2000 (no data before this) until 2015. Currently, it is ranked #2 in America (behind the University of California, Davis) and #3 in the world (behind the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, and UC Davis). Being accepted into their program was not only an honor, but also a miracle: one of only 80 people accepted in 1980. I tried not to sleep through my classes. When I graduated, I set up my equine practice 15 miles from the school, which allowed me to use it as my referral hospital. One afternoon in 1991, I sent in a colic I considered surgical. The resident veterinarian performed a rectal exam and confirmed the presence of a displaced bowel. But, instead of agreeing with the surgical treatment, he said, "I think this is one of those new colics I just read about!" My look of surprise went unnoticed as he continued with the description of a nephrosplenic ligament entrapment, a new form of colic recently reported in a veterinary journal. And while the first report of this colic was in 1902 in Hungary, it was not until 1991 that a JAVMA (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association) article reported it, making it widely known among veterinarians. Now, I often hear clients mention that their horse recently suffered from a nephrosplenic ligament entrapment colic. The pattern of current ailments of horses not mentioned in my 1984 veterinary textbooks invites the question of why. This podcast covers these "new" diseases and stimulates us to ask what has changed in the care of horses to cause them.

Most advice from horse professionals focuses on solving problems using standard approaches, rather than looking for the root cause. For example, if you look at a chart of all causes of death in horses, dental issues barely register compared to colic, laminitis, or metabolic diseases. Many horse owners truly love their horses, even if they struggle to explain why. They want the best for their animals, but often depend on experts for advice and care, without considering how they might prevent problems before needing expert help. Horse owners often look for someone to fix their horses when something goes wrong, but horses are not like cars that can just be repaired in a shop. Still, both veterinary and non-veterinary care often treat horses as if they are objects with problems to solve, without considering the horse's perspective. It's true that many skilled people can help fix these issues, but it's worth asking if every repair is really needed, or if there might be simpler solutions. Sometimes, people approach fixing horses in ways that make themselves seem more important, which can make things more complicated than necessary. Many horse owners, even though they care deeply, follow expert advice without always considering what's best for the horse. In my podcast, I talk about a new way to treat a passage between a horse's mouth and sinus, where food can move from the mouth into the sinus and come out the nostril. To us, this discharge smells bad and needs daily care, but from the horse's point of view, it doesn't seem to be a problem—at least, scientific reports don't mention it. How common is this issue? Do horses really need to be fixed if nothing is done?

Horses have tiny engines within almost every cell of their bodies, and each of these runs on fuel that comes from the food they eat. These engines are called mitochondria. This podcast describes these engines and what happens to our horses when they stop working efficiently. One thing is for certain: adding more fuel doesn't help them run better. The only way to improve the health of horses is to improve the way their mitochondria work. But is producing power the only thing mitochondria do? Research into mitochondria shows that these powerhouses of the cell were once bacteria with their own DNA, and they communicate with each other and insert snippets of their DNA into the human DNA. They also need time to clean up and repair themselves. They can operate on two different fuels, but exhaust themselves when running on only one, becoming stuck and unable to switch to the other. This leads to poor health, breakdowns, and premature death. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

Having fear can cripple most people from enjoying life. Horse people suffer more than most from fear of horses because what they enjoy most in life are horses. This becomes a paradox that worsens their entire life. However, there are tangents to the fear horse owners have, such as the fear that they are not caring enough for their horses, and, therefore, the horse will suffer from the owner missing a critical aspect of care. This drives owners to do more (and spend more money) than is necessary. Worry is a fear of inadequacy. Charlatans profit from this fear. Most people believe that the thing they fear is the cause, but the truth is, fear comes from within the individual. Fear is also an emotion; energy in motion. When a horse brings energy to a human, the natural response is for the human to raise their energy to match the horse's, creating more energy and escalating the horse to a higher level. The secret is to learn to control your energy and bring it down, which, in most cases, automatically lowers the horses' energy. An essential hack for reducing emotional energy is to lower inflammation in both humans and horses. Another hack is to compartmentalize the sources of your thoughts and feelings in the brain. I discuss these on this week's podcast. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

The temporomandibular (TM) joints in horses are evolutionary masterpieces that have evolved over 55 million years. But suddenly, the experts are saying that the joints are failing because the mouth has become "unbalanced." I disagree. The experts say that unridable horses have pain in the TM joints that connect the jaw to the skull. Their conclusion is that the teeth are "unbalanced," with an uneven bite seen with the incisors and an imperfect angle of the cheek teeth's chewing surface. Their conclusions cannot be resolved using First Principles Thinking. I've worked with horses for over 50 years, and for over 40 of those, I've floated teeth on over 80,000 horses, but I cannot draw the same conclusions these experts can about the association between the shape of the incisors and the TM joints. I am referencing an article printed in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (March, 2024) by James L. Carmalt, VetMB, PhD, DABVP, DAVDC, DACVSMR, DACVS from the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada. The title is: "Equine poor performance: the logical, progressive, diagnostic approach to determining the role of the temporomandibular joint." There are numerous quotes from this paper I could use to substantiate my position on any dysfunction of the horse's TM joints; however, the author's words are worth reading in their entirety. It must be noted that humans, according to my dentist, chew about 2000 times a day, or 735,000 chews in a year. However, horses chew between 10,000 and 40,000 times a day, with the median being 25,000. This number becomes 750,000 chews in 30 days, which is more than humans chew in a year. Horses chew about 9 million times in a year. So, to assume that all horses are developing TM joint problems because their teeth are not "balanced" seems preposterous. If you are interested and have time, please read Dr. Carmalt's paper, which is available as an attached PDF at Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com or online. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

First Principles Thinking involves examining complex problems in terms of their most fundamental and undeniable truths. Applying First Principles Thinking to everything we do with our horses to help them, and us, in every task, is what I have been doing for a while at The Horse's Advocate. Over 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle said that "the first basis from which things are known" is where we need to start thinking to solve a problem. In other words, First Principles Thinking is when you take basic assumptions or truths and break them down further or deduce from them something more fundamental to the point that this action can no longer take place. I can make the concept simpler: play the child's game of "But why, Mommy?" Do this until you are satisfied. Unfortunately, Mommy often says, "Go ask your father!" And his answer is usually, "Because I said so!" Indoctrination starts this way. This podcast is about a way to find answers and avoid the indoctrination forced on us by marketing and horse professionals. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

The Ketogenic diet is popular for weight loss in humans, but does it work, and can it work with my grass-eating horses? The simple answer is yes, and you don't need to make them carnivores! A ketone, also known as beta-hydroxybutyrate, can be produced in two ways in horses. The first is the bacterial breakdown of cellulose in their hindgut. I have discussed this elsewhere, and it is the primary source of this ketone. The second way occurs when a horse consumes its body fat, which then forms ketones. The most common way to force a horse to consume its body fat is to starve them, and this is exactly what happens in starvation. But we don't need to go that far. What starts the horse making its own ketones is deciding to stop eating. There are two ways to do this: feed adequate amounts of high-quality protein, and stop feeding excess glucose (sugar) in the form of starch found in grains, grain mixes, balancers, supplements, treats, and excess hay. Believe it or not, but the more you feed food filled with glucose, the hungrier the horse will become. It is a paradox, but it is essential to understand if you want your horse to lose body fat, maintain muscle, become healthy, and remain sound. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

Indoctrinate is a verb defined by Apple's Dictionary as "teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically." Apple's thesaurus offers these similar words: "BRAINWASH, propagandize, proselytize, inculcate, re-educate, persuade, convince, condition, discipline, mold; instruct, teach, school, drill, ground." It implies that the students, or the horse owners, believe everything they are taught. The "teachers" of horse care range from marketing ads and barn gossip to social media fodder, to poorly trained and unlicensed professionals, and even to young licensed professionals. Missing are mentors with decades of experience who have learned from experience and have no agenda in their teaching other than to support and nurture the student. The Wall Street Journal wrote an article in their newspaper titled "Cognitive Laziness," where the author was tasked to determine if "fake news" existed. The article didn't answer the question because it was so obvious that it didn't need to. However, the conclusion was that the receiver of any news, fake or not, was too lazy to verify its validity. Are horse owners also too lazy to do critical thinking of what we are told is "good" for our horses? I don't think horse owners are lazy at all! They work more than one job to pay for their care, then wake before dawn, get dirty every day, and risk everything to drive to an event to win a ribbon. Most horse owners don't have the time to even read this summary of my podcast. But when something goes wrong with a horse, the natural response is to do "research," which is a very precise science most horse owners aren't trained to do. Further, research takes time, which busy horse owners don't have. Indoctrination is the result rather than critical thinking, and often, the horse suffers. The purpose of what I do here at Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is to do the work for horse owners. However, I expect you to ask questions and to challenge what I say, or at least take a moment to think it over. Continuously ask this question: "Is what I'm doing the best for my horse?" Together, we can Help Horses Thrive In A Human World™. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its information is free, and there is a membership side that allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Please give a thumbs-up or a 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

Every day, all body proteins break down into the small building blocks of amino acids, sending these free molecules into a recycling program for use in building other proteins. Why this happens remains a mystery, as does the reason we don't lose our muscle shape or our memories during the process. Over time, our horses show loss of protein as weakened hoof walls, crushed heels, poor hair coat, lost top line, tendon and ligament strains, poor immune response, and behavioral issues. A "Catabolic crisis" results from processes that break down proteins in our horses. It describes the imbalance where more protein is used up by horses than is taken in to replace the loss. An obvious example is when the hooves are trimmed, or the hair coat is shed or clipped off. On the ground is lost protein that needs to be replaced through the food our horses eat. However, there is also an invisible loss of protein, commonly seen as lost muscle beneath a layer of fat. I discuss in this podcast the two major reasons for catabolic crisis in horses: 1) The intake of more glucose than a horse needs, and 2) the lack of intake of branch chain amino acids used in replacing lost muscle. The solution is to feed more high-quality protein than the horse loses daily. It's just like making more money than you spend to avoid a budget crisis. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Please give a thumbs-up or a 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

The debate over horse dentistry needs to be resolved before it escalates into an all-out war, leaving horses without the dental care they need. The two main issues fueling this conflict—hand floating versus power equipment, and the debate over whether only veterinarians or non-veterinarians should perform dental work—have been ongoing since the 1960s. I know this history well, as I began my own journey into equine dentistry in 1983. Like many forgotten histories, this discussion often pits people against one another without understanding past mistakes and solutions. Those involved focus solely on their own perspectives, turning the debate into a personal battle in which the horses are caught in the middle, suffering as their needs are misrepresented or ignored. As this conflict continues to play out on social media and in veterinary meetings, an increasing number of horse owners are opting not to have their horses' teeth cared for. Consequently, horses are left chewing in pain or struggling with the bit, only to see a dentist when the dental issues become severe, rather than receiving preventive maintenance. In this podcast, I will discuss this dilemma by examining the various schools of thought, which often rest on unproven theories and distorted facts. It's time for all parties to cease fighting and for veterinarians to expand their scope of care, offering more options for horse owners. By doing so, we can ensure that more horses receive the dental care they need, which is essential to Help Horses Thrive In A Human World™. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

The model for training veterinarians is broken. Horse owners complain about the cost and the outcome of advanced procedures and diagnostics. Young veterinary graduates quickly become disillusioned, experience declining morale, and elect to leave the profession. The veterinary crisis is real and is occurring mostly in the horse and food animal care. As horse owners, the decline is affecting all but the elite horse centers; rural horse owners are either struggling to choose or decline expensive care options, facing ineffective or nonexistent care providers, or losing their horse prematurely. This podcast looks at the December, 2025 Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Supplemental Edition, which focuses exclusively on a new concept in veterinary medicine: Scope of Care (SOC). Veterinary colleges are incorporating into their pedagogy (the art, science, and profession of teaching students) the idea of offering a broad selection of care, including different costs and outcomes. This approach effectively removes the time-honored tradition of providing the "Gold Standard" of care as the only option for horse owners. While on the surface, the offer of less costly care for horses by veterinarians appears to be a win for horse owners, it masks the fact that horse practices are failing. Declining morale among young veterinarians and owners' loss of confidence in these vets is a double punch; the result is fewer horse veterinarians charging more for diagnostics and procedures that are not scientifically compared to other, more traditional treatments. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its information is free, and there is a membership side that allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Please give a thumbs-up or a 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

As science advances, new ideas about our existence develop that challenge our beliefs. As 2026 begins, more and more credible scientists, with irrefutable credentials, are now willing to address ideas that, only a few years ago, would have been dismissed. Luckily, those of you who have been following me over the years will notice my hinting that there is something "out there" that connects us to horses (and each other). In my 2010 book, "The Ten Irrefutable Laws Of Horsemanship," I suggested in Law Nine that "Energy Is Everything." Now, 16 years later, science is finding the facts behind this law. This podcast discusses the findings of a Columbia Professor of Mitochondrial Psychobiology, Dr Martin Picard. This new field describes the transformation of energy within the mitochondria of cells, from food, water, and air into thoughts, emotions, behavior, action, and health. The findings align well with the thoughts of a Harvard Professor and psychiatrist, Dr Christopher Palmer, who hypothesizes that all brain diseases are a lack of energy within the brain. Can a lack of energy in some organs (the brain, the heart, the connective tissue, the skin, the hooves), due to the allocation of a set amount of total energy to gut inflammation and environmental stress in horses, be the root cause of disease, lameness, and behavioral issues? Dr Martin Picard - https://www.picardlab.org Dr Christopher Palmer - https://brainenergy.com ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its information is free, and there is a membership side that allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Please give a thumbs-up or a 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

The information about care for our horses is overwhelming and often conflicting. The reason is simple: accurate science with horses is impossible due to the expense. The rule for scientific study follows a simple roadmap. First, suggest a hypothesis, which is a supposition based on observation but not on facts or evidence. Then, scientists work hard to disprove the hypothesis. If they can't prove it wrong, then it must be right, and, therefore, the hypothesis becomes a theory based on fact. Several problems arise in collecting facts, such as ensuring there are enough subjects in the study and that they represent all subjects in the world. Studying engineering or mathematical questions can be done anywhere in the world, countless times, and with standard variables. However, in living things like you and your horses, too many variables exist to make the facts rock-solid in their validity. Studies on our horses require large numbers of horses to be examined over long periods, and the expense of doing so prevents good, accurate science. The results are sophistry, or smoke and mirrors. Facts are twisted to shape the theory, leading to conflicting, confusing information for the horse owner. There are only two ways for horse owners to resolve this dilemma: - Return our care for horses to a time before human intervention, when evolution shaped their needs. - Ask this question: Is what is being done today to our horses in their best interest, and does it support or distract from how they developed? This podcast starts and shapes the discussion about horse care for all horse owners, whether novice or seasoned professional. The theme is this: just because we can, should we? The hypothesis is this: Is what we do to horses in their best interest? As owners, we need to look at the "facts" that marketing geniuses say lead to their conclusions and prove whether they are true or just smoke and mirrors. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its information is free, and there is a membership side that allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Please give a thumbs-up or a 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."