NCHA FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES PROJECT FUNDING FOR FIELD RESEARCH AIMED AT SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVING EQUINE HEALTH AND RECOVERY FROM CRITICAL INJURIES IN PERFORMANCE HORSES

FORT WORTH – The National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) Foundation is pleased to announce the first award of $25,000 in project funding from the Dr. Glenn Blodgett Animal Welfare Fund to the Equine High-Performance Sports Group (EHPSG) for a pilot study on the use of orthobiologic treatments on stifle and suspensory injuries in performance horses.

Prior to his passing in November of 2022, Dr. Glenn Blodgett served as the NCHA Foundation Animal Welfare Chair and guided the Foundation’s philanthropic efforts and partnerships with The Foundation for the Horse, the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP), and more. His passion for the horse spurred the Foundation’s goal of creating an endowment for the tenet he so fiercely championed. Before he passed, the NCHA Foundation received a donation from an anonymous donor that provided base funding for such an endowment.

“The NCHA Foundation is excited to support a project and study team of this caliber,” said Julia Buswold, NCHA Foundation director. “It is important to us as a foundation to support research projects and programs that advance the sport of cutting while also improving the welfare of our equine athletes. The NCHA Foundation has been working for a while to acquire the level of funding that these types of projects require. Thanks to the generosity of donors who share in our mission, we are able to make an impact of this magnitude through our animal welfare tenent.”

EHPSG is a team of passionate equine veterinarians and researchers with a shared mission to facilitate and promote the development of equine and human athlete-centered projects as well as the next generation of best-practice guidelines, supported by science, to have a positive impact on the health, welfare, and longevity of performance horses.

A group of experienced veterinarians will soon conduct the pilot study, tracking the treatment protocols applied with a focus on stifle and suspensory discomfort or injury and their effect on the horse’s return to performance events. The study team will utilize an innovative software system designed by EHPSG to catalog case information and track results to ensure new information regarding trends, innovations, and successes can be more rapidly and safely applied.

"The equestrian industry is currently under public scrutiny regarding how horses are being managed and whether current techniques are safe and effective,” said Dr. Joop, Loomans, EHPSG executive director. “For this reason, it is imperative that industry stakeholders demonstrate leadership in pursuing “athlete centered research”, as in human sports. The end goal is to not only help horses perform better, but also to promote athletic longevity and wellbeing. The NCHA Foundation and the EHPSG are working together to enable key players (veterinarians, trainers, owners) to make data driven decisions about whether to use an orthobiologic for injuries and performance and which one.”

To learn more and help the NCHA Foundation support more projects of this nature please visit, www.nchafoundation.org/givenow.

For more about the Equine High-Performance Sports Group and their research, visit https://bit.ly/EHPSG.

About the NCHA Foundation

Since 1982, the NCHA Foundation has proudly supported the NCHA through youth scholarships and programming, animal welfare research and projects, historical preservation efforts, and education of the sport of cutting.