Horse Racing

Veterinarians Combining Thermal Microchips, New Technology For Better Horse Health


As microchips become the norm for registered Thoroughbreds, veterinarians in the field have been working on ways to use those microchips for more than just digital identification. On a webinar hosted by the University of Kentucky Department of Veterinary Sciences this week, Drs. Alan Dorton and Kevin Corley discussed the applications they have found for biothermal microchips.

Biothermal microchips have the capacity to communicate an animal’s temperature to a microchip reader in addition to any identifying information stored along with that microchip number. Not all microchips have this capacity; most are only designed to provide an identity number which can be paired with animal name and other information.

Dorton is a practicing veterinarian based in Versailles, Ky., said he finds the temperature-reading aspect of the biothermal chips especially helpful on the larger breeding farms where he practices. For one thing, when farm staff are given chip readers, they can check temperatures of horses much more quickly and less invasively than taking standard rectal temperature readings, which improves both efficiency and safety for handlers. Dorton has worked with 1,500 biothermal microchips in his clients’ horses and finds the temperature readings provided by the chips are within half a degree of rectal temperature before turnout or one hour after a horse returns to its stall.

Dorton pairs readings from the biothermal microchips with a mobile phone app developed by Corley, who is an internal medicine specialist based in Ireland. The app, called Equitrace, can record temperature readings, making it more practical for farm staff to take and store multiple readings. He says this has enabled him to intervene before a horse even shows symptoms of illness like diarrhea.

“On at least three dozen foals this year, I’ve been catching illnesses before they start,” said Dorton. “Mostly diarrheas, and we’re catching that before they get diarrhea. That’s the beauty of this thing.”

On the racetrack, this type of temperature tracking could also help a trainer get data on a horse’s fitness by monitoring how quickly their body temperature returns to normal.

Equitrace will also record the GPS location of the chip scanner at the time of each scan, and has the capability to store notes on each horse’s treatments and medications for easy recordkeeping and transfer. It even comes with the option to warn trainers when a medication administration could result in a positive, based on chosen state or national withdrawal times.

Corley said he envisions widespread use of the app aiding with other industry problems, too. Besides making it harder to inadvertently treat the wrong horse or bring the wrong one to the paddock, it could also help with traceability — if use of a scanner and the app become common enough that riding stables or aftercare groups scan a horse routinely after it has retired from the racetrack.

As veterinary medical records become more important for equine welfare, Corley also points out the GPS feature of the app can help validate their accuracy.

“One of the great things about scanning a microchip is you have to be physically next to that horse to generate that record,” said Corley. “It’s one of the reasons we’ve concentrated on real-time scanning of the microchip going to the phone. We’ve got a lot of interest in this from insurance companies. If a vet goes to check a horse five days before the Churchill Downs races, you know that vet was there to do that physical exam.”

Corley cited statistics that somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of FEI passports which are meant to record a horse’s medical history show vaccines that were never actually given.

Medical and GPS data is encrypted, and not visible to app developers or others unless granted access.

As always, price could be a consideration to get the system to catch on. Biothermal chips are around $15, depending on the amount purchased, and chip readers can run $300 to $400.





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