Rockley Farm. Exciting evidence emerging in Navicular

cptrayes said:
You, if you want it?

Do you understand how tiny the trimming organisations are? All the money they get for training a handful of trimmers a year is spent on training those trimmers!
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No, I don't want or need it. I am genuinely confused as to why not one organisation or university is doing this research. I'm equally at a loss to understand why the professionals of the horse world, with a small exception, still continue to shoe.
It doesn't make economic sense. Surely,if you had worked in the business for years, say, for arguments sake, in dressage, trained countless horses and witnessed career ending lamenesses - wouldn't you want your horse's career to have the best chance ?
Professionals have excess to the best vets, physiotherapists and experts in equine science to advise on horses costing upwards of six figures- why would they ignore the latest approach to maintaining life long soundness ?

Do private owners know something that the professionals don't ?
 
Petplan funds research-at least, they did-Petplan Charitable Trust or some such. I think dogatemysalad is correct wrt, if the insurance companies begin to wake up to the amount of vet fees claims and remedial shoeing they are paying out for-it may be worth their while.

However, most of you don't seem to understand how much it costs-to employ me for example, a scientific research assistant at a research institute costs about £70-80K a year full time-I don't get anything like that much! Its the overheads from the institute, then you have consumables, a percentage of my PI's time etc etc and with this sort of study, you'd be talking years to get meaningful data with enough cases.

ok, so I had a gin and now I see that the cost ant details of research have been much better described previously. Remember, equine research is all charitably funded in the UK-if you want more research support those charities supporting it and tell them what you want to see researched! Noone else is going to fund it and there are many research projects competing for very small amounts of money.
 
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cptrayes said:
Why do you think this is Nic's job?

She's pretty busy rehabbing horses that vets and farriers can't help, time after time after time. Her yard has a waiting list and she has no need to advertise and no capacity to save any more horses than she does now.

Why doesn't the FRC or the BVA pick this up and run with it. They have far more money than one little rehab yard ever will.
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Yes, in the majority of cases, it's probably not financially feasible for owners or Rockley to cover the costs of post-rehab MRIs but in her post, Nic mentioned four horses that did have post-rehab MRIs or x-rays. Don't see any reason why cases like these couldn't be published or presented at congresses. I just think it's a real shame that very few owners (and even fewer vets) get to hear about these results.
 
Buddy'sMum said:
Yes, in the majority of cases, it's probably not financially feasible for owners or Rockley to cover the costs of post-rehab MRIs but in her post, Nic mentioned four horses that did have post-rehab MRIs or x-rays. Don't see any reason why cases like these couldn't be published or presented at congresses. I just think it's a real shame that very few owners (and even fewer vets) get to hear about these results.
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There is a thread last year started by me about how Nic was turned down to present at the BEVA conference. She and a pro researcher put a lot of work into putting a paper together. It was refused.
 
dogatemysalad said:
Thank you Booboos, that's informative. So basically, you have to approach someone with a proven tack record of research, like, for instance the Animal Health Trust or Liverpool uni ?
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Yes that's the way to go about it. Find a well known research centre, with a proven research track record and the expertise in making research applications and create a proposal with them. They will also have equipment like MRI scans which will reduce the costs.
 
cptrayes said:
There is a thread last year started by me about how Nic was turned down to present at the BEVA conference. She and a pro researcher put a lot of work into putting a paper together. It was refused.
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Disheartening as it may be, being turned down is part of being a researcher and not a conspiracy to keep one person or one set of ideas down.

For example, I have been turned down by every major publisher, every major peer reviewed journal and every major conference in my profession...and have still published 4 books, 9 papers in peer reviewed journals and 7 papers in edited collections. A mid-level peer review journal can easily have a 10% acceptance rate, while this can drop to 2% for the top journals. The top specialist conference in my area has a 10% acceptance rate, with about 80 to 110 papers submitted each year for only 9 slots (just reviewing all the papers takes 4-5 months!). Specifically for conferences there is a question of balance, so at a general vet conference you don't want to have 9 papers on shoeing and 1 on cardio-vascular, but have to have a nice balance of papers to interest a diverse audience.
 
Faracat said:
I agree with much of your post and share your frustration.

There are plenty of private owners who shoe without thinking why, or even if the horse needs shoes.

In the Comp section of this forum, there is a thread about working hunters having to be shod in a full set, or they are eliminated.

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?630290-Learned-something-new!-Shoes-WH
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How very odd. I tend to feel more secure on slippery ground with the horses that aren't shod.
 
Booboos said:
Disheartening as it may be, being turned down is part of being a researcher and not a conspiracy to keep one person or one set of ideas down.
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I was replying to someone who asked why Nic Barker did not present her findings at conferences or publish them that she has tried.

She has also been working in the past with a Professor at Leahurst on a a project that they named 'Dexter' after the first horse on the program. I believe that he initially said that when it reached ten horses, he would publish. Then the number went up, and up, and now she's got so many that her rehabs have a reunion taking up three days at Milton Keynes Equestrian Centre every year it's looking like he has no intention of publishing ever.

We might ask why not, since it's clearly not a failure of results. Something to do with the proportion of revenue that Leahurst gain by MRI, scintigraph and subsequent treatment of palmar hoof lame horses maybe? The cynic in me says that any Professor whose published research decimated the revenues of his employer would not be the most popular person in town.
 
cptrayes said:
We might ask why not, since it's clearly not a failure of results. Something to do with the proportion of revenue that Leahurst gain by MRI, scintigraph and subsequent treatment of palmar hoof lame horses maybe? The cynic in me says that any Professor whose published research decimated the revenues of his employer would not be the most popular person in town.
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I see your point.
 
cptrayes said:
We might ask why not, since it's clearly not a failure of results. Something to do with the proportion of revenue that Leahurst gain by MRI, scintigraph and subsequent treatment of palmar hoof lame horses maybe? The cynic in me says that any Professor whose published research decimated the revenues of his employer would not be the most popular person in town.
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says it all really. The horses who will benefit will be those with private owners who educate themselves.
It would be interesting to know if Rockley have any numbers of the horses referred to them where the vet was the first person to initiate and suggest it against those where the owner has had to fight to get their horse there.
 
Booboos said:
Research funding is a very complex topic, but very briefly:

- if you can get a private company to fund you, then all you have to do is convince them that you might make them money and off you go (subject to REC approval if necessary), so let's leave this possibility to one side.

- public bodies and charitable trusts set up to fund research receive an enormous number of applications for very, very limited funds. Application success rates can be as low as 2% in some areas. To have ANY chance of success applicants have to show a previous record of successful publications (to establish their credibility and evidence the claim that their current work is likely to prove fruitful), have a very well thought out research plan (to prove value for money for the grant and to convince the peer reviewers this is good research) usually in a 'target funding' area for the research body (research granting bodies usually have priority areas identified in advance).

Despite the difficulties though evidence based claims are still the best way to advance our knowldge, otherwise anyone can upload anything they like on the internet and there is no way to evaluate the claims.
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Booboos said:
Disheartening as it may be, being turned down is part of being a researcher and not a conspiracy to keep one person or one set of ideas down.

For example, I have been turned down by every major publisher, every major peer reviewed journal and every major conference in my profession...and have still published 4 books, 9 papers in peer reviewed journals and 7 papers in edited collections. A mid-level peer review journal can easily have a 10% acceptance rate, while this can drop to 2% for the top journals. The top specialist conference in my area has a 10% acceptance rate, with about 80 to 110 papers submitted each year for only 9 slots (just reviewing all the papers takes 4-5 months!). Specifically for conferences there is a question of balance, so at a general vet conference you don't want to have 9 papers on shoeing and 1 on cardio-vascular, but have to have a nice balance of papers to interest a diverse audience.
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Great posts on how research funding and publication works!

Which doesn't mean I don't think the research would be worthwhile but there are many,many things which are worthy of research that can't find funding.

Sadly scientific funding is very hard to come by and scientific research is very expensive to carry out!
 
Booboos' point was a valid one - having an abstract rejected by one congress is not a disaster or a conspiracy on the part of the congress scientific committee. Could've been any number of reasons why Nic's abstract wasn't accepted for presentation at BEVA - it certainly wasn't the only abstract that was rejected. But BEVA is just one congress - there are others. And if the Prof at Leahurst isn't prepared to publish after all this time, find another vet who is.
 
cptrayes said:
We might ask why not, since it's clearly not a failure of results. Something to do with the proportion of revenue that Leahurst gain by MRI, scintigraph and subsequent treatment of palmar hoof lame horses maybe? The cynic in me says that any Professor whose published research decimated the revenues of his employer would not be the most popular person in town.
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I have no idea who this Prof is or why he does not want to publish but there are two possibilities:
either, as you suggest, because the results are ground-breaking and likely to cause a massive shift in diagnostic and treatment options for this condition,
or because there is insufficient evidence.

Somehow the second option seems more likely for a variety of reasons:
- ground-breaking research brings prestige, professional achievement and fulfills the purpose of an academic life, i.e. to get a step closer to the truth - therefore it's not an easy thing to ignore
- ground-breaking research brings bucket loads of research money
- if a diagnostic clinic is at the centre of a new discovery one would imagine that they would attract all the clients for this condition so again the financial argument is questionable
- your assumption that the bulk of Leahurst's work is with such horses and would disappear with this research sounds a tad exaggerated
- I have never heard of the academic community turning its back on research that resolved a problem because of potential loss of income, do you have any other examples? If a researcher were to find a cure for cancer, for example, I think it's more likely that they would be awarded the Nobel prize rather than to be ostracised for eliminating the need for all that lovely chemotherapy income.
 
Not enough evidence? How much more do you want? These horses even form their own control group, since most of them have already been through remedial shoeing and medication and been told to retire or put to sleep!

Buddy's Mum. - WHO do you expect to go round chasing someone to publish this research?

Booboos I did not suggest that the majority (you used the term 'bulk') of Leahurst revenues come from palmar hoof lameness treatment. Any exaggeration on that point has come from you, not me.


I do not accept your assertion that a commercial organisation, of which Leahurst is one, will allow its employees to engage in research that will reduce its revenues. You won't find my Astra Zeneca friends working on any project that will replace the need for a drug with a free alternative.

Interestingly, when I told the senior partner of my vet practice that we could cure navicular with barefoot rehabs, he didn't say 'what rubbish' or even 'how interesting'. His first words were 'you'll put us out of business'.
 
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Booboos said:
Somehow the second option seems more likely for a variety of reasons:
- ground-breaking research brings prestige, professional achievement and fulfills the purpose of an academic life, i.e. to get a step closer to the truth - therefore it's not an easy thing to ignore
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No commercial organisation would pay its researchers to work on any project which will reduce its revenues. Leahurst is a very commercial organisation.

- ground-breaking research brings bucket loads of research money
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The research wouldn't even get started at Leahurst, for the reason given above.

- if a diagnostic clinic is at the centre of a new discovery one would imagine that they would attract all the clients for this condition so again the financial argument is questionable
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The whole point is that no treatment is required. There would be no patients coming in with the condition, they'd be at home with their trimmers and farriers or in little rehab livery yards.
- I have never heard of the academic community turning its back on research that resolved a problem because of potential loss of income, do you have any other examples? If a researcher were to find a cure for cancer, for example, I think it's more likely that they would be awarded the Nobel prize rather than to be ostracised for eliminating the need for all that lovely chemotherapy income.
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My comment was about Leahurst, not about the academic community, though I think it also applies to any academic employed by a commercial organisation. There are loads of examples in medecine and in fact a charity which we give money to exists with the objective of funding research that cannot otherwise find funding due to there being no potential for commercial gain. One example would be a research program into the use of exercise to treat osteoarthritis, which a friend of mine is currently on.
 
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paddy555 said:
says it all really. The horses who will benefit will be those with private owners who educate themselves.
It would be interesting to know if Rockley have any numbers of the horses referred to them where the vet was the first person to initiate and suggest it against those where the owner has had to fight to get their horse there.
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There is now at least one vet referring to Rockley as a first option. I think he has sent three there so far. The knowledge is spreading exponentially now. Some day not miles too far in the future a barefoot rehab will be the recommended treatment for palmar hoof lameness.
 
cptrayes said:
There is now at least one vet referring to Rockley as a first option. I think he has sent three there so far. The knowledge is spreading exponentially now. Some day not miles too far in the future a barefoot rehab will be the recommended treatment for palmar hoof lameness.
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I hope not too far in the future. Hopefully more owners will have the confidence to go against advice and prognosis they are given and unhappy with but it's such a shame it appears it mostly has to be this way.

Ah well seems like institutional science will remain behind. No change there then. Still no real research to validate traditional Navicular treatment and in that model it will only degenerate!
Mind you, going against cultural and endemic beliefs can also ruin a scientists career!

Seems like owners and horses themselves are at the forefront here with the support of some 'out of the box' thinking professionals.
 
A suggestion - if the hoof boot makers, barefoot trimmers, and enthusiastic owners got together, they could form a charity to fund research with post grad students (for example) vets,farriers and other practitioners who were interested in research on navicular findings. People need to collaborate to make something like this move forward.
 
cptrayes said:
Buddy's Mum. - WHO do you expect to go round chasing someone to publish this research?
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cptrayes - why the aggression? Funding bodies don't hand out money on the back of a few blog posts, no matter how interesting they might be. If Nic wants to get funding for research she needs to publish/present her data. That's how it works.
 
What aggression?

Why do you assume Nic wants finding for research?

You asked me why she has not published and I have explained. I do not understand why you think that she is, or should be, seeking research funding.

We all want research but none of us can see who has the inclination and the time and the money to obtain it.
 
ozpoz said:
A suggestion - if the hoof boot makers, barefoot trimmers, and enthusiastic owners got together, they could form a charity to fund research with post grad students (for example) vets,farriers and other practitioners who were interested in research on navicular findings. People need to collaborate to make something like this move forward.
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Can i suggest that you set that charity up then Ozpoz, it's a great idea.
 
Just briefly:

Leahurst is part of the University of Liverpool which is a publicly funded body as per the conditions and charter of almost all higher education institutions in the UK - it is not a company or a profit seeking institution. While of course no one wants to see public bodies making a loss, the primary aim of universities is research for the sake of knowledge and not for the sake of profit.

Control groups cannot, by definition, be the same as the group under study, because otherwise they cannot function as a control.

The number of participants in a study will depend on what is being studied but one needs enough subjects to ensure a good case for causation and not coincidence.

As I said before research is not funded exclusively by private, profit-seeking companies, there are a huge number of non-profit trusts and government organisations. For example in my area the major grant making bodies are the AHRC and the ESRC with charitable bodies like the Welcome Trust and the Nuffield Foundation also giving out enormous amounts of money. Sites like this one: http://www.researchresearch.com/ collate opportunities.
 
You know what - I decided a few years back that insurance was, overall, a bad thing for horses' welfare because it allowed owners and vets and farriers to pursue expensive and generally painful and unpleasant interventions to horses in the hope of effecting a "cure". Many of these interventions have dubious effectiveness, and when challenged to justify them it's often a simple trotting out of "recognised best practice" or some such nonsense.

I stopped supporting the insurance industry to the tune of £1800 a year for mine. They want to take all of the cash and carry none of the risk, Exclusions are ridiculous and excesses burdensome.

If owners did not have recourse to five or ten thousand of veterinary intervention paid for, how many would take the simpler, more natural and conservative approaches??

it's time that insurance companies recognised the values that Rockley can bring, but they won't because it is not a low risk option for them in that there is no formal background of Veterinary approval and farrier established treatment regimes (both with their own professional bodies, insured by.....).

Rockley - it is only one small yard that does what it does well partly because it is small.
 
cptrayes said:
There is now at least one vet referring to Rockley as a first option. I think he has sent three there so far. The knowledge is spreading exponentially now. Some day not miles too far in the future a barefoot rehab will be the recommended treatment for palmar hoof lameness.
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This is my vet - he is actively pushing Rockley as a treatment option and is offering it to his clients now :D However it was me that initiated it, we are still a long way from this becoming mainstream unfortunately :(
 
cptrayes said:
What aggression?

Why do you assume Nic wants finding for research?

You asked me why she has not published and I have explained. I do not understand why you think that she is, or should be, seeking research funding.

We all want research but none of us can see who has the inclination and the time and the money to obtain it.
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Um, because she has mentioned it several times in her blog, see for example:

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/of-research-and-soundness.html
http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/or-alternatively-shoot-horse.html
http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/funding-more-mris.html

?
 
brucea said:
If owners did not have recourse to five or ten thousand of veterinary intervention paid for, how many would take the simpler, more natural and conservative approaches??
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Good point. I've told more than one vet off for asking 'is he/she insured?' before they've even clapped eyes on the horse. I don't tell them until they've done a basic work up and we've discussed the options.
 
Booboos I can't quote you because the pointers are going wrong.

Leahurst is a teaching hospital, yes.

But it is also a commercial veterinary hospital operating in competition with several other veterinary hospitals in the North West. It is indeed a commercial enterprise, making a profit from treating horses just like any other veterinary practice. I have not seen their books, but it would be unusual if they do not actually have a company registration, since the veterinary hospital is a profit making organisation operating within a publically funded body. That would be the normal way these things are done in the public sector.
 
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Buddy'sMum said:
Um, because she has mentioned it several times in her blog, see for example:

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/of-research-and-soundness.html
http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/or-alternatively-shoot-horse.html
http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/funding-more-mris.html
?
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True, though they are not current and I thought we were posting about right now. I have, perhaps erroneously, read into your posts that you feel she has some sort of obligation to publish research. If that is incorrect, I apologise.
 
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