Breezing Hill Farm

05/21/2026

This would be so helpful in diagnosing ulcers!

Phenylbutazone—nicknamed “bute”—is one of the most widely used painkillers in horses. It’s cheap, effective, and commonly given for everything from arthritis to post-competition soreness. But there’s a well-known catch: bute can potentially cause gastrointestinal ulceration, and by the time a horse shows obvious signs of stomach or gut trouble, significant damage may already have occurred. This study set out to find early warning signals in the body — measurable proteins that could flag the problem before it gets serious.

The researchers used a cutting-edge technique called proteomics, which is essentially a large-scale scan of all the proteins present in a biological sample. They compared protein expression in the blood and f***s of seven horses treated with a standard clinical dose of bute (4.4 mg/kg) against seven horses given a placebo. Think of it like running a detailed ingredient check on the body’s chemistry before and after the drug — looking for anything that changed in meaningful ways.

The results were striking in scope. The analysis identified over 5,000 proteins in blood and over 3,500 in f***l samples, ultimately finding 226 significant proteins in blood and 181 in f***l samples that were notably different between the bute-treated and control groups.

One protein stood out from the crowd: fatty acid-binding protein 6 (FABP6). This protein, found in the intestinal lining, is normally involved in absorbing fats, but it leaks into the bloodstream and stool when the gut wall is damaged. The researchers validated FABP6 as a potential biomarker using a standard lab test called an ELISA — an important step toward making any future diagnostic test practical and affordable for veterinary clinics.

Why does this matter for horse owners? Early detection of bute-induced gut injury would be useful for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of bute toxicity. Right now, vets often have to rely on scoping the stomach or watching for clinical deterioration. A simple blood or f***l test that could catch gut damage in its earliest stages would allow vets to intervene sooner — adjusting doses, switching medications, or adding gut-protecting treatments before a horse ends up seriously ill.

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/05/14/can-a-blood-or-stool-protein-warn-us-when-a-common-horse-painkiller-is-damaging-the-gut/

05/15/2026

I dont know where these blew in from. Thankfully, Gabe and Cletus are just watching from a distance. I wish people would secure their trash a bit better.

05/03/2026

This was one of my favorite moments in Abby's training this week. The extra hill work we've been doing is helping her find a more uphill balance.

04/14/2026

My brain is full from 4 days of learning from Jillian Kreinbring! The clinic at Shining River Ranch was fabulous. Jillian's expertise is functional anatomy. Her topic in this clinic was oscillating rhythm, which, for me, followed on a topic that Daniel Dauphin had brought up in his clinic last month. Jillian has studied with many great horsemen and women around the world and shared with us, through classroom lectures, groundwork, and ridden work how to help our horses move with greater ease. I have lots of ideas to play with! Random cute pic that has nothing to do with the clinic!

02/16/2026

Abby has been struggling for the last few months, adjusting to being barefoot behind. I wasn't sure she would ever get comfortable, but this week, i felt power from her and more of an uphill balance.

12/11/2025

Abby has been a challenging mare and has sent me down many paths to figure out how to help her. The innovative ground work i have learned from Hatha Equus has been most helpful of any other approach. And shout out to Tarra Cobb Mebane for the body work.

11/03/2025

Very thoughtful article

Forced Exercise is Inflammatory and Damaging.

It does not matter the exercise. It does not matter the movement. Be it a good solid 20 minutes of long trotting, a walk on a 20 meter circle, a Piaffer, or your very best Renvers. All physical exercises become inflammatory to the body when a horse is forced to do it.

Who decides, who knows if they are forced or not? I do not.

The horses do.

This is not my opinion, I share my colloquial understanding of long held facts about exercise physiology.

We all know the benefits of exercise. All studies point to regular, strenuous, effortful exercise as being key markers in longevity, health and wellness outcomes. When we regularly load and stress our bodies, raise our body temperature, and put effort into hard physical skills, especially when we feel uncomfortable doing them... there is a cascade of benefits created by the body. The body rewards you for stressing it.

With dopamine (key to activation), endorphins (euphoria, pain suppressant), endocannabinoids (calm, euphoria), serotonin (mood elevator, anti-anxiety), norepinephrine (energized, clead-headedness), brain derived neurotrophic factor BDNF (Brain growth and memory improvement), epenephrine/adrenaline (short term power, sharpening focus). Plus a range of anti-inflammatory processes clear the body of toxins, lymph fluid, strengthens bone, muscle, tendon... we benefit this way and so do horses, when we regularly put our bodies under stress in exercise.

I call this the "Body Rewarding Itself". Horses that have broken their own resistance ceiling will have a good relationship to the reward that comes afterwards, and this looks and feels like a horse with a work ethic.

The problem is- consent is key.

The same mechanical exercise or movement, when done through fear, duress or force in such a manner where the brain does not opt-in but does it because they have no other choice... all of those rewards are replaced instead with their dark cousins. Inflammation is now your norm rather that anti-inflammatory processes. Fatigue and fogginess is now your friend rather than focus. Metabolic dysfunction instead of regulation. The list goes on.

Equine vets are currently experiencing a crisis in the health of horses who have worked hard all their lives. Almost unexplainable metabolic and autoimmune diseases are plaguing these horses necessitating chronic medication use and early death.

I believe forced exercise, done in the name of the horses own good, to be one of the contributing factors to this.

Which is why the whole notion of light-force and diet-dominance is still so silly in my mind. Because if you are interested in your training having long term health benefits for your horse, mandating that you have earned your horses voluntary buy in to the exercise should be priority number 1. Not a luxurious or inane afterthought of hobbiests or people whose "kindness kills".

I will say it again.

Involuntary, forced exercise or movement is inflammatory and damaging to a horses health.

The same movement done voluntarily is anti-inflammatory and beneficial to a horses health.

Same rule applies to you.

Which is why the rhetoric of even quiet force is so dangerous. It is giving people permission to continue extracting movement out of a horse that slowly breaks down their health rather than build them up.

10/27/2025

Thank goodness I stopped Abby before Scotty beamed her up! 🤣

09/18/2025

Love this before and after of Abby!

Shoutout to our online student Vanessa, who has been showing up for the Strength, Agility, Balance & Mobility through Play work week in and week out, relentlessly, and whose awesome partner in crime is unrecognizable 😍😍

We LOVE teaching you and Abby so much!
Look at this transformation!!! 😍😍

All achieved at liberty through play & mindfulness!

No pressure-and-release, no micro-management, no reverse psychology 💘

08/22/2025

Abby is starting to develop a "dressage" canter, which is impressive given that she only found a freely forward "huntery" canter a couple of weeks ago. Just a few strides and just starting to develop when I rewarded her effort but a really good try from her! Giorgia Ghizzoni