French Veterinarians Preparing for 2014 WEG

Find out how veterinarians are preparing with less than a year to go before the 2014 World Equestrian Games.
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Repeat after me: Chevaux. Say it this way: “SHEV-O.” Very good! That’s “horses” in French. You’ll want to practice that word and many more over the next nine-and-a-half months as the equestrian world prepares for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games 2014 (WEG), to be held next summer in Normandy, France.

WEG organizers will spend their chilly Norman winter warming up for this seventh edition of the Games, which will feature eight world championships. Competitive events à la carte will include dressage, show jumping, eventing, driving, endurance, reining, vaulting, and para-dressage. But there will also be a demonstration horseball game—a sport born and bred in France’s home field—and a polo match presented in the famous “horse city” of Deauville.

Less than a year out, WEG’s veterinary coordinator Anne Couroucé-Malblanc, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ECEIM, is overseeing the recruitment of volunteer veterinarians from around the country. For Couroucé-Malblanc, it’s been one of the easiest tasks so far. “The French veterinarians responded very quickly and very, very positively to my call for help for these Games,” she told The Horse. Within a couple of weeks, she had rounded up more than 80 veterinarians and expects to easily have a team of 100. That’s in addition to the dozens of veterinary students, the 10 or so official anti-doping veterinarians, and the national team veterinarians who will also be onsite during the events.

She’s also lining up tight connections with the wealth of Norman equine health care resources. Within a short distance of the venue, for example, are the world-renowned Frank Duncombe analysis laboratory and the advanced equine imaging center, the Centre d’Imagerie et de Recherche sur les Affections Locomotrices Equines, headed by Jean-Marie Denoix, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVSMR. The University of Rennes’ equine behavior specialists, including Martine Hausberger, PhD, are in the neighboring region of Brittany. France also hosts both of the European Union Reference Laboratories for Equine Diseases—one at its Maisons Alfort Veterinary School just outside Paris, and the other in the Dozulé Equine Disease Laboratory in Normandy

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Passionate about horses and science from the time she was riding her first Shetland Pony in Texas, Christa Lesté-Lasserre writes about scientific research that contributes to a better understanding of all equids. After undergrad studies in science, journalism, and literature, she received a master’s degree in creative writing. Now based in France, she aims to present the most fascinating aspect of equine science: the story it creates. Follow Lesté-Lasserre on Twitter @christalestelas.

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