Have horses? We’ll travel! seems to be the motto of Jack Snyder, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVS, and Sharon Spier, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, a husband-wife team who for the past dozen years have set up and spearheaded referral hospitals for some of the world’s most elite equine competitions. Their well-worn luggage has stamps from exotic locals such as Korea, Italy, Cuba, and Argentina, and one from as close as Atlanta. At home they don’t take on the guise of mild-mannered veterinarians. Instead, they are on the cutting edge of research and treatment of competition horses at the University of California, Davis. Snyder is Chief of Equine Surgery, and Spier is Chief of Equine Medicine.

Their around-the-world journey began in 1988, when they were asked to help Korean veterinarians man the Olympic referral hospital in Seoul. Since that time, they have worked the 1991 Pan Am Games in Cuba; the 1995 Pan Am Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina; the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Ga.; the 1998 World Equestrian Games in Rome, Italy; and now they are gearing up for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. (After Cuba, Snyder and Spier skipped the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. However, the FEI asked them to resume their roles, and they had recuperated enough to once again take on the task as caretakers of the world’s most important equestrian athletes.)

In Korea, Snyder said the local vets needed someone involved in surgery and emergency medicine at the hospital, so Prof. Leo Jeffcott, BVetMed, MA, PhD, DVSc, FRCVS, he, and his wife were called into action. The referral hospitals at these events offer services free of charge (for the most part) for each country’s team veterinarians and the horses under their care. These services could include anything from blood work and diagnostics to colic surgery and fracture repair.

Snyder and Spier lived in Korea for two months setting up the hospital, tending to horses as they arrived for the Olympic games, and watching over the competitors during the events. (This was several years after Snyder, while in vet school, had traveled by boat 32 days with 800 cattle from Portland to Korea and swore he’d never go back!)

Cuba in 1991 was unusual because Snyder and Spier had to bring in everything for the hospital. From scalpels to anesthesia equipment to metal plates for fracture repairs, the team boxed up supplies from UC Davis and shipped them to Cuba. Because Cuba didn’t have an FEI delegate, the Mexican FEI delegate, Raul Armendariz, became the head of the team. He was the one who hired Snyder and Spier to run the show.

The 1995 Pan Am Games in Buenos Aires was a little different story, too. The Argentine equestrian federation hired the dynamic duo to consult with their country’s team before the Olympics and to set up the referral hospital for the games. Six months before the competition began, Snyder would fly down to Buenos Aires once or twice a month, sometimes for only a day. His schedule might look something like this: Leave San Francisco in the afternoon for Miami, then leave Miami about 11 at night on the red-eye to Buenos Aires. Arrive (after several time changes) at 8 a.m. Argentine time. Consult with the federation and team veterinarians for the horses all day, then catch the red-eye back home that night.

Coming Home

After a few years of competitions, Snyder and Spier started to know many of the team veterinarians, horses, and competitors. That is one of the biggest reasons they feel they have become such a standard at top-level events. It also was a plus that Spier speaks fluent Spanish, and Snyder speaks “enough to get by.”

“We get to know the vets, who often stay the same year after year,” said Snyder. “They have developed a confidence in us that we can help their horses.”

That confidence was important in Atlanta, because team vets were not allowed to live at the Olympic site. Snyder and Spier, however, had a “container” with bunk beds adjacent to the clinic on site.

“We treated colics and mild problems at night when the team vets weren’t around,” said Snyder. “We could call them and let them know what was going on, and they knew us well enough that they trusted our decisions.”

Snyder and Spier were in Atlanta for two months. They had plenty of help from University of Georgia veterinary students and technicians. Also, the University of Georgia was close enough to be the actual referral hospital for surgeries. An interesting sidelight, however, was that the equine clinic was set up before the human one, and Snyder and Spier found themselves tending the wounds of two-legged creatures early-on.

“It was funny that we spent a lot of time in the beginning working on people because the medical facility was not set up early,” said Snyder. “It caused a bit of a problem later on because the people wanted to keep coming to us even after the human center was set up!”

The 1998 World Equestrian Games in Rome stands out as one of the favorites for Snyder and Spier. This mostly was because they didn’t have to live on site–they lived in downtown Rome.

“That was a good one,” said Snyder. “Great food, a great time, and we got to see quite a bit of the city, which was unusual.” The couple was there for three weeks working with Italian veterinarians and the horses from the various countries.

Down Under

While in Rome, Snyder and Spier met with Nigel Nichols, BVSc, head of veterinary services for the Sydney Olympics. Because of the quarantine requirements in Australia, an actual hospital will be set up at the competition site, with a surgery suite being used at the quarantine facility about five miles away. The hospital will be equipped much like Atlanta’s, except for one new innovation–an extracorporeal shock wave therapy device from the Karl Storz Lithotripsy company. This is the same equipment that Snyder and Spier are using with tremendous success at UC Davis in treating soft tissue problems, especially ligament injuries. (See related news item on page 12 for more details.)

The hospital will be equipped not only with medical supplies, but ultrasound, radiography, and thermography, and a three meter endoscope (gastroscope). A full laboratory for chemistry profiles will be created and headed by Jennifer Hodgson, DVM, a clinical pathologist from Sydney. (Snyder and Spier each have their PhDs in comparative pathology.)

The endoscope will be serving two purposes at the Sydney Olympics. First, it is available for diagnosis of problems such as upper respiratory conditions or horses that are “off feed;” second, the vets want to scope horses stomachs to investigate the incidence of gastric ulcers in these high level performance horses. This second part will be done on a voluntary basis.

Also like the Atlanta games, Sydney will have a physical therapist on site for the horses. Several companies are sending equipment, including therapeutic low frequency and high frequency ultrasound, photon therapeutic devices such as lasers, magnetic units, transcutaneous electrical stimulators, and pulse electromagnetic units.

The first horse is due to arrive in Sydney on Aug. 21, and Snyder and Spier will be there from before that time until the games end on Oct. 1. They will live on site in a trailer next to the clinic.

Monitoring and evaluation are the number one jobs of the veterinarians at this level. Horses which had injuries in the past are monitored with all means available to keep an eye on the problem. The team is set up to handle any emergency, but the problems that arise usually are mild.

“We perform bloodwork to ensure horses are systemically healthy, and handle minor lameness problems,” said Snyder. “Mild colic probably is the biggest problem because of the shipping and change of feed. In Atlanta, we were up almost every night looking at mild colics.

“I imagine Sydney will be the same. We also will keep an eye on respiratory problems at Sydney because of the long shipping time. We’ll do a lot of blood work and monitoring.”

Why do Snyder and Spier suffer through the cramped living quarters for weeks on end, spend untold hours on airplanes, and put their lives on hold every few years?

“You can literally feel the energy in the air at the Olympic games,” said Spier. “I think it is because everyone there (from athletes to the spectators) is involved in the sport that they love. There are tens of thousands of volunteers who are there simply because they want to be part of the experience.

“Working with veterinarian’s from other countries is a wonderful experience,” she continued. “In Atlanta, I treated a colic in a Hungarian horse and the groom, veterinarian, and I could not converse at all. With the horse, that part was easy, but trying to use sign language to ask when he last ate or passed manure was another issue; it was hard for all of us not to laugh! The horse was fine after some minor care and the groom came to show me his beautiful manure piles.”

“It’s a little different than the show circuit,” said Snyder. “It’s at another level. Going to the Olympics and being part of that event is very exciting. We enjoy working with the teams. The stress level involved at this level of competition is very high, but it’s good, and it’s exciting to keep the horses going.

“Obviously at the Olympic level emotions run high, so when we have problems–minor or major–then it’s a tense situation because of everything they have put into getting the horse there. And, as we’ve gone through the years, we’ve made many friends.”

While Snyder and Spier say the work really isn’t any different from their day-to-day lives at home–maintenance, prevention, and occasional emergencies–they find it’s fun.

And hey, Greece is a nice country, with Athens the next Olympic site.

“We’ll see how that goes,” said Snyder with a laugh