Objectives To determine swimming training practices in Australian harness racing horses and potential targets for future research.Methods An online survey of Australian Standardbred trainers and telephone interviews with 20 leading trainers were conducted. Questions relating to swimming facility and protocol, perceived benefits and contraindications were included. Descriptive data analysis was performed.Results Data were collected from 270 trainers: 250 by online survey (250/1770, response rate 14.1%) and 20 by interview. Of these, 103 trainers (38.1%), including 91 surveyed trainers (91/250, 36.4%) and 12 interviewed trainers (12/20, 60.0%), used swimming exercise. The most popular reasons for swimming were to replace trackwork for horses with limb injuries (79.4%), improve or maintain fitness (62.7%) and provide mental stimulation through variety in training (40.0%). Free swimming (78.4%) was more common than tethered, but the frequency and duration for horses in full training varied widely between trainers, with a median of four swim sessions per horse each week (range 0.5-12) for a median of 7 min (range 1.5-30 min) per session, mostly as a continuous swim, but sometimes as intervals. The main reasons given by those not swimming horses were lack of an adequate facility (60.5%) and lack of perceived benefit (16.2%). Reasons for not swimming individual horses varied widely.Conclusions Trainer opinions and protocols varied widely with respect to swimming exercise for Standardbred race horses. The role of swimming exercise requires further study so that evidence-based recommendations can be made. a Differences between interview and surveyed groups assessed by Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests (non-normally distributed data). Count data between groups were assessed by chi-square tests. b Multiple responses could be selected to the question so percentages of trainers selecting each response may total > 100%.

Background. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the accessibility of informa tion about oral health and dental care to pregnant women in Vilnius.Materials and methods. An anonymous questionnaire was distributed to 363 pregnant women in the city of Vilnius. The response rate was 79%. The respondents were divided into groups according to their education, marital status, occupation, the dental office they visit, the source of information used, knowledge about oral health influence on the fetus' health, and complications during previous pregnancies.Results. The mean age of the respondents was 27.52 ± 0.62 years. Of them, 83.5% during their pregnancy visited a dental clinic on a regular basis; 60.63% of women were aware of the fact that oral health affected the condition of their fetus; 75% of pregnant women noted they would derive the information concerning oral health and dental care during pregnancy from popular literature rather than from medical pro fessionals. Women attending private dental practice obtained more information from side sources than did patients of a public dental practice (81.9% and 63.8%, respective ly; p < 0.014); 60.6% of respondents received information about oral health and dental care during pregnancy from their gynecologist; 25.7% of respondents noted that they had not received any information on oral or dental care during pregnancy.Conclusions. In general, information about dental care was available to all preg nant women that participated in the study. The information in respect of oral health and dental care obtained from dentists was not sufficient. The main source of informa tion about oral care received by the women surveyed during pregnancy was a gyne cologist and other sources such as journals, the internet, books, etc.