The role of veterinarians in equestrian sport: A comparative review of ethical issues surrounding human and equine sports medicine

Abstract

Veterinarians have a key role in providing medical care for sports horses during and between competitions, but the standard client:veterinarian relationship that exists in companion and production animal medicine is distorted by the involvement of third parties in sports medicine, resulting in distinct ethical dilemmas which warrant focused academic attention. By comparing the existing literature on human sports medicine, this article reviews the ethical dilemmas which face veterinarians treating equine athletes, and the role of regulators in contributing to or resolving those dilemmas.Major ethical dilemmas occur both between and during competitions. These include conflicts of responsibility, conflicts between the need for client confidentiality and the need to share information in order to maximise animal welfare, and the need for an evidence base for treatment. Although many of the ethical problems faced in human and equine sports medicine are similar, the duty conferred upon a veterinarian by the licensing authority to ensure the welfare of animals committed to his or her care requires different obligations to those of a human sports medicine doctor. Suggested improvements to current practice which would help to address ethical dilemmas in equine sports medicine include an enhanced system for recording equine injuries, the use of professional Codes of Conduct and Codes of Ethics to establish acceptable responses to common ethical problems, and insistence that treatment of equine athletes is evidence-based (so far as possible) rather than economics-driven.

Ethics, Genetic Technologies and Equine Sports: The Prospect of Regulation of a Modified Therapeutic Use Exemption Policy

“…Having briefly reviewed the use of genetic technologies in equine sport, we turn now to consider a range of ethical issues comparing and contrasting human analogues. For the purposes of this argument, we assume the justifiability of human sporting use of animals providing that the positive welfare of sentient animals is maximised, and welfare harms minimised (Campbell 2013a(Campbell , 2013b(Campbell , 2016(Campbell , 2019. We now turn to arguments concerning genetic testing for health limiting conditions and performance enhancement and later gene editing, before critically presenting the case for the ethical salience of the distinction.…”

“…Yet just as the contract between a sports physician and an employer may rest with both them and the individual athlete (Anderson and Gerrard 2005), the contract exists between a veterinarian and the horse owner, not the equine athlete. This is complicated even further by the fact that the horse owner may be represented by an intermediary, for example, the trainer or rider (Campbell 2013a(Campbell , 2013b.…”

Descripción del doping en el equino y evaluación en Chile.

“…El Médico Veterinario tiene un papel fundamental en la entrega de atención médica a los caballos en todo momento, por lo mismo está en sus manos velar por el bienestar de los atletas otorgando tratamientos frente a cualquier afección, y es responsable frente al propietario del caballo ya que éste el que tiene especial interés en mantener al atleta compitiendo en óptimas condiciones (Campbell, 2013).…”

When does use become abuse in equestrian sport?

“…) needs to be built upon. An important part of increasing the evidence base about risk factors for equine injury during training will be developing a mechanism for clinicians to provide information about such injuries to sports governing bodies and researchers without breaching client confidentiality (Campbell ).…”

“…If we are to reduce the risk to competing horses as much as we can, we need to think beyond the high-profile, 'iceberg indicators' (FAWC 2009 Lam et al 2007;Walters et al 2008;Ely et al 2009;Murray et al 2010;Reed et al 2012;Nagy et al 2013;Parkes et al 2013;Reardon et al 2013) needs to be built upon. An important part of increasing the evidence base about risk factors for equine injury during training will be developing a mechanism for clinicians to provide information about such injuries to sports governing bodies and researchers without breaching client confidentiality (Campbell 2013).…”