Equine Lameness

The Equine Lameness service in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at Texas A&M University has many outstanding services to offer anyone with lameness or performance problems. The service consists of 2 faculty members, Drs. Carter and Dabareiner, who are recognized nationally for their expertise in equine lameness, poor performance problems and prepurchase exams. Dr. Carter is board certified in internal medicine and has been serving  the state of Texas and surrounding states for over 30 years as an expert in lameness at TAMU. Dr. Dabareiner is board certified in large animal surgery and is an avid team roper and very involved in rodeo and the local horse industry. She specializes in navicular disease and poor performance in rodeo horses but has an extended background in English performance horses. We see horses for everything from simple hoof abscesses to complicated and unique lameness problems. Clients can call and come in without a referral or may be referred from other veterinarians for additional diagnostics or opinions. In addition to proving clinical services, we also teach numerous classes and instruct veterinary students and house officers in equine lameness.

Additional services provided include a high quality ultrasound service, digital radiology, and nuclear scintigraphy. We have the largest radiographic machine in the state which allows us to examine difficult areas like the hip, spine, and shoulder of the horse. We have the only nuclear scintigraphy unit in the state. We inject radioactive material into the horse's vein and 3 hours later perform the scintigraphic exam which detects bone inflammation throughout the horse's body. We work closely with 5 board certified radiologist that assist in the interpretation of the radiographs, ultrasounds and nuclear scintigraphic exams.  In addition, within the next year we will be able to offer MRI exams to our equine patients. This is a state of the art diagnostic test to assess boney and soft tissue lesions in the horse's legs that often are not seen on regular radiographs or ultrasound.

The lameness service also has a full time certified farrier in Jason Maki. He provides many services which include simple walk in hoof trimming and shoeing to corrective shoeing for complicated foot problems such as navicular disease, laminitis, whiteline disease and many other foot problems.  The equine lameness service has a full time technician, Sarah Denham, who competes and trains Dressage and jumping horses and we have a full time groom, David Kindt, who competes and trains cutting horses.

We have top of the line facilities to service your horse including a new covered riding arena, large lameness pad and lameness exam room and state of the art diagnostic machines used for ultrasound and digital radiographs.

We are currently involved in many research studies including a clinical study on the best treatment for bone spavin and a current study examining poor performance in team roping, barrel and cutting horses.