What the heck is a blog?
In developing our web site, one of the options was for a blog page. Of course, I wanted one, I wanted the site to have everything we needed. Now I find myself trying to fill this page. I had to look up what a blog was since I am not as computer savvy as I sometimes think. According to Wikipedia it’s more like a diary entry, something else I’ve never done. They say the best one’s tell a story, that I can do.
Why leave the racetrack?
Every day lately I have been asked why I decided to do a “pivot” with our practice and shift away from the racetrack. The racetrack practice I started in the spring of 1998 has been good to my family and I and has taken good care of more than a few others. I have a lot of friends at Finger Lakes, Tampa Bay Downs, Mahoning Valley, and the NYRA tracks. I grew up at the now deceased Beulah Park and the once named River Downs (now Belterra) where my father and grandfather trained horses. My family had tack shops at all the Ohio tracks at one time or another, Hobson’s Turf Supply, and southern California tracks, Hobson’s saddlery. My father and his brothers started a manufacturing business, Hawthorne Products, to provide the paints, liniments and other topical essentials to aide the racehorse. Nearly every person in my family growing up worked with or around racehorses. So obviously the racetrack is in my blood.
My first job at the age of 12 was a bucket scrubber at River Downs. I have since held nearly every license from groom, to hot walker, to exercise rider, to blacksmith, to owner, to veterinarian. Only one year in my life have I been employed outside the racetrack, doing mixed animal (mostly beef cattle) practice in southeast Ohio.
So why the change?
Covid 19 was devastating to the racehorse industry. Twenty-one trainers left Finger Lakes between 2019 and 2020. The horse population dropped from around 1200 to 800.
During that same time period, people started acquiring pets at an unheard-of rate, horses included. While the racetrack was closed or limping through the pandemic, we were asked more and more frequently to attend to these non-racehorses. It was a welcome way to keep the business profitable and payroll on time. We started to see the benefit of the performance type work we have always done, but for the sport horses outside the gates of the racetrack.
In July of 2022 the federal government will assume leadership and regulatory authority over all thoroughbred racing. One of the requirements of that body will be to limit contact of veterinarians with horses scheduled to race. Since most horses in the US are administered furosemide (Lasix) the day of their race to mitigate bleeding from their lungs, they have taken the step to require third-party administration. This means the veterinarians giving the dose of Lasix can not be associated with owners or trainers at the track.
I was approached by the management at the racetrack with their dilemma, because there was no one willing or able to take on this responsibility. If I had been given the same opportunity in 2019, I wouldn’t have considered it. But with our new clientele and budding off-track business, it was now an attractive offer. Starting the spring of 2022 our practice will provide Lasix to horses running at Finger Lakes on race days in the mornings and make farm calls for the performance and pleasure horse community in the afternoons and on non-race days.
I feel like this pivot will be a good one. We are not totally gone from the racetrack we have called home for the past 24 years, and we are able to provide our expertise and knowledge to a new group of horses and clientele. I’m still learning about these new disciplines, yesterday I learned it should take five strides to the second in line jump, and I know when to start counting them! The horses and their problems are all pretty much the same, and I’m enjoying the new experiences. So far, the people we have had the pleasure of dealing with have been fantastic, and have increased my confidence this was the right move.
Blog number one is in the books. In the future I think we will try to touch on subjects relevant to horses and time of year. I’ll enlist Dr. Zack’s help to provide content that I’m sure will be more entertaining and informative than mine. Please check out our Facebook page @FLEPVets and our website FLEPVets.com.
Dr. Hobson
In developing our web site, one of the options was for a blog page. Of course, I wanted one, I wanted the site to have everything we needed. Now I find myself trying to fill this page. I had to look up what a blog was since I am not as computer savvy as I sometimes think. According to Wikipedia it’s more like a diary entry, something else I’ve never done. They say the best one’s tell a story, that I can do.
Why leave the racetrack?
Every day lately I have been asked why I decided to do a “pivot” with our practice and shift away from the racetrack. The racetrack practice I started in the spring of 1998 has been good to my family and I and has taken good care of more than a few others. I have a lot of friends at Finger Lakes, Tampa Bay Downs, Mahoning Valley, and the NYRA tracks. I grew up at the now deceased Beulah Park and the once named River Downs (now Belterra) where my father and grandfather trained horses. My family had tack shops at all the Ohio tracks at one time or another, Hobson’s Turf Supply, and southern California tracks, Hobson’s saddlery. My father and his brothers started a manufacturing business, Hawthorne Products, to provide the paints, liniments and other topical essentials to aide the racehorse. Nearly every person in my family growing up worked with or around racehorses. So obviously the racetrack is in my blood.
My first job at the age of 12 was a bucket scrubber at River Downs. I have since held nearly every license from groom, to hot walker, to exercise rider, to blacksmith, to owner, to veterinarian. Only one year in my life have I been employed outside the racetrack, doing mixed animal (mostly beef cattle) practice in southeast Ohio.
So why the change?
Covid 19 was devastating to the racehorse industry. Twenty-one trainers left Finger Lakes between 2019 and 2020. The horse population dropped from around 1200 to 800.
During that same time period, people started acquiring pets at an unheard-of rate, horses included. While the racetrack was closed or limping through the pandemic, we were asked more and more frequently to attend to these non-racehorses. It was a welcome way to keep the business profitable and payroll on time. We started to see the benefit of the performance type work we have always done, but for the sport horses outside the gates of the racetrack.
In July of 2022 the federal government will assume leadership and regulatory authority over all thoroughbred racing. One of the requirements of that body will be to limit contact of veterinarians with horses scheduled to race. Since most horses in the US are administered furosemide (Lasix) the day of their race to mitigate bleeding from their lungs, they have taken the step to require third-party administration. This means the veterinarians giving the dose of Lasix can not be associated with owners or trainers at the track.
I was approached by the management at the racetrack with their dilemma, because there was no one willing or able to take on this responsibility. If I had been given the same opportunity in 2019, I wouldn’t have considered it. But with our new clientele and budding off-track business, it was now an attractive offer. Starting the spring of 2022 our practice will provide Lasix to horses running at Finger Lakes on race days in the mornings and make farm calls for the performance and pleasure horse community in the afternoons and on non-race days.
I feel like this pivot will be a good one. We are not totally gone from the racetrack we have called home for the past 24 years, and we are able to provide our expertise and knowledge to a new group of horses and clientele. I’m still learning about these new disciplines, yesterday I learned it should take five strides to the second in line jump, and I know when to start counting them! The horses and their problems are all pretty much the same, and I’m enjoying the new experiences. So far, the people we have had the pleasure of dealing with have been fantastic, and have increased my confidence this was the right move.
Blog number one is in the books. In the future I think we will try to touch on subjects relevant to horses and time of year. I’ll enlist Dr. Zack’s help to provide content that I’m sure will be more entertaining and informative than mine. Please check out our Facebook page @FLEPVets and our website FLEPVets.com.
Dr. Hobson