Every year on 1st March, World Horse Day celebrates the beauty, strength, and significance of horses while raising crucial awareness about the challenges many equines face worldwide. From ploughing fields and transporting goods to serving as companions, horses and other working equines play a crucial role in countless communities. Yet, despite their invaluable contributions, many endure harsh conditions, inadequate care, and little to no veterinary support—severely affecting their well-being. At WVS, we are committed to changing this. Through free expert veterinary care, owner education, and professional training, we strive to improve the health and happiness of working equines everywhere.
In this article, hear from our Clinical Director at WVS India, Dr Ilona Otter, on the challenges equines in India are facing, and how our equine clinics and training camps are helping to address them. Our equine work in India is kindly supported by Welttierschutzgesellschaft (WTG).
Author: Ilona Otter
WVS India team, with loyal support from the WTG, has been conducting working equine field clinics across Tamil Nadu state as well as in Mysore (Karnataka state) since 2013. Initially the work focused on working donkeys but since 2017 we have also included working horses and ponies in our clinics.
The equestrian field in India is developing and imported showjumping and dressage horses are gaining popularity among the rich and famous of the field. These horses, as well as the thoroughbred horses that are bred for racing and for which there is very long history in India, are well-taken care for with modern, specialist equine veterinary services easily available for them. These horses are routinely vaccinated and tested for contagious diseases as part of the strict quarantine and biosecurity requirements that are upheld by the organised equestrian sector.
The un-organised sector is a fully different story. In this sector, we count working horses and ponies as well as tourist pleasure riding horses, especially those belonging to the indigenous horse breeds and those thoroughbred horses discarded from the racecourses after their best racing career is over. These horses often have rather little monetary value, and they belong to people who do not own land or stable buildings and don’t have access to any boarding stables either. Such animals are kept in small sheds or enclosures next to the home of owner, as is the case for most of the donkeys as well for some of the horses kept for tourist riding purposes. Lots of the tourist riding horses and ponies, however, are left to roam on the streets freely when not in use. In some of our project locations, such as in Mysore, the municipality has provided sheds for the tourist riding horses and ponies, to keep them off the streets.
The lack of proper housing is just one part of the problem. When roaming on the streets, these animals are at a great risk of being hit by vehicles, resulting in severe injuries. Young foals, born on the streets, are at a risk of being attacked by roaming dogs or even panthers. It is a common sight to see roaming horses or ponies scavenging among rubbish on the roadside, searching for salty bits, rice or any bread products to eat. In this process they often also ingest plastic wrappings, and these can get lodged in the horse’s intestines, causing an obstruction and often fatal colic.
Caption: Suspect panther attack patient
Especially among the communities trading in working donkeys, there have been many traditional treatment practices arising from the desperate need to do something when proper veterinary care is unavailable, and an animal is injured or sick. Cutting out the nostrils in the belief that it improves breathing, cutting off the tips of the ears in the belief that it lets out the bad blood in case of a snake bite, and branding a lame leg with a hot iron in the belief that it will cure the lameness and prevent tetanus, are some examples of harmful traditional practices.
WVS India working equine first aid field clinic and outreach camps are addressing the issue of lack of access to veterinary care for the unorganised equine sector. Our team provides basic first aid, advice in management of traumatic injuries, preventative health care such as tetanus vaccinations and deworming, surgical castrations (gelding) using appropriate anaesthesia and pain relief, and we attend to emergencies, such as colic cases and traffic accident injuries.
One of the reasons why the unorganised sector has difficulties in accessing veterinary care, is that horse-related topics are not covered much in the veterinary education, and most vets lack practical exposure and confidence in handling horse cases. This means that general practitioners who would otherwise be available for the horse owners in this sector, may not have sufficient knowledge and experience to attend an equine case. The equine specialist vets that serve the organised equestrian sports sector, are too expensive for working equine owners to use, and not even available in the areas where most working equines, especially the donkeys, are.
WVS India has been set up to improve animal welfare through veterinary capacity building. In this unorganised equine sector, it means that we provide basic horse practice programmes and outreach camp volunteering opportunities for interested vets to gain more experience and confidence. The idea is not necessarily to make them to want to become equine specialists, but to have enough knowledge to be interested in attending equine cases if and when such opportunities arise.
Feedback from Dr Ashish Christopher, WVS India equine programme volunteer:
“I recently had the privilege of volunteering in the equine field veterinary camp organised by WVS India at Teni. The experience was both professionally rewarding and personally fulfilling. The camp was well-organised, with clear communication and logistics that allowed us to provide seamless care to donkeys in the vicinity of Teni district of Tamil Nadu. The facilities organised by WVS India team was top notch with the mobile veterinary ambulance being equipped with everything from medications to surgical kits, ensuring effective functioning in the field.”
Caption: Recent WVS mobile clinic in India
Caption: Horse with eye injury receiving treatment at a mobile clinic
Caption: Equine training course for local veterinarians
Caption: At the training camps, vets learn about sedation, teeth rasping, field surgery, hoof care, and lameness examination.
Clinics in action
In January, our WVS India team attended to 147 equines, seeing to a variety of different injuries, a colic case, retained placenta, and providing routine preventive care. One unusual case was the surgical removal of an eye worm from inside of the anterior Chamber of the eye of a horse. The surgery was followed up with topical antibiotics and analgesia, as well as systematic pain relief to ease the horse’s discomfort.
Caption: Horse requiring surgery and treatment for eye worm
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