This concise yet comprehensive short instruction manual teaches horse owners to perform a physical examination on their own horses. Methodically following the examination process that veterinarians use, horse owners of any age and experience will benefit from increasing their equine knowledge with this information.
All horse owners can easily learn to perform a basic veterinary examination on their own horses. Learning to perform a physical examination on a normal horse is the first step in recognising abnormalities in their own horse. The more fluent and practised a person is in performing a basic exam, the more their confidence and ability to quickly recognise changes in a horse’s physical condition.
 
Furthermore, the basic metabolic parameters they will learn to measure can be applied in training to measure the horses’ changes in physical fitness and adaptations to exercise. For example, knowing your horse's base resting heart rate can be compared to the heart rate during and after exercise, in recovery and in suspected illness situations.
Written by FEI Official Veterinarian Dr Joan Deetman BSc BVMS GDEd GDVWHM