That’s the general consensus. There is a specific x-ray view that shows the C6/C7 malformation (it doesn’t show up in regular neck rads), but the gold standard is a CT myelogram.
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Does anyone know whether racing people have starting having C6-C7 imaging done on e.g. TB yearlings going through the high-dollar sales? Seems to me that would be the “gold standard” of screening, that later might filter down to WB foal sales, stallion approvals, etc.
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They do not. It would be super unusual.
Do you know why no screening so far? Have e.g. the most sophisticated vets, buyers etc. assessed the information available to date and decided there is nothing to worry about, or just that it’s not on their radar, or they are waiting for more data, or reluctance to open a can of worms, or slow to change, or ??
Neck films aren’t in the required repository set at sales. I ran a large consignment for a while and in all my time there, I only saw one buyer shoot a film that was not in the required set (front feet). You’ll see re-shoots of films that are already there I.e., if a vet isn’t happy with a shot of a fetlock or something similar.
I can only speculate on why racing buyers don’t do them, but my thoughts fall along the lines of a couple reasons:
- A lot of racing buyers do not necessarily know that people preemptively x-ray backs/necks and/or have never heard of kissing spines or ECVM
- Racing uses young enough horses, the problems rarely come into play while they are running
- I’d imagine some consigners would not allow neck or back films
- Vets are already insanely busy at the sale. I can’t imagine adding tricky neck films to shoot and interpret on top of that
- You have to disclose at the sale if the horse is a wobbler, so the buyers feel safe relying on the conditions of sale
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Edited to add something and accidentally deleted most of my post. Ah well.
This might be worth a read, it’s not exactly light reading but the images and text is very informative:
https://www.equus-soma.com/ecvm-c6-3d/#](https://www.equus-soma.com/ecvm-c6-3d/
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Dr. Johnson touched on this in a lecture in October.
Em
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They (Haras de Malleret) write in their post that it’s “a very rare phenomenon”
—it is not.
You start looking around and will be amazed at the prevalence.
What will probably create the tipping point is the equine insurance industry: buyers of expensive horses will only be able to insure them for their immense sale prices if the PPE includes proper neck rads. Then buyers will require them, and then… breeders will comply and retire broodmares with EVCM and only use stallions that are free of it.
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