A new building slated for construction at the University of Saskatchewan next year will make it easier to assess horses and diagnose the causes of equine lameness.
Jacques Messier, director of the veterinary teaching hospital at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, said expansion of the college’s existing equine performance centre is likely to get underway in January or February of next year.
The expansion will involve the construction of a new building and the addition of a paved indoor runway and an indoor lunging ring.
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The college’s existing equine performance centre has a high speed treadmill and a computerized force plate that measures the force a horse places on each foot as it walks.
The ring and the runway will augment that, allowing veterinarians to assess horses indoors more thoroughly, regardless of weather.
“This facility will really help us out, especially during inclement weather, by allowing us to do all of our examinations indoors,” said Messier.
“In the summer time, we’re OK because we have pens outside … or we can (assess horses) at people’s premises but not everyone has a runway or a lunging ring.”
Messier said tenders for construction of the building should be out in the next few weeks and construction of the facility – estimated at $2.5 to $3 million – should be completed before 2012.
The new building will triple or quadruple the space used for assessing and diagnosing equine lameness.
