The horse business isn’t easy in the nation’s most densely populated state, but the Rutgers Equine Science center offers a leg up for its proponents in many ways.
The center, marking its 20th anniversary this year, is concerned with everything from better equine health and well-being through research, which has top priority; to environmental stewardship, land use planning, youth involvement and many other related subjects under the guidance of founding director Dr. Karyn Malinowski.
As she puts it, the Center is “the docking station for everything equine.”
Its annual Evening of Science and Celebration on Zoom last week combined several honors with updates on scientific topics.
The Spirit of the Horse Award, always presented to someone who has made an impact on the horse industry and who in turn has been impacted by their involvement with horses, went to Assemblyman Ron Dancer.
The son of famed harness driver Stanley Dancer, he raced and trained horses himself from 1968 through 1998. But now he’s better known for his legislative accomplishments.
Spirit of the Horse winner Ronald Dancer.
In that arena, the assemblyman has been a fervent advocate for horses, which often involves educating other legislators.
He good-naturedly cited “a learning curve with my colleagues about the value of the equine industry in the state.”
The Equine Center and a landmark economic impact study it produced “helped build a lot of support for the industry,” he pointed out. It showed that horse have a $1.1 billion economic impact on the state, providing 13,000 jobs in connection with $4 billion in equine-related assets and 42,500 horses as counted in a 2007 survey.
There were 222,000 acres supported by horses in a largely urban/suburban state, a figure that includes not only land devoted to horses, but also involved with their support, such as farms that grow hay and feed.
The assemblyman worked tirelessly in a successful attempt to have the Legislature pass a bill written to eliminate the tax on boarding horses. Gov. Phil Murphy did not sign it last year, however, and the “pocket veto” meant it didn’t become law.
“If taxes are your issue, then New Jersey’s probably not your state,” the Governor famously advised in 2019, and we saw how it applied to this initiative.
The Gold Medal Horse Farm award went to Topline Farm, a well-run 10 acre establishment in Alexandria Township. The facility won for outstanding equine management.
Topline Farm in Alexandria Township.
The farm is run by Katie Wigness; her husband, Kris, and her father, Ron Hutchins. Katie noted in the equine industry, “its important to be a good neighbor and be aware of your impact on the neighborhood and community.”
During the science part of the evening, the keynote presentation was made by Dr. Sarah White-Springer of Texas A&M University.
Her talk was entitled, “The Mighty Mitochondria: The Importance of Muscle Health for Optimal Equine Performance.” (Without getting too technical about it, the mitochondrian is the powerhouse of the cell.)
Her research focuses on ways to improve performance and reduce injury in equine athletes, looking at mitochondrial adaptations to diet and exercise, in addition to skeletal muscle bioenergetics.
She pointed out that selenium increases mitochondrial biogenesis, which eventually creates energy, but that training a horse also increases mitochondrial density. The scientist cited the piaffe as a strength exercise that leads to muscle building, but of course, it takes a horse with a specialty to engage in that.
If dressage isn’t your horse’s thing, hill work increases endurance, while long-and-low work engages the horse’s topline, she said.
In another presentation, Dr. Jennifer Weinert-Nelson discussed Quick-N-Big crabgrass as a planting that can counteract the “summer slump” in pastures. And since it’s not the grass of choice for every horse, it’s good for a field where an obese horse is turned out to cut down on its consumption.
Doctoral candidate Ellen Rankins explained her work involving equine-assisted activities for veterans with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). The veterans work with horses on the ground, including grooming, leading and long-lining. Muscle activity, heart rates and blood samples are used as indicators of what effect such work has on both the veterans and the horses.
Skylar Cooper, a member of the New Jersey 4-H Horse Project, talked about flashy Zebroids, such as the Zorse, a cross between a zebra stallion and a domestic mare that rarely occurs in nature, and the Zonkey, produced by a zebra stallion and a jennet (female donkey).