Blind Bet
Despite uncertain odds, many horse owners gamble on stem cell therapy
By Laura Beil
No animal has shaped the course of civilization more than the horse. Horses have pulled plows, herded cattle, and brought riders into battlefields and to the edges of continents. Today, horses are carrying their human companions to another frontier—the uncharted territory of stem cell medicine.
Throughout the rich history of horses, their legs have been the source of both strength and weakness. For all their size and brawn, horses move on limbs that are relatively long and slender. That arrangement provides agility and speed to 1,000 pounds of body weight, but leaves the animal at risk of injury. At a gallop, a horse places only one hoof on the ground at a time. That means at any given moment, the animal’s great weight depends on a joint about the size of a baseball. No wonder then that roughly half of all performance horses end up retiring because their legs finally fail them.