"If you hear hoofbeats, don’t immediately think zebras!"

Have a laugh with Lili Becktell from Cornell University… I think we all have been there!

I enthusiastically began the summer by diving headfirst into a series of equine externships all over the USA.  At my second externship of the summer, I was working with a clinic that serviced mainly upper-level hunter/jumper clientele. This particular day, we were performing our weekly visit to a large show barn in the area, where on any given day the veterinarians would evaluate and perform joint injections for up to 30 horses.  One of the clinic owners, the current intern, the barn owner, and I were watching horses go when the next patient arrived: an unassuming grey mare that was very visibly lame. I was very nervous and wanted to make a good impression, so I began to note in my head all of the things I was seeing (Namely: “OK—the horse is lame—check.”). The intern began her physical, at which point I was asked to retrieve the hoof testers from the truck. I ran quickly across the property and back only to arrive, winded, to the sight of the two veterinarians and the barn owner impassively standing in a line and observing me.

           “Lili, why don’t you take a look at that mare and tell me what’s causing her lameness?” encouraged the head veterinarian.

           I immediately wondered if the jog across the farm in the heat hadn’t caused me to black out somewhere, and when they inevitably found my body and revived me I’d be babbling something about being asked to evaluate a lameness with only two years of vet school under my belt. When the expectant silence didn’t go away (and no one came to splash water on me), I realized that this was reality. In front of everyone, I, Lili Becktell, was being asked to evaluate someone’s lame horse. Yikes.

           Swallowing my fear, I performed what may well have been the most beautiful, thorough, graceful musculoskeletal exam of my life. I imagined angels singing, birds chirping, my professors (dressed in togas) descending from Cornell-colored clouds, holding OSCE clipboards, praising me. Except—I couldn’t find a darn thing wrong with the horse. Not one. I prodded, poked, shifted her weight, palpated, checked all the feet, and finally looked up at the head vet, stumped.

           “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know what’s going on. She doesn’t seem sore anywhere,” I said, eyeing the horse. She eyed me back, annoyed to be out of her stall.

           The head veterinarian smiled kindly, put his hand on my shoulder, and pointed to the foot I’d just put down.

           “Ah, yes, well. She’s missing a shoe.”

           And that, everyone, is how I learned the old veterinary adage: “If you hear hoofbeats, don’t immediately think zebras.” Unless, of course, the zebras are missing a shoe.