Assistant Trainer for Danny O’Brien for 5 years, Ben Gleeson has plenty of experience in the racing industry and knows a thing or two about keeping horses happy, sound and performing at their best.
They discovered Arthramid when they started using Advantage Equine for the veterinary care of their horses.
“When you compare it to the standard Cortisoning of horses which can cause reactions and horses to hit a bit of a lull, in our experience with Arthramid we’ve never had horses hit a low point or come back with a temperature etc, so it’s very smooth acting”.
“It does take a while, but it allows you to take your time with your horse and prep them without any rush which Cortisone can often install in trainers”.
“It’s just been such a straightforward drug. The comparison to cortisone which is world-widely probably the most standard medicating of horses, it obviously can cause, as I said, some reactions. It can cause horses to drop off in their condition and temperatures and whatnot, so it’s more the frustration of what horses reacted negatively to that treatment. And of course, cortisone is a drug that, it can last two weeks, a week, it can last three or four months, it’s very inconsistent, so it always depended on the horse itself”.
“Sometimes you’d only get one run out of doing that procedure, whereas with Arthramid you get a long prep, you get a sustained result. When you see horses go from one to two out of five lame to completely sound in a matter of weeks or a month, it’s pretty remarkable”.
“Probably our greatest success story would be Callsign Mav who came out and won a Group One in the spring last year. He was a horse who was going along fairly and we localized an area that we could help him with. Once we treated him, the results over the month were just outstanding. That arguably led to him becoming a group one horse in Australia”.
“With how straightforward it is, and with the results we’ve had we’ve never had a qualm with injecting Arthramid compared to other medications and I think that’s just a dream for any trainer to use – a product with no hassle and that gets good results out of your horses”.