To scrape or not to scrape?
Leading equine scientist Dr David Marlin caused a heated debate on social media recently when he claimed that scraping horses was a ‘waste of time’. Dr Marlin was specifically referring to horses that are severely hyperthermic (those with an extremely elevated body temperature, and who are very hot to touch and unsteady on their feet) but his post caused widespread confusion. Many of his followers were quick to debate the value of scraping horses, without noticing that Dr Marlin was referring to extremely hot horses, such as those involved with endurance. His Facebook read: “How do we explain the idea that scraping is a waste of time and if you have a severely hyperthermic horse you will cool it more effectively if you continue to apply cold water as opposed to stopping and scraping?” After much debate and 1,000 shares later, Dr Marlin light-heartedly added: “How do so many people see an image and a title, and skip straight to commenting without reading the post?”