The Jeffords High Speed Treadmill Facility opened in 1992 as one of the first of its kind in the country.
More than 3,000 patient evaluations have been carried out on the Jeffords Treadmill for poor performance issues such as lameness, upper and lower respiratory tract changes, cardiac disease and sub-clinical myopathy (“tying-up”).
The tailor-made treadmill offers the ability to follow up a comprehensive lameness exam for a poorly performing horse with a brief schooling test, during which the patient may have arterial catheters placed in a facial artery and an endoscope passed into the pharynx.
A typical test is run for 1600 meters at a speed designed to increase the horse’s heart rate to 200 beats per minute. The horse is then immediately taken off the treadmill and a postexercise echocardiogram is performed.
An ECG is taken before, during and after exercise, and a post-exercise bronchoalveolar lavage (endoscopic washing with sterile fluid of the lungs, allowing clinicians to examine cell samples that aid in diagnosis) is performed.
Subsequently, all of the data is taken from each test and a solution is proposed to the client to improve the performance of his or her horse.