The Jockey Club this week approved the use of a new piece of equipment, the 'cornell collar', which can now be used in races and has become a notifiable gear change. The purpose of the cornell collar is to aid in preventing intermittent dorsal displacement of the soft palate (IDDSP), which negatively impacts on racing performance. Once approved, a cornell collar cannot be removed from a horse's list of racing gear unless stewards receive a clinical report justifying the removal of the equipment and the horse undertakes a further satisfactory official barrier trial without it. The cornell collar was developed by researchers at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in New York. IDDSP is a fairly common problem in the racehorse, where the soft palate moves upwards out of its normal position during racing and obstructs the horse's upper airway. This results in the horse being unable to breathe well and therefore causes poor racing performance. Treadmill studies performed at Cornell University have shown that the collar is over 90 per cent effective in preventing IDDSP during galloping and further studies in America have reported no adverse effects to date. The other gear change that is today reported for the first time is the crossed-nose band. This follows an outcry, led by the South China Morning Post's Wednesday racing column On The Rails, after the John Moore-trained Inspiration won in the new gear on January 1 when there was no requirement to notify it. Chief stipendiary steward Jamie Stier acknowledged the unfairness of this to horse players and took less than a month to rectify the situation, as well as creating a database of all horses wearing crossed-nose bands in races.
