Vet students win funding to research equine welfare worldwide

World Horse Welfare is helping monitor equine welfare abroad by sponsoring five veterinary students to undertake research on location.

Five undergraduates at universities across Britain and Ireland were awarded grants of up to £3,000 each to study specific equine veterinary issues around the world.

This year’s beneficiaries — Michael De Cozar (Royal Veterinary College), Amy Awran (University of Liverpool), Nicola Walshe (University College, Dublin), Matthew Chesworth (Nottingham University) and Katie Wu (Edinburgh University) — have won funding to undertake projects on university placements.

Among a range of topics, they will investigate diseases in working horses in Guatemala, examining disease transmission and equine welfare at events in Ireland and looking at poor farriery, ill-fitting tack and over work of horses in Soweto, South Africa.

Through the grants the charity aims to work more closely with vets in training and help them further their veterinary education and awareness of horse welfare.

“Developing closer links with the veterinary profession to support our work has been a long established aim of the charity,” says World Horse Welfare chief executive Roly Owers.

“I have no doubt that our knowledge will grow and horses will benefit as a result of this research.”

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