Podcast
The Horse's Advocate Podcast
Hosted by Geoff Tucker, DVM · EN
The Horse's Advocate Podcast is about helping horse owners find the missing horse owner's manual for owning and caring for horses. Geoff Tucker, DVM (aka, "Doc T"), brings you wisdom from almost 50 years with horses. But beware - some of this stuff is NOT what you might expect. When the "box to think outside of" was built, he was never included and remained outside! This show aims to Help Horses Thrive In A Human World.
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Common Plant and Tree Toxins of Horses in North America - #175 The Horse's Advocate Podcast
May 2700:21:21Tap to summarizeHorses graze on grass and plants, not trees, because their digestive tracts—shared by equids, tapirs, and rhinoceroses—cannot digest wood. Unlike ruminants (cattle, deer, goats), they avoid lignin. When starving, however, horses may eat almost anything, which is why some plants and trees become toxic. The goal of this podcast is not to make you plant and tree experts, but to help you appreciate two key principles of horse care: always provide adequate protein and forage, and proactively remove any potentially harmful vegetation before curious horses can reach it. Your horse's health depends on your attention to these crucial details. ******************************* #horses #veterinary #horseteeth #horsecare #equinedentistry Join us at The Horses Advocate Community page: https://community.thehorsesadvocate.com/yt Dentistry: https://theequinepractice.com/ Horsemanship Dentistry School: https://www.horsemanshipdentistryschool.com/c/information/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHorsesAdvocate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/horsesadvocate/ Geoff Tucker is a veterinarian and horseman who has worked with horses since 1973. He earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University in 1984. Over the years, Geoff went from mucking stalls as a farmhand to starting his own equine practice. This journey helped him learn how to blend medical care with good horsemanship. Geoff believes in doing what is best for the horse and also in working with the horse. While at Cornell, he started the Cornell Student Horseman's Association, which organized talks with local experts, a knowledge competition called the Intercollegiate Horse Bowl, and Foal Watch at the Equine Research Park to help with live foal deliveries. Wanting to educate horse owners even more, Geoff also launched the first "I Love New York Horse Symposium," which drew 500 people from across the northeast. Geoff also spent time working at the Equine Isolation Lab with respected colleagues, including Dr. Coggins, whose name is on the well-known test. He worked both part-time and full-time at Cornell's Equine Research Park. On graduation day in 1984, while his classmates celebrated, Geoff drove his fully stocked vet truck to his first call—a sick foal. This marked the beginning of The Finger Lakes Equine Practice, which still operates today. Geoff sold the practice in 1996, worked for a short time at another clinic near Albany, NY, and then started The Equine Practice, focusing on equine dentistry. He continues this work from his base in South Florida. Geoff worked on his first horse's teeth in 1983, when his mentor showed him how to place his hand inside a horse's mouth without medication and rasp off the offending sharp points. He was hooked from the start and made dentistry a key part of his practice. Since then, he has examined the mouths of over 84,000 horses across the United States - yes, he's been counting.
Transcribe →Why Science Isn't Helping Horses - #174 The Horse's Advocate Podcast
May 2000:45:55Tap to summarizeScience relies on asking questions, testing them, obtaining answers, and questioning those answers again. Scientists never settle; their curiosity drives them to consider all possibilities, regardless of prior beliefs. There is never a final answer—only answers that are close. This approach depends on continuous inquiry and skepticism. Horse owners are not scientists, and they are not trained to perform "research." Instead, they, and in fact the scientists themselves, are people who have evolved to work towards "social acceptance" as a means to survive harsh conditions that existed for millions of years. Believing other people who appeared to know things you didn't know is a natural phenomenon - people don't want to "rock the boat." The result is the formation of a social identity that gives us stability within a group. Examples include people in horse sports such as reining, dressage, eventing, or racing. Other examples are in differing opinions about treatments or care. This podcast discusses how scientific studies have rules to prevent bias, steering researchers towards a more accurate answer to their question (hypothesis). Unfortunately, untrained people are unable to see when scientific rules are broken, making the results of studies, especially nutritional studies about horses, unreliable when reported by the press. Worse is when those magazines are funded by advertisements that support the outcomes they promote. Hopefully, through this podcast, horse owners will become aware and keep asking questions until the foundational truths about our horses' health are discovered. ******************************* #horses #veterinary #horseteeth #horsecare #equinedentistry Join us at The Horses Advocate Community page: https://community.thehorsesadvocate.com/yt Dentistry: https://theequinepractice.com/ Horsemanship Dentistry School: https://www.horsemanshipdentistryschool.com/c/information/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHorsesAdvocate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/horsesadvocate/ Geoff Tucker is a veterinarian and horseman who has worked with horses since 1973. He earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University in 1984. Over the years, Geoff went from mucking stalls as a farmhand to starting his own equine practice. This journey helped him learn how to blend medical care with good horsemanship. Geoff believes in doing what is best for the horse and also in working with the horse. While at Cornell, he started the Cornell Student Horseman's Association, which organized talks with local experts, a knowledge competition called the Intercollegiate Horse Bowl, and Foal Watch at the Equine Research Park to help with live foal deliveries. Wanting to educate horse owners even more, Geoff also launched the first "I Love New York Horse Symposium," which drew 500 people from across the northeast. Geoff also spent time working at the Equine Isolation Lab with respected colleagues, including Dr. Coggins, whose name is on the well-known test. He worked both part-time and full-time at Cornell's Equine Research Park. On graduation day in 1984, while his classmates celebrated, Geoff drove his fully stocked vet truck to his first call—a sick foal. This marked the beginning of The Finger Lakes Equine Practice, which still operates today. Geoff sold the practice in 1996, worked for a short time at another clinic near Albany, NY, and then started The Equine Practice, focusing on equine dentistry. He continues this work from his base in South Florida. Geoff worked on his first horse's teeth in 1983, when his mentor showed him how to place his hand inside a horse's mouth without medication and rasp off the offending sharp points. He was hooked from the start and made dentistry a key part of his practice. Since then, he has examined the mouths of over 84,000 horses across the United States - yes, he's been counting.
Transcribe →Horses Are Not Robots - #173 The Horse's Advocate Podcast
May 1300:34:18Tap to summarizeNOTE: There is a section about 1 minute long where it sounds different because I inserted a video of me driving my hands-free car. To see it, please watch this on YouTube. We all know that horses are not robots. Robots are mechanisms that do not think; they simply execute programmed instructions. They are designed to perform tasks that humans are unable or unwilling to do themselves. Examples include robots working in hazardous areas such as deep water or toxic environments, or managing heavy lifting in factories. Horses have often been used like robots, performing tasks humans cannot or will not do. This creates a dilemma: a horse is both a sentient being and a tool for work. When we train horses, we want them to perform complex tasks, but we also seek a true connection with them. Yet, few people excel at this connection. Why is that? To work effectively with horses, humans must be programmed like robots—but traditional training methods rely on copying others' experiences instead of fostering individual understanding. Just as AI language models (such as Google, OpenAI, and Grok) repeat others' knowledge rather than create their own, this approach fails with horses and genuine connections. In this podcast, I explain a new paradigm: prioritize learning directly from your own experiences. As my wife says: become quiet, listen, and be in the moment.
Transcribe →Sugar Fungus In Horse Feeds - The Horse's Advocate Podcast #172
May 600:17:28Tap to summarizeThe first time I heard the words "Sugar Fungus" used with horses, I thought it might be a new, and possibly harmful, reportable disease. I braced myself for the thought that another new disease was invading the world of horses, and that there may not be a cure. However, to my surprise, I learned that sugar fungus is the translation of a common yeast called Saccharomyces: Sacro meaning sugar, and myces meaning yeast (from the Greek). This yeast is generally beneficial, supporting digestive processes in both animals and humans. This yeast appears in baker's yeast, brewer's yeast, and sourdough starter. The most common species is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, widely recognized for its role in fermentation. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is commonly added as an ingredient in commercial horse feeds. In this podcast, I discuss what it is, the common forms found in horse feeds, and the proposed benefits of adding it. I then discuss what many call "unintended consequences," or the possible downstream effects of many foods and food additives. I describe the Polyol Pathway (aka the Sorbitol Pathway) and how yeasts are known triggers, along with high-glycemic foods, such as grains. The overall effect of adding yeasts to grains may be an increase in fructose production, leading to aggressive behavior, increased body fat, and decreased mitochondrial efficiency. As always, none of this has been shown to occur in horses because studies have been performed only in humans and lab animals; however, most studies using Saccharomyces cerevisiae added to a grain feed to help horses with stress indicate that feeding an all-forage diet before stressful events may be just as effective.
Transcribe →The Crisis in Veterinary Medicine Gets Worse - The Horse's Advocate Podcast #171
Apr 2900:27:48Tap to summarizeThe April 2026 edition of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA Vol. 264, #4) caught my attention with 4 articles and an author's response to an article. In this podcast, I use the information gathered from them to suggest that many new veterinary graduates are a combination of the following: They may be focusing more on acceptance from their peers over competent patient care (acceptance by their veterinary team). They may be reading published scientific articles that are partly generated by artificial intelligence hallucinations (manufactured falsehoods). They may be carrying a larger educational debt load (struggling financially). They are in a profession with declining patient visits and increased care costs (decreasing practice income). They are struggling to provide affordable patient care within clients' financial means, which may fall short of the gold standard of care they were taught in school (an affordable spectrum of care). These five points raised in the journal are not being adequately addressed because mentors are retiring or dying without passing on time-proven care that many clients expect and can afford. The remaining practice owners hiring new graduates are caught between rising practice costs, declining income, and a wave of younger people with one eye on the patient and the other on a sense of self-worth they are told is tied to their ability to get along with their teammates. The crisis in veterinary care for horses is much more than increasing a new graduate's salary. It is a lack of good horsemanship skills, along with a spectrum of care choices that help horse owners address their horse's problem. However, horse owners also have an obligation to ensure they can support the care of all animals entrusted to them, not just financially, but also with the knowledge to prevent illness and injuries. #horses #veterinary #horseteeth #horsecare #equinedentistry --------- Join us at The Horses Advocate Community page: https://community.thehorsesadvocate.com/yt Dentistry: https://theequinepractice.com/ Horsemanship Dentistry School: https://www.horsemanshipdentistryschool.com/c/information/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHorsesAdvocate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/horsesadvocate/ Geoff Tucker is a veterinarian and horseman who has worked with horses since 1973. He earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University in 1984. Over the years, Geoff went from mucking stalls as a farmhand to starting his own equine practice. This journey helped him learn how to blend medical care with good horsemanship. Geoff believes in doing what is best for the horse and also in working with the horse. While at Cornell, he started the Cornell Student Horseman's Association, which organized talks with local experts, a knowledge competition called the Intercollegiate Horse Bowl, and Foal Watch at the Equine Research Park to help with live foal deliveries. Wanting to educate horse owners even more, Geoff also launched the first "I Love New York Horse Symposium," which drew 500 people from across the northeast. Geoff also spent time working at the Equine Isolation Lab with respected colleagues, including Dr. Coggins, whose name is on the well-known test. He worked both part-time and full-time at Cornell's Equine Research Park. On graduation day in 1984, while his classmates celebrated, Geoff drove his fully stocked vet truck to his first call—a sick foal. This marked the beginning of The Finger Lakes Equine Practice, which still operates today. Geoff sold the practice in 1996, worked for a short time at another clinic near Albany, NY, and then started The Equine Practice, focusing on equine dentistry. He continues this work from his base in South Florida. Geoff worked on his first horse's teeth in 1983, when his mentor showed him how to place his hand inside a horse's mouth without medication and rasp off the offending sharp points. He was hooked from the start and made dentistry a key part of his practice. Since then, he has examined the mouths of over 84,000 horses across the United States - yes, he's been counting.
Transcribe →Equine Metabolic Syndrome and Insulin Resistance Are NOT the Same - The Horse's Advocate Podcast #170
Apr 2200:44:07Tap to summarizeEquine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) and Insulin Resistance (IR) are just words to most horse owners. We hear them, and we hope our horse doesn't "get them" attached to their health report. Even the veterinarians get a bit confused about how horses get started on the path of poor metabolic health. Expressions are created that lack meaning, such as "sugar is evil." If it were, why does it exist? So, I did some digging, surprising myself to find that what was taught to me in vet school over 40 years ago has recently been turned on its head! Here is one example: there is no such thing as lactic acidosis in muscles caused by anaerobic exercise (low oxygen). Insulin resistance is a normal, regulatory process that ensures our cells receive the right amount of fuel. In this podcast, I explain how understanding this can transform the way you feed your horses, improving their health and saving you money. Clear, science-based insights will help you cut through the confusion often found in barn conversations, magazines, and social media. We want the best for our horses, both in their health and in their performance. We are conditioned by marketing to believe we should add products to fix a problem, when that is rarely effective. For example, if your car's engine lacked power, you wouldn't add more fuel tanks to make it run better. Yet, that's what happens when different feeds and supplements are added to a horse's diet—it doesn't solve the problem and can worsen it. Listen to this podcast a few times and take notes, as I did to create it. #horses #veterinary #horseteeth #horsecare Please join our FREE community here: The Horse's Advocate Community page For more information about dentistry for horses: Dr. Tucker's Dentistry Practice Information about The Horsemanship Dentistry School Follow us on Facebook Learn more at Instagram Geoff Tucker is a veterinarian and horseman who has worked with horses since 1973. He earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University in 1984. Over the years, Geoff went from mucking stalls as a farmhand to starting his own equine practice. This journey helped him learn how to blend medical care with good horsemanship. Geoff believes in doing what is best for the horse and in working with the horse. While at Cornell, he started the Cornell Student Horseman's Association, which organized talks with local experts, a knowledge competition called the Intercollegiate Horse Bowl, and Foal Watch at the Equine Research Park to help with live foal deliveries. Wanting to educate horse owners even more, Geoff also launched the first "I Love New York Horse Symposium," which drew 500 people from across the northeast. Geoff also spent time working at the Equine Isolation Lab with respected colleagues, including Dr. Coggins, whose name is on the well-known test. He worked both part-time and full-time at Cornell's Equine Research Park. On graduation day in 1984, while his classmates celebrated, Geoff drove his fully stocked vet truck to his first call—a sick foal. This marked the beginning of The Finger Lakes Equine Practice, which still operates today. Geoff sold the practice in 1996, worked for a short time at another clinic near Albany, NY, and then started The Equine Practice, focusing on equine dentistry. He continues this work from his base in South Florida. Geoff worked on his first horse's teeth in 1983, when his mentor showed him how to place his hand inside a horse's mouth without medication and rasp off the offending sharp points. He was hooked from the start and made dentistry a key part of his practice. Since then, he has examined the mouths of over 84,000 horses across the United States - yes, he's been counting.
Transcribe →Cancer In Horses - Is Their Diet Helping? - The Horse's Advocate Podcast #169
Apr 1500:39:07Tap to summarizeCancer is defined as normal cells of the body behaving badly, at least that's the simple explanation given by AI. It's more complex than that. Luckily, in horses, cancer is rare; three of the top five occur in the skin, where we can see them. Of the other two, one is in the ovaries and remains locally there, and the other is in the blood, which isn't good. This podcast covers two related topics: the top five cancers and ways to prevent your horse from developing cancer. But it must be said that I am not an oncologist (an expert in cancer). Therefore, the descriptions of the cancers are superficial. I do this because there are so many new treatments veterinarians are using; all you really need to do is recognize them and contact your local expert. There is also the fact that these cancers have been around for hundreds of years, according to books dating back to the Roman days, and that the treatments haven't really changed: surgery and natural chemicals applied topically. Vaccines are being tried along with chemotherapy, but with so few horses with cancer, there are not many available for research. The second half of the podcast describes the use of glucose and, more importantly, lactate as fuels for all cells. When a cell becomes cancerous, its energy needs increase due to increased cell duplication and proliferation. The rate of glucose uptake and lactate production increases, signaling these cells to weaken and promote the further growth of cancer cells. There are many anecdotal stories in humans where cancer patients overcome their disease by not eating any glucose, which is an easy task by eating only meat. But is it possible that horses can restrict their vegetarian diet to consume less glucose and, therefore, reduce their risk of cancer? Further, can the addition of sufficient high-quality protein improve the skin's ability to defend against the causes of two of the three common skin cancers? In past podcasts, I described why horses should eat only forage, limit this to half a day, and add high-quality protein (soybean meal) to help them thrive and avoid metabolic diseases. Could this also help prevent cancer, too? There is no proof, but then again, if the horse thrives, then by definition, every cell in their body thrives.
Transcribe →Why Horse Supplements Are Only Guessing - The Horse's Advocate Podcast #168
Apr 800:34:46Tap to summarizeMy wife placed a supplement ad for horses in front of me and said it was "interesting." She knows me, so she was testing me to see if this one was really special or just another waste of money. Rather than give the same old response about marketing ploys to take money without substantiating the product, I decided to go deeper. The expression "correlation does not mean causation" is familiar. But what about randomized, controlled studies - the "gold standard" of research? Do these expensive, precise studies live up to the hype? Not necessarily. Mendelian randomization is a new approach to randomizing a study population in a true and natural way. It reduces (or eliminates) biases by looking for variations in the genetic code that have occurred over millions of years. This podcast goes into SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) and GWAS (Genome Wide Association Studies) to see if this new research technology has come into horse research, and more importantly, if it can prove the use of supplements to make horses healthier.
Transcribe →Horse Problems Not In My 1984 Veterinary Textbooks - The Horse's Advocate Podcast #167
Mar 3000:30:24Tap to summarizeCornell Veterinary School is well established as one of the best veterinary schools in the world, renowned for specialties like wildlife, infectious diseases, and equine practice. A quick search of data shows that Cornell's vet school was ranked #1 from 2000 (no data before this) until 2015. Currently, it is ranked #2 in America (behind the University of California, Davis) and #3 in the world (behind the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, and UC Davis). Being accepted into their program was not only an honor, but also a miracle: one of only 80 people accepted in 1980. I tried not to sleep through my classes. When I graduated, I set up my equine practice 15 miles from the school, which allowed me to use it as my referral hospital. One afternoon in 1991, I sent in a colic I considered surgical. The resident veterinarian performed a rectal exam and confirmed the presence of a displaced bowel. But, instead of agreeing with the surgical treatment, he said, "I think this is one of those new colics I just read about!" My look of surprise went unnoticed as he continued with the description of a nephrosplenic ligament entrapment, a new form of colic recently reported in a veterinary journal. And while the first report of this colic was in 1902 in Hungary, it was not until 1991 that a JAVMA (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association) article reported it, making it widely known among veterinarians. Now, I often hear clients mention that their horse recently suffered from a nephrosplenic ligament entrapment colic. The pattern of current ailments of horses not mentioned in my 1984 veterinary textbooks invites the question of why. This podcast covers these "new" diseases and stimulates us to ask what has changed in the care of horses to cause them.
Transcribe →Why Do We Love Horses? The Gap Between Owner Care And Veterinary Care - The Horse's Advocate Podcast #166
Mar 2500:37:49Tap to summarizeMost advice from horse professionals focuses on solving problems using standard approaches, rather than looking for the root cause. For example, if you look at a chart of all causes of death in horses, dental issues barely register compared to colic, laminitis, or metabolic diseases. Many horse owners truly love their horses, even if they struggle to explain why. They want the best for their animals, but often depend on experts for advice and care, without considering how they might prevent problems before needing expert help. Horse owners often look for someone to fix their horses when something goes wrong, but horses are not like cars that can just be repaired in a shop. Still, both veterinary and non-veterinary care often treat horses as if they are objects with problems to solve, without considering the horse's perspective. It's true that many skilled people can help fix these issues, but it's worth asking if every repair is really needed, or if there might be simpler solutions. Sometimes, people approach fixing horses in ways that make themselves seem more important, which can make things more complicated than necessary. Many horse owners, even though they care deeply, follow expert advice without always considering what's best for the horse. In my podcast, I talk about a new way to treat a passage between a horse's mouth and sinus, where food can move from the mouth into the sinus and come out the nostril. To us, this discharge smells bad and needs daily care, but from the horse's point of view, it doesn't seem to be a problem—at least, scientific reports don't mention it. How common is this issue? Do horses really need to be fixed if nothing is done?
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