One of the most famous scientists and steroid detectives in the world, Dr. Don Catlin, has turned his sights to horses. Today's blog post is taken from my profile of Catlin in the new issue of Keeneland magazine (Winter, 2009). 

Catlin is the scientist wholly responsible for busting steroid-using athletes such as major league baseball player Barry Bonds and track star Marion Jones. Now, in partnership with the Jockey Club, he is heading up the Equine Drug Research Institute.

    Steroid detective Dr. Don Catlin. 

The institute will, at no charge, create and provide drug tests to labs across the nation that test equines. Catlin is determined to help clean up racing. What impressed me most about him was that he spent three decades, –  that's three decades! – working on the issue of illegal drugs in human sports before the world took notice. That's patience. 

I was working at the San Francisco Chronicle when the story about S.F. Giant Barry Bonds broke. It was devastating to learn that an athlete so many of us admired was not what he appeared to be. I respect Catlin for his commitment to integrity and to preserving the beauty and grace of sports based on natural greatness alone, whether that athlete is two-footed or four-footed. 

In the meantime, Equine ER is taking Thanksgiving off. This holiday gives me the opportunity to say thank you to all of you who read the blog and, of course, to those of you who have bought  Equine ER. We'll be back next week with more excerpts and more original content – Leslie Guttman

Equine surgeons love music in the operating room. Dr. Larry Bramlage, for one, is a big fan of David Allen Coe, the outlaw country and western artist. This writer needs her music as well. Here's some of what was on my playlist as I reported and wrote Equine ER. I loved driving around horse country at six a.m. through the mist listening to Purple Rain.

1. When Your Mind's Made Up (from the soundtrack of the movie "Once") – Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.

2. Air on a G String – National Philharmonic Baroque Ensemble.

3. Purple Rain – Martin Sexton's solo version.

  A light-footed Belgian looks a bit like he's dancing during a lameness exam.

 4. I Will Survive – Cake's version.

5.  If I Was Your Woman – Syesha Mercado's version - (Yes, Equine ER watches American Idol!)

6.  Fool of Me – Me'Shell Ndegeocello.

7. Northern Downpour – Panic at the Disco. 

8. Angel – Sarah McLachlan.

9. Flat Foot Floogee – Benny Goodman (Equine ER was a band geek in junior high - clarinet.)

10. Ruthie Pigface Draper – from the soundtrack of the movie "Dan in Real Life."

We're working on some new features, including a surprise development that came out of the publication of the story of Marching Orders that we just excerpted. Stay tuned. Also, at the request of a reader, we're now offering SIGNED copies of Equine ER. To order one, click here. Thanks for visiting this blog.

On Monday, we concluded our excerpt from the new book Equine ER about Marching Orders, the stoic Thoroughbred with the big heart who transformed an inmate's life. Today we have a video about the chapter. The footage of Chris Huckleby was shot last year by Equine ER author Leslie Guttman right after Huckleby violated his parole upon finding out about Marching Orders' death. (Although the video says Huckleby is incarcerated, he was released in summer 2009.)

If for any reason you can't access the video below, you can see it by clicking right here. 

Equine ER just returned from the Kentucky Book Fair! We are so happy to announce we sold lots of books and met many horse lovers. We also recently got a letter from reader Jackie Betts. She wrote of Equine ER: "I found myself swept up in the day-to-day, sometimes minute-to-minute drama of this group of dedicated [vets] ... [the book shows] their private moments of fatigue and doubt and tears; all of this information is accessible and captivating."  To order Equine ER, click here.

On Thursday in Part 7 of this excerpt from the new book Equine ER, Marching Orders, the stoic Thoroughbred with the big heart, died on the operating table because of complications from a portion of his small colon being trapped inside a diaphragmatic hernia. Today, we find out what happened when the inmate whose life the horse transformed, and who was intending to adopt him, found out about Marching Orders' sudden death.

On the last weekend in March, former inmate Chris Huckleby got word his sister had been killed in a car wreck in Texas. One week later, he got a phone call at work from the head of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation that Marching Orders had died. The foundation knew what the horse had meant to Huckleby.  After he was told what happened, it was as if the sun had been painted out of the sky. About three days after that, the wife of the couple who had donated the horse to Blackburn brought Marching Orders’ halter to Huckleby, knowing he would want it. He says on that day, life became overwhelming.

The paddock where Marching Orders once grazed.

Depression and drinking followed and within a week or so, Huckleby violated his parole by going out of state to Wisconsin, for family reasons, he says. As a result, he ended up back in jail, first at the Fayette County Detention Center in Lexington, in a cell where where he dreamed about Marching Orders at night. Shortly afterward, he was transferred to various facilities, and ultimately ended up in a minimum-security prison southeast of Louisville, where he was released in summer 2009. (This story took place during 2008.)

Huckleby’s downward trajectory had a flickering spot. One day after he got the call about Marching Orders’ death, his daughter’s mother called and said she’d permit him to see the child for the first time since 2004. He felt like somehow the horse had helped him get to that point.

“The horse loved me with everything in him,” says Huckleby. “He trusted me. It gave me a lot of confidence. … I wasn’t loved a lot as a kid. I’ve been loved more by a horse than anything in my life, it’s sad to say, besides my kids. He was everything to me at the time.”

Thursday: A video featuring former inmate Chris Huckleby and the story of Marching Orders. 

Equine ER author Leslie Guttman at the Kentucky Book Fair this Saturday, Nov. 7!

On Monday in Part 6 of this excerpt from the new book Equine ER, we returned to the operating room where surgeon Scott Hopper was trying to remove a portion of the small colon trapped in a diaphragmatic hernia of Marching Orders. Today, we find out what happened to the stoic Thoroughbred with the big heart who transformed an inmate's life. 

Dr. Scott Hopper turned back to surgical resident Dr. Travis Tull, the nurses, and visiting vets and students, “It’s even more near the liver and stuff,” he said of the hole. “We could leave it in there, but right now everything’s running into it … and the small colon is losing blood supply.” It was almost like the hernia had a pattern now, he said, one of drawing in more of the intestinal tract.

 Thoroughbred Marching Orders in his prime.

The mood in the room had changed from relaxed to strained. For the third time, Tull made the incision in the horse's abdomen bigger to give Hopper more room. Hopper asked Dr. Megan Romano to slightly turn down the amount of air the ventilator was pushing into the horse’s lungs because some of the lung tissue also kept returning to the rent.

Finally, Hopper said to Romano: “Go call it,” to note the time of euthanization. “Goddamn,” he added, mostly to himself. He asked one of the nurses to get the number at the Blackburn prison and left the operating room without saying anything.

I walked up to the front of the table. The horse’s eyes were glazed. He was missing a tooth on his right side. The room became quiet as the respirator and ventilator stopped. Tull carefully sewed up the incision.

Monday: How did former inmate Chris Huckleby handle hearing of Marching Orders' death?

We recently got a letter from reader Jackie Betts, telling us what she thought about the new book Equine ER (Eclipse Press, 2009). She wrote: "I found myself swept up in the day-to-day, sometimes minute-to-minute drama of this group of dedicated [vets] ... [the book shows] their private moments of fatigue and doubt and tears; all of this information is accessible and captivating."  To order Equine ER, click here.