By Ann Asher

A horse covered in hives sends an owner back through the previous 24 hours. Was it the new bag of feed? A different fly spray? Something blooming in the pasture? Sometimes the answer is obvious. Other times, finding the cause takes real detective work.

Allergy signs vary from horse to horse. One breaks out in raised welts across his neck and body. Another spends weeks rubbing out his mane and tail. A third coughs whenever he’s stalled or runs out of air too soon during exercise.

Many of those signs can also come from something other than allergies, so figuring out whether a horse has one means looking past the most obvious symptom.

More than just hives

Hives, or urticaria, appear as raised swellings under the skin. They range from small bumps to large plaques and can show up within hours. Insects, medications and environmental allergens can all trigger them. Some horses develop hives after eating something, though researchers understand food allergies in horses far less well than feed marketing and online forums suggest.

Your veterinarian will likely start by asking what changed before the reaction: recent medications, vaccinations, feed, supplements, bedding, grooming products and insect exposure. A single episode that clears quickly may stay a mystery, but repeated episodes deserve a closer look.

Itching is another common sign of allergic skin disease. An itchy horse rubs his mane, tail, face or body on anything within reach, and over time the rubbing leads to bald patches, thickened skin, sores and secondary infections.

One of the best-known causes is insect bite hypersensitivity, also called sweet itch, an allergic response to the saliva of biting midges in the genus Culicoides. Affected horses become intensely itchy during insect season, and the location and timing of their lesions help your veterinarian narrow down the cause. Fly sheets, repellents, fans and screened stalls all help, as does keeping the horse in when biting insects are most active.

A horse that rubs his tail doesn’t necessarily have an allergy, though. Parasites, skin infections and other skin conditions produce similar signs, so veterinarians diagnose allergic skin disease from the horse’s history and clinical signs after ruling out other possibilities.

When the problem is in the air

Hay, bedding and barn air carry dust, mold spores, pollen and other particles. In susceptible horses, breathing them in can inflame the lower airways.

Veterinarians now use the term equine asthma for this group of chronic lower-airway conditions. The mild to moderate form was once called inflammatory airway disease, and the severe form went by heaves or recurrent airway obstruction.

A horse with a mild case may cough now and then, lose a step in performance or take longer to recover after work. A horse with a severe case may struggle to breathe while standing still in his stall.

Medication can calm the inflammation, but the improvement won’t last if the horse keeps breathing whatever irritates his airways. Hay is a leading source of respirable dust, even when it looks like good forage. Depending on the horse, your veterinarian may recommend soaking or steaming hay or switching to a lower-dust forage product. Low-dust bedding, good ventilation and moving horses out while you clean stalls also help.

More turnout helps some horses, especially those that get worse in a dusty barn. Others develop summer pasture-associated asthma, triggered by pollen and other outdoor allergens, so the right fix depends on the horse and where he lives.

Finding the trigger

Owners sometimes expect an allergy test to hand them a list of things their horse should avoid. Veterinarians can run intradermal skin tests and blood tests for allergen-specific antibodies, but a positive result doesn’t prove that a given substance is causing the horse’s problem, and healthy horses can test positive, too.

The World Association for Veterinary Dermatology’s consensus guidelines state that these tests should not be used by themselves to diagnose insect bite hypersensitivity or atopic dermatitis. Veterinarians use them mainly to choose allergens for allergen-specific immunotherapy, commonly called allergy shots.

The same guidelines don’t consider blood tests reliable for diagnosing food allergy. If your veterinarian suspects a feed, a controlled elimination diet followed by a challenge with the suspect ingredient gives more meaningful answers. Work through that process with your veterinarian, since pulling hay, feed or supplements without accounting for the horse’s nutritional needs can create new problems.

To evaluate a horse for equine asthma, a veterinarian combines history and a physical exam with procedures such as airway endoscopy or bronchoalveolar lavage, which collects cells from the lower airways for examination.

Managing what you can’t avoid

Once you and your veterinarian identify the trigger, the first step is to reduce exposure to it. That gets hard when the culprit is grass pollen, insects or particles in hay, so management often means reducing exposure rather than eliminating it.

Veterinarians may also prescribe medication to control inflammation or itching. Corticosteroids are a common choice, but they carry risks, including laminitis in some horses. Veterinarians sometimes use antihistamines, though evidence for them in horses is limited.

For some horses with environmental allergies, allergen-specific immunotherapy is an option. The injections expose the horse to selected allergens over months to shift his immune response, and results differ from horse to horse. For insect bite hypersensitivity, the consensus guidelines state that avoiding insects remains the most effective strategy, and evidence supporting commercially available immunotherapy for Culicoides allergy is still limited.

When it’s an emergency

Hives usually look worse than they are, but a severe systemic reaction can kill a horse. Call your veterinarian immediately if your horse shows difficulty breathing, weakness, collapse or other signs of anaphylaxis.

For less dramatic cases, photos and good records help. Write down when symptoms appear, what the horse was eating, where he was housed, any recent medications or vaccines, and changes in grooming products.

The answer may turn out to be the midges that arrive every summer or the dust from one particular hay. The hives, the cough or the rubbed-out mane gets your attention first, and your horse stays comfortable over the long run once you know what’s causing it.

By Savannah Magoteaux, Editor

Hailey Jo Hall moved to Texas because she wanted to rope where the competition was toughest. Five years later, after plenty of hard lessons, long hours and a season spent sharpening the details, that decision helped carry her all the way to Las Vegas, where she became the first Breakaway Roping Showcase champion at The Run For A Million. Now splitting her time between Texas and Oklahoma to stay close to family, Hall is balancing a career in agricultural insurance, a growing breakaway career and a horse that has been part of her family from the beginning.

Hall moved to Texas in 2021 to find out how she stacked up against the best breakaway ropers in the country. For a while, the answer stung. The Northwest, where she came from, had plenty of good ropers and horses, but she learned quickly that the sheer depth of the competition in Texas could be overwhelming, and she had nowhere to hide any holes in her game.

Five years later, the Washington native rode into South Point Arena at The Run For A Million in Las Vegas and left as the event’s first Breakaway Roping Showcase champion.

Getting there took a family steeped in rodeo, two-hour drives for roping lessons, a career change, a horse few people would have picked and a 2025 season that sent her home with a long list of things to fix.

Rodeo roots

Hall grew up in Enumclaw, Washington, outside Seattle, while her father’s family was based in central Oregon. The Halls spent the school year in Washington and summers in Oregon, and rodeo often set the schedule. Her father, John Hall, won circuit championships and qualified several times for the Dodge National Circuit Finals, now known as the NFR Open.

“When my dad was rodeoing, we did spend some time in the South in Atoka, Oklahoma,” Hall said. “We would kind of split our time up during the year. It all worked around the school year, but we traveled quite a bit in the summer. We’d all take off, load up with him and hit the road and go to all the rodeos.”

The family’s rodeo roots go back more than one generation. On the side of her mother, Jamie Hall, relatives were involved with the King Rodeo Company in Kansas in the early 1900s. According to Hall, they raised bucking stock and helped produce rodeos, including early editions of the professional rodeo in Garden City, Kansas.

Jamie later barrel raced and roped, and Hall calls her mother a knowledgeable horsewoman and a big part of her own success.

On her father’s side, Hall’s grandmother rodeoed in the Northwest decades before women had many of today’s opportunities. She served on the Sisters Rodeo court in Oregon and, according to family history, worked around the bullfighting barrel in the 1950s and 1960s before becoming a rodeo queen.

“She always wanted to be a cowgirl,” Hall said. “I think that’s where I got that from.”

Growing up in rodeo country didn’t guarantee Hall a practice pen full of ropers down the road. In western Washington, she had to go looking for them.

“When I wanted to learn to rope, my dad would have to drive me two hours after school to go get roping lessons and practice,” she said. “It’s just not as common up there as it is around Stephenville.”

Hall rodeoed in high school in Washington, then attended Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon. She graduated in 2013 with an associate degree in general studies and dental training and spent nearly a decade working in dentistry.

Iron sharpens iron

In June 2021, Hall joined the long line of contestants who have hauled into Erath County with a horse trailer and a plan.

“Like everybody else, I had the rodeo dream,” she said. “When you want to be the best, you go where the best are, so I moved down there and spent a lot of time getting my butt kicked.”

She laughs about it now, but the adjustment was real.

“Everybody at home, they roped great,” Hall said. “There are just so many people down here that it’s a knife fight, and iron sharpens iron. I came down to Stephenville, and I’m so glad I did. It’s helped me immensely and put me on a path I never thought I would be on.”

Stephenville changed her career, too. Soon after she arrived, Hall arranged to feed-lease a set of roping calves from a man who owned an insurance agency. She kept the calves fed and healthy, and in return she had cattle to practice on. Nearly a year later, he called with another offer.

“He just called me kind of out of the blue one day and asked if I wanted to go to work with him,” Hall said. “I jumped at the opportunity, and I’ve been doing that ever since. I have not looked back once.”

Today Hall works with 4TAg Insurance. She writes equine policies; pasture, rangeland and forage coverage; crop insurance; home and auto; equipment; and commercial agricultural coverage. The job took her out of dentistry and into an industry full of the same people she sees at rodeos and ropings.

“I feel like I’m pretty personable, so I have an easy time visiting with people,” she said. “My granddad actually owned an insurance agency in Oregon for many years, which now I look back and think I should have picked his brain more. But it goes so well with what I do. Every day I get up and rope. I’m either going to a rodeo or going to a ranch to do insurance. My professional breakaway career and my professional career in insurance tie in very well together.”

Expensive lessons

Hall joined the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association around 2016 or 2017, when breakaway roping began gaining ground in the Northwest. She also helped push to bring breakaway roping to the grass at the Pendleton Round-Up, producing an event with the goal of one day seeing women rope in the famous Pendleton arena.

For most of those years, though, Hall competed mainly at circuit and amateur rodeos. That changed in 2025.

“That was really the first year I ever went out rodeoing very hard during the summer,” she said. “I learned a lot of expensive lessons.”

She came home in August knowing where she stood.

“I came back with my tail between my legs a little bit after getting my butt handed to me,” she said. “I was like, ‘All right, I’ve got a list of things I need to fix,’ from horsemanship to equipment to really the mental game of roping.”

Instead of hauling harder in 2026, Hall used the year differently. She still competed, but she put more time into improving at home, getting another horse going and entering Premier Women’s Rodeo events closer to home.

“I really just kind of fine-tuned things where I feel like now I’m at a level I can compete to the best of my capabilities,” she said.

The road to Las Vegas

That shift pointed her toward Las Vegas. Hall had followed the PWR before, but she started paying closer attention after she saw the money paid at the PWR Finals.

“I got online, checked it out and learned the nomination system,” she said. “To be honest, the nominating thing confused me at first.”

A conversation with PWR executive Sami Jo Smith cleared it up. Hall could nominate many of the events she already planned to attend, earn PWR points and work toward the PWR Finals and The Run For A Million without rebuilding her schedule.

“When I looked at it, it was almost like, ‘I can’t believe I haven’t been nominating,’” Hall said. “I’m already spending the fuel to go to these places. I’m already entered at them. For a little more, I can nominate it, get the points and open the opportunities like Vegas and The Run For A Million.”

Hall estimates she spent about $1,000 in nomination fees on her way to qualifying for Las Vegas.

“I’ll spend that at a good roping any given weekend,” she said. “And I netted $19,000. That’s a pretty good return on investment, in my opinion.”

The money mattered less to Hall than the setting. Her qualification put her inside South Point Arena during one of the biggest weeks in western performance sports. The Run For A Million draws top competitors in reining, cutting, reined cow horse and other disciplines, and Hall had watched most of them only online.

“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever been a part of,” she said. “I’d never been to anything really in the reining, cutting or working cow horse industry. I watch it online and stuff, but to be there, and I had guys like Kole Price telling me good job and shaking my hand, and I’m walking the same barn as Golden Coins. That was so cool.”

The welcome from those competitors stood out just as much.

“They were all so welcoming,” she said. “They were out in the warm-up arena the night we were up, telling us good luck.”

Hall arrived happy to be included and left with the title.

“I was just happy being there,” she said. “But to go out there and be the first-ever breakaway champion at The Run For A Million, that’s pretty cool.”

A horse few would have picked

Hall is quick to share the credit.

Her family bred and raised Dats A Hickory Dude, the 8-year-old gelding she rode in Las Vegas. They owned his dam, still own his sire and handled much of his development. Steven and Katy Duby started him as a 2-year-old before Hall brought him home and began roping calves on him.

He doesn’t look the part.

“He does not really fit the cow horse, calf horse kind of horse you think of when you see rope horses,” Hall said. “He’s pretty tall. He’s about 16 hands, 16.1. He’s got long legs and a long neck. He’s just a little bit unorthodox for his discipline, but he does the job.”

The long legs help.

“He’s fast,” she said. “I hardly ever get outrun.”

He also made Hall adjust. He stands taller than the horses she had preferred, and his style didn’t feel natural to her at first. Some days she wondered whether they were the right match. Her mother never did.

“My mom just kept telling me, ‘I think you should just keep working on him. I think he’s going to be special,’” Hall said. “As it turns out, he is. She was right.”

Her parents also put in plenty of nights no crowd saw.

“My parents have spent many nights out at the arena opening the chutes for me to train this horse,” she said. “I’m just so thankful I get to ride him, and I can count on him at places like that to pull through for me and always do his job.”

At 8, the gelding should have years of work left.

“He’s been with me his whole life,” Hall said. “He’s part of the family. He’s earned his place. It’s nice to have him on the team and know that he’s old faithful and I can count on him no matter what.”

Two states, one goal

Hall plans to rodeo harder in 2027 and keep nominating PWR events. She wants another shot at The Run For A Million and a trip to the PWR Finals, and she has a bigger goal in front of her.

“My goal is to make the National Finals Breakaway Roping,” she said. “I feel like I’ve put in the work, and I have the horsepower and the support behind me, from my family to my employers. God’s put this on my heart to do it, and I won’t stop until I do.”

She will chase those goals from two states. Shortly before The Run For A Million, Hall moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to be closer to her parents and her younger sister, who will soon make her an aunt. Her insurance business remains in Stephenville, so she expects to spend plenty of time on both sides of the Red River.

“I’ve been in Stephenville for five or six years,” she said. “I live up here and get my mail up here, but my business and everything is based out of Stephenville, so I’m kind of split. I’m down there quite a bit regardless.”

Living in two places is nothing new for Hall. She grew up learning that when the opportunity was somewhere else, you loaded the trailer and went.

She has already made sure her nephew will have the proper wardrobe. After learning her sister was expecting a boy, Hall bought a tiny Run For A Million onesie in Las Vegas.

“I said, ‘You better be wearing this home from the hospital,’” she said with a laugh.

Nobody knows yet whether he’ll pick up a rope. In this family, he won’t have to look far for someone to teach him.

Hall knows other young women are watching, too. Some grow up surrounded by ropers. Others are like she was, climbing into a truck after school for a two-hour drive to practice.

“I feel like there are a lot of other girls out there that are like me, that have really big dreams,” she said. “You might not always see a way that you’re going to accomplish them, but just never give up and trust the path God’s put you on. I would have never guessed five years ago that I’d be where I’m at now. I just thank God for the opportunities and the people He’s put in my path, and the ability He’s given me to never quit.”

Five years ago, Hall moved to Stephenville to find out whether she could compete with the best. Plenty of people there made her prove it. In Las Vegas, she did.

By Savannah Magoteaux

Vaccinations are one of the simplest and most effective ways to protect your horse’s health. Good nutrition, proper hoof care, regular dental work and sound management all help keep horses healthy, but vaccines protect against diseases that can be costly, debilitating or fatal.

Many owners associate vaccinations with foals, but adult horses need routine immunizations throughout their lives. Immunity fades over time, and boosters help maintain protection. Which vaccines a horse needs depends on its age, location, travel schedule and exposure to other horses, but every vaccination program should start with a conversation between you and your veterinarian.

Core vaccines for every horse

The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) recommends five core vaccines for nearly every horse in the United States. These diseases pose a significant risk because they are widespread, potentially life-threatening or can affect human health.

Tetanus is one of the most important. Horses are particularly susceptible because the bacteria that cause tetanus live in soil and manure. Even a small puncture wound can let the bacteria in. Once clinical signs develop, treatment is difficult and survival rates fall sharply. Annual vaccination is the standard recommendation for most horses.

Eastern and Western equine encephalomyelitis, often called EEE and WEE, are mosquito-borne viral diseases that attack the nervous system. Cases are relatively uncommon, but both diseases carry high fatality rates. Vaccination is the most effective prevention, especially during mosquito season.

West Nile virus is another mosquito-transmitted disease of the nervous system. Since it arrived in the United States, it has become a routine part of every horse’s vaccination schedule. Infected horses may develop weakness, muscle tremors, stumbling or trouble standing. Some recover with supportive care, while others suffer permanent neurological damage or die.

Rabies is rare but almost always fatal once symptoms appear. Because rabies can also infect people, vaccinating protects both horses and the people who handle them. Skunks, raccoons, bats and foxes remain common carriers across much of the country.

Risk-based vaccines

Beyond the core vaccines, veterinarians often recommend risk-based vaccines depending on a horse’s lifestyle. Horses that travel often, show, compete, breed or live where other horses come and go usually need broader protection than horses that spend their lives on a single farm.

Common risk-based vaccines include:

• Equine influenza
• Equine herpesvirus (rhinopneumonitis)
• Strangles
• Potomac horse fever
• Botulism
• Leptospirosis

Veterinarians recommend influenza and equine herpesvirus vaccines most often, because both diseases spread easily wherever horses gather. Boarding barns, rodeos, horse shows, clinics and sales all raise exposure. Horses that compete regularly may get boosters more than once a year to stay protected.

Strangles remains one of the most contagious bacterial diseases in horses. Many horses recover, but outbreaks can race through barns and often force quarantines. Your veterinarian may recommend the vaccine at facilities where exposure risk is high.

Potomac horse fever tends to occur in certain regions and is associated with aquatic insects near streams and ponds. Your veterinarian can tell you whether this vaccine makes sense where you live.

Vaccines don’t replace good management

Vaccines lower disease risk, but they are only one part of a complete health program.

Biosecurity matters just as much. Isolate new horses before they join the resident herd whenever possible. Avoid sharing water buckets, feed tubs and grooming equipment, especially at shows or boarding facilities. Regular cleaning and good sanitation also reduce disease spread.

Control mosquitoes, too. Eliminating standing water, cleaning water tanks regularly and reducing breeding areas can lower exposure to mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile virus and encephalomyelitis.

Proper nutrition, parasite control and dental care support the immune system and help horses respond better to vaccination.

Timing matters

Most horses get their annual vaccinations in spring, before mosquito numbers climb and the busy travel season starts. Still, no single schedule works for every horse.

Foals need a series of vaccinations because the antibodies they get from their mothers fade during the first months of life. Adult horses that have never been vaccinated may also need an initial series before moving to annual boosters.

Veterinarians often vaccinate pregnant mares several weeks before foaling to raise antibody levels in the colostrum, which helps protect newborn foals in their first weeks.

Performance horses that travel a lot may need extra boosters through the year, particularly for influenza and herpesvirus.

Because recommendations vary with age, pregnancy, travel plans and disease activity, review your horse’s vaccination program with your veterinarian every year instead of repeating last year’s schedule.

Protecting the whole horse community

Vaccination protects more than the individual horse. When a high percentage of horses in a community are properly vaccinated, infectious diseases have a much harder time spreading. That protects young foals, older horses and animals with weakened immune systems.

Disease outbreaks can disrupt horse shows, breeding operations and training facilities, sometimes causing quarantines, canceled events and significant financial losses. Keeping vaccinations current reduces those risks for everyone in the horse industry.

Vaccines can’t prevent every illness, but they remain one of the most valuable tools horse owners have. Combined with sound management, good nutrition and regular veterinary care, a well-planned vaccination program helps horses stay healthy whether they spend their days on the ranch, in the show pen or out in the pasture.

Always consult your veterinarian to build a vaccination program that fits your horse’s age, health, location and level of exposure. Recommendations may vary with disease activity in your area and your horse’s individual needs.