EVJ podcast puts equine antibiotic stewardship back in focus

Version 1 — Brief

Equine Veterinary Journal’s latest On the Hoof podcast, published May 14, 2025, turns its focus to antimicrobial stewardship in horses, using Bruce Bladon’s editorial, “Antibiotics: Our part in their downfall,” and several BEVA Congress 2024 abstracts as the jumping-off point. The discussion lands at a time when UK equine practice is under growing pressure to show that antibiotic use is measured, evidence-based, and trackable, especially because equine medicine still lacks the kind of national antimicrobial monitoring long established in food animal sectors. BEVA has also launched its MonitorME campaign to collect antimicrobial use data from equine practices across the UK, with Bladon framing resistance as a public health issue that could eventually drive tighter limits on veterinary access to key drugs. The stewardship message also fits a broader pattern in equine primary care: in a 2024 EVJ On the Hoof episode on BEVA’s parasite control guidelines, James Bailey highlighted the same profession-wide challenge of moving away from routine, calendar-based treatment toward diagnosis-led, evidence-based use because resistance pressures are rising and new drugs are limited. (evj.podbean.com)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the message is less about a single new study and more about a shift in expectations. Data highlighted around the editorial suggest equine antibiotic use has declined in some UK practice datasets, but highest-priority critically important antimicrobials are still used, and national equine-specific surveillance remains incomplete. Recent hospital-based research from Cornell also points to familiar stewardship gaps, including prolonged perioperative use in clean surgeries, low culture submission rates, and antimicrobial treatment in some cases without clear evidence of infection. The same evidence-based mindset now being applied to antimicrobials mirrors BEVA’s recent parasite-control guidance, which was built around structured PICO questions and graded evidence to replace inconsistent opinion-led recommendations. Together, that puts more weight on practice-level prescribing audits, written protocols, culture and sensitivity testing, and better documentation of why antibiotics are started, escalated, or stopped. (veterinary-practice.com)

What to watch: Watch for wider uptake of BEVA’s MonitorME reporting, new benchmarking data from UK equine practices, and whether stewardship efforts start translating into more formal prescribing standards or restrictions. More broadly, expect BEVA and EVJ to keep pushing primary-care guidance that favors targeted treatment over routine drug use, whether the issue is antibiotics or parasite control. (beva.org.uk)