By Andra Bennett, APR
With the infernal heat dome over the entire southern USA dominating the news, the City of Fort Worth’s Public Events Department saw an opportunity to feature unique cooling treatments for horses provided at the National Cutting Horse Association’s Summer Cutting Spectacular at Will Rogers Memorial Center.
After pitching the story to a panel of national network correspondents, three outlets bit, including 
ABC’s Good Morning America!
This was the gist of the pitch:
More than 1,000 horses are being carefully attended with innovative therapies to protect them from heat exhaustion and improve performance, including electrolytes in their food and water, sweat supplements to enhance perspiration evaporation, mister fans, and even cryotherapy, hydrotherapy and salt-water spas.
Equine cold-water spas with oxygen jets and mineral water have been shown to be particularly useful for healing abrasions and treating tendon problems but can also be used for regulating temperature and comfort.
Cryotherapy for horses use cold water treadmills to create therapeutic effect, as well as targeted high-pressure liquid nitrogen treatments.
The cryotherapy chamber was the clincher, and with a photo of a horse in cold fog surrounding her provided to the press, every reporter wanted to get footage of that, if not get into the chamber themselves.
Andra Bennett, APR, is Marketing Communications | Public Events Department for the City of Fort Worth, Texas.
