“We’re not curing cancer, but we’re saving horses, and we’re saving people.” This is the statement that drives Brian Nielsen and his research.

Nielsen, a professor in the Michigan State University Department of Animal Science specializing in equine exercise physiology, came to this realization when he heard that Cash from Texas, the $120,000-winning racehorse he rode in the early 1990s as a graduate student at Texas A&M University, broke his leg during one of his races.

“When I spoke with his trainer on the phone, he said, ‘We did everything we could to try to save him,’ and you could tell he was on the edge of tears,” Nielsen recalled when telling the story.