Sedation and analgesia in the standing horse 1. Drugs used for sedation and systemic analgesia

Many surgical and diagnostic procedures can be performed safely and humanely in conscious horses by using a combination of sedation, analgesia and local anaesthetic techniques. This article discusses sedatives and analgesics, including drugs that are administered intravenously, intramuscularly, orally or transmucosally. Drugs administered by infiltration, and/or the epidural, perineural or intra‐articular routes to provide local analgesia will be discussed in a second article, to be published in a subsequent issue of In Practice .