Pain management options for the equine orthopedic patient are limited and can have harmful systemic effects. Methods of local drug delivery such as intravenous regional limb perfusion (IVRLP) are able to provide more focal therapy with a decreased risk of systemic side effects. The primary goal of the present study was to develop a novel, targeted pain management approach able to mitigate the complications encountered with systemic opioid administration. There were two main objectives with respect to elucidating the usefulness of a butorphanol IVRLP. The first of these was to evaluate the feasibility of IVRLP to deliver butorphanol to the treated limb, and the second was to develop a method for evaluating the analgesic efficacy of the procedure. The findings suggest butorphanol IVRLP is well tolerated, results in measurable levels of butorphanol in the treated limb and may be of analgesic benefit.