"...Is it unusual to be able to feel the horse's
heartbeat at the spot you'd place a stethoscope if you were using one,
or is this an indication of some problem? ..."
When I have been a P/R person for endurance and
CTR, I have been amazed at the differences between horses in the ease of finding
the heart beat. There is a wide variation.
1. Some horses, usually stockier types with some
body fat, the heart is hard to hear, let alone feel.
2. Some horses, usually thiner bodied types, you
can easily both feel and hear the heart beating. These are a P/R person's
dream.
3. Very fit endurance horses apparently have a
large stroke volume. The rate will be slow, but you can hear and feel that
the heart is pumping a bunch with each stroke.
4. Extremely good CTR horses can be a real
challenge. They came into the check cool, have a slow heartbeat, may skip
beats, and by the time the 10 minutes are up you can barely hear
anything.
Ed
Ed & Wendy Hauser 2994 Mittower
Road Victor, MT 59875
