The flip side to this would be our now 20 year old stallion who suffered a
few seasons back from a surprise case of endocarditis. He was supposed to die:).
Sal was 15 at the time, and in teh prime of his life, fit and sound. He had
enjoyed a terific performance career, a budding endurance career, and produced a
handful of get, well balanced, kind and bright foals. All of a sudden, we had a
horse who might die at the slightest provocation. The level of infection was so
great that we literally had vets from all over the place coming to hear his
"profound murmur".
After months of chemo level antibiotics - among
other and painful injections daily - Sal pulled through. The prognosis was that
he could just as easily drop dead standing in his stall so we might as
well get on him and just mosey about on him. After a couple of months, he seemed
stronger and so the vet said he could drop dead as easily moseying down the road
so we may as well give him a little work to do. Close to 15 months after the
initial event, Sal was rotting a dozen miles and adding a few hills. The vet
said he could just as easily drop dead trotting a sharp hill as doing a 25
miler, so.....Sal has since completed several 25-35 milers. Not bad for a dead
horse
If he "crashed" after 2 miles or 25, it would be
the same for him. It would be perhaps better for ALL of us though, because he
COULD just as easily drop dead - and likely more so - standing around being
useless. Sal's survival - and even thriving - are just the antimpathy of the
horse who, for no apparent reason, fit and sound, drops in his tracks at a race
- or in his stall. If tehre was any predicting available I am fairly sure most
riders would make use of it. While no one except the ones involved really know
the situation in this or any other case, clearly, it could just as easily happen
to one of our horses. Except where there is an apparent history of thoughtless
or ignorant and hazardous behavior (some riders demonstrated rep precedes them),
I think we should be careful not to be judged at some point by the very same
measure.
