My daughter’s horse, Shadow, also had her first metabolic issue at a ride. It was the first hot ride day of the year, we kept HRs around 120 unless we were climbing, which we did at a walk. She was eating and drinking well, was electrolyed 1/2oz Enduramax powder (mixed with appleasauce) before the ride, at the 17, 30, and 40 mile checks, always on the way out so as not to interfere with eating and drinking. As we were leaving the last check and 30 min hold, we hosed the horses necks and shoulders, grabbed a few more bites of hay, then Shadow suddenly tightened up her belly and started doing a little stagger. We quickly got her to the vet, he detected no gut sounds, gave her a shot of banamine, and 15 min later she wanted to start grazing again. I waited with Tara for Jim to come with the trailer to take the horse to a clinic, but during the additional hour wait, she continued eating and now had gut sounds, so we just took her to the end so vets would be available if anything else happened…it didn’t. The vet had drawn blood to be able to analyze it if further treatment was needed, said it looked thick, like maybe she was dehydrated, but she’d been drinking LOTS all day, but did not drink well the night before.
My horse, Sonny, had skin trembling at the 17 mile check, had never had that before. Both horses pulsed down within a few minutes at each vet check. At the 40 mi check, due to the problems with Shadow, Sonny got an extra 90 min rest which he used to eat, he had drank on the way in. We eventually continued on, a slow jog down into the canyon, and walked out, HR rarely getting up to 100. At the finish, he drank, we stripped the gear, watered his neck and shoulders and he was at 55. We walked over to the vetting area and his HR went up to 78 and then would not consistently stay below 64 for another 40 min, then we vetted and he was 55. Normally, he’d be at 44 within 10 minutes.
I don’t know what went wrong. We did the first 17 miles at a moderate pace, I think it took 2.5 hours, and it was pretty flat, at least 3 miles of it was walking through rocks. The next 13 miles we concentrated on keeping the HRs down because it was heating up and we were beginning to climb, I think it took a couple of hours. Then after an hour’s rest, we did the climb into and back out of the canyon, again being careful to keep HRs down. I don’t remember how long it took, but we went much slower than we usually do there during training rides. And then Sonny had an incredibly long rest and we just poked along back thru the canyon to the finish. It really doesn’t seem like they should have been fatigued, so I’m really jumping here to maybe ulcers with Sonny and maybe stones or otherwise compromised intestinal system with Shadow.
We’ll do some more hard conditioning after an appropriate rest and see if there is any recurrence of these symptoms and take it from there. BTW, what IS an appropriate perid of rest when a horse has had a mild/moderate colic?
Kathy
What is unfortunately NOT pointed out often enough is that electrolytes are
present in food (especially in forages) and that horses that eat well consume
more than enough electrolytes to replenish all but the worst of electrolyte
losses. My best advice is not to start experimenting with e-lyte mixes until
you have ridden a few rides at a moderate pace and have given your horse an
opportunity to allow mild deficits to encourage him to eat and drink better on
