I have a Thumper, and yes he
is a repeat offender, now :). The first time was on a slow LD (coming back
from suspensory injury) at Oregon100 - ironically a day he was eating &
drinking fabulous (for once) and all other parameters were great. But
there was the tell-tale flutter in his flank! He was fine after 1/2 hour,
some alfalfa and electrolytes. We had already pulled so I don't know if he
could have gone on, and it's absolutely best that we didn't! Since that
ride, I have observed him thumping quite frequently on conditioning rides and
even casual trail rides. Usually when he's excited about something, then
it goes away. I haven't found a formula (Alfalfa, tums, specific
electrolytes recommended by a vet for thumps) that prevented it in the first
place. He hasn't done an AERC ride since that first thump. He
is now my RETIRED endurance horse, and a great casual trail horse who
occasionally thumps for brief periods. He's a prime example of
the idea that once they thump once, they are much more prone to do it
again. It just wasn't something I wanted to worry about with him in the
excitement and inevitable slight dehydration that comes with rides.
Some horses aren't meant to do endurance, I'm not saying a thumper should not,
but in my horse's case it was the final straw that told me he needed a new
job.
Thanks for sharing
your experiences with us, Micki. Anyone else have a horse recover from thumps
and continued the ride without issues?
For learning
purposes, has anyone had a negative experience of continuing on with
a horse that had thumped and recovered after admin of tums, alfalfa, etc?
Or a horse that
thumped and instead of recovering developed some other metabolic problem?
And once your
horse thumped, does it have repeat episodes more easily in the
future?
