>...The ONE tie-up I had occurred when the first vet-check was only 7 miles from
>start ( a 30 miler). My boyfriend was riding and he indicated the mares
>heart rate was running higher than normal..he KNEW...he rides with one all
>the time. I passed it off as early ride exceitment. At first vet check she
>took 30 minutes to get to 68..higly unusual for her.
Eeeegads, it happened to my mare this last weekend. Yep, she tyed up.
Approximately 8 miles out (and luckily only 1.5 miles from the house) she
tyed up. The interesting thing about it is she didn't have rock hard
muscles (neither did she have them last year when we had this same
trouble), but she was sweating terribly, tiny little steps in the hind, and
in pain...AND HER HEART RATE DID *NOT* SOAR. I remember noticing how nice
and slow her trot was (which doesn't happen with my mare) and how low her
heart rate was (77-83 bpm). When I finally realized that this SLOW trot
was way out of the "normal" range for her..., I jumped off and watched her
heart rate drop quickly to <41 bpm.
The ride that day was slow, very slow, we walked most of the 8 miles with
trotting in only a few areas. (We were gabbing). My mare lives in an 80+
acre hilly pasture and gets lots of natural exercise.
MY FAULT!...we didn't ride on our normal Tuesday and Thursday nights (since
it was very dark and very cold. And my riding partner got dumped from the
last night ride and was still healing her bruises - so I had another excuse
to not saddle up in the cold and ride by myself...). And, yep, best of
all, I did not cut her grain ration in half. I figured she gets more
exercise from running around the pasture than our weenie night rides that
consist of walking 8 miles or so.
Live and learn. A good friend once told me "the easiest problem to fix is
a skinny horse". I think she was wrong...
Sally Miller
Eagle, Idaho
208/939-4364 work