The "C" Word

𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭…

Since she was backed, my 4 year old OTTB has been on some form of ulcer prevention. She took U-Gard while racing. Post-track, we switched over to a slightly less expensive ulcer prevention, Succeed from SmartPak. She LOVED the sweet taste of the (low sugar!) natural oat flavored syringes, to the amusement of our boarding barn staff. A few months ago, I made the decision to take her off of Succeed, as it seemed like more of a daily game to her than a necessary supplement.

However, yesterday morning, we found ourselves on poop watch! After witnessing some rather unusual behavior for my mare (laying down during breakfast time, refusing to eat most of her breakfast grain, leaving an abundance of hay remaining in her hay net), my trainer gave her a dose of Banamine and instructed me to walk her around to get her gut moving.

By mid-morning, she had pooped, concluding our first extremely mild case of Colic. We believe this was her way of letting us know that she wanted her ulcer prevention medication back, as she has never been off of it before as far as we know.

It’s no secret that horses are incredibly fragile beings. Whoever coined the term “healthy as a horse” clearly never had to pay any vet bills. Thoroughbreds in particular are notoriously accident-prone. In the month of March, we also experienced:

1 reaction to spring vaccines that resulted in a swollen neck for a few days.

1 eye wound that resulted in several stitches and a minor concussion (this one was actually our 16 year old OTTB).

Life with horses is certainly never boring — and no, this is NOT an April Fools’ Day joke!

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With H.O.P.E.

Diana Bezdedeanu