Horse crash and HR

[Pete and Debbie LaBerge <plaberge@epix.net>]

This is just to reiterate that you have to look at the whole horse.

(1994) On a 100 mile ride (at 80 miles) my horse was giving me the signs
that he wanted to stop and pee- you know how they sort of hold
themselves behind- you let them stop- they pee , grab a bite, and off
you go.
This was a horse I knew well- having done over 2000 miles with him in
mostly 100's.
And his usual MO was to really enjoy passing horses after 70 miles, eat
and drink at every opportunity.

Luckily,at that point my crew person happened to be waiting by the road
in the truck with a bucket of water. The horse passed on the water-
first warning.

I took him into the field, whistled, he pee'd, his HR was 54- but he
didn't dive for the grass. To me, that was a big uh-oh and I knew we
were in trouble. Pulled out the stethoscope, gut sounds decreased.

Told my crew to go back to camp and get a vet and a trailer.
He just acted dull. 

The long and short of it was "anterior enteritis". The ride vets were
great. But after several hours on IV, he started refluxing and it didn't
quit. On the trip to Michigan State University, we had to stop
frequently to drain the stomach tube into a bucket.

Retrospectively, at MSU, they said they didn't see ant ent very often.
Thought he was obstructed and took him to exploratory surgery.
Was classic anterior enteritis. So, he not only had to be treated
medically for the ant ent, he also had to recover from abd. surgery.
It was very touch and go. 30 days later, I was able to get him from the
hosp.

Maybe there is more known about anterior enteritis now, but then no one
could give me many answers. I went to the vet library there and read
everything I could on the disease. 

The one thing I thought about was that our truck broke down on the way,
and he may have gotten more dehydrated with the delay on the road. We
still arrived at camp over 24 hours before the start of the ride. I
tried to look at everything I might have done differently or missed. I
did have a clue that things were not quite right at a vet check when his
gut sounds were a B- and he was usually an A or A-. I held him out an
extra 20 minutes to make sure he was eating and had him rechecked and
they were improved. Recoveries and CRI's all ok. 

The other unusual stressor in his case was having been in that extended
quarantine situation in France during the piroplasmosis thing after the
WC in Spain. But he had been back home for 12 months and had done other
rides (50's and 100's).

We carefully rehabbed him for a year, and he started to show me he was
coming back. We did several 50's then 100's and knew he was "back".
Since then, he(Stoney) has done another 1000 or so miles, mostly 100's-
with Shellie Hatfield.

This was a first "pull" in a horse that had done more than 2000 miles.

I have always been surprised that the HR was so low out there on the
trail in a horse who was getting so sick. (I did recheck it with my
stethoscope) 

Deb LaBerge