Re: Daily Strongid (and spuds)

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

> Feel free to doubt me.  I just had some people tell me about cases and
> sort of catalogued it in my mind.  Then had a friend whose horse
> suddenly, for no reason that they could tell came into a check doing
> great, well within his usual capabilities, then crashed so violently that
> she almost lost him.  Only heroic efforts by the vet saved him.  We were
> riding down the trail with her telling me about it how she'd never do
> another 100 on him it was so unexplainable and unpredictable when it
> happened. Sounded just like the other cases I'd been told of, so I said,
> "You don't happen to have him on daily Strongid do you?"  She said, "Yes,
> why?"  That did it for me.  Now I just stay away from it while people
> like you step in and figure out what's happening.  Sort of like when
> Purina Athlete came out.  Nobody knew *why* there was a problem, but
> everybody quit using it pretty fast when freaky stuff started happening.


OK.  I guess if I just saw a horse that was crashing at a ride, his being on
a daily wormer wouldn't be the first thing that sprang to mind.  At the very
least, I guess I'd want to see some bloodwork to rule out that the reason
for the crash wasn't dehydration, or e'lyte imbalance, or kidney failure or
something directly related to competing in a 100-mile ride.

I guess it just sounds a bit like something that happened to me maybe 6-7
years ago---I was picking up a friend at the airport, was walking back to
the car and some drunk bonehead ran a red light and hit me, breaking a
pretty decent collection of bones and such.  A week or two later, I was
telling someone about it and she wanted to know if I'd eaten any potato
skins that day.  No kidding...potato skins.  As it happens, I'd had a baked
potato for lunch, skin and all.  She nodded very wisely and started telling
me all about the "poisons" to be found in potato skins.  She seemed to be
aware of some connection so that when you eat potato skins, you naturally
can expect to get run over like a gopher.

I'm *still* trying to figure out that one.  In the meantime, gotta watch out
for them spuds.  Sneaky little buggers.<g>

Susan G