Ridecamp: [RC] Leaving after rides

K S SWIGART katswig@
FASTGraphic said:

>>The IDIOTIC RICKY-RACER types who get their horses pulled for metabolic and
then load them up in a trailer (right after taking off the IV of fluids)  are
STUPID.  Now that is not a broad brush.  It is quite specific, and I stand by
it.  Haven't just heard about it.  Watched it.  I'm not being nasty.  Nasty
would have been to slash the tires of the trailer to help the horse out.  If
you are leaving early in situations where it is perfectly safe and harmless
to do so, no one is criticizing you!  If you are standing up for those as
described above, shame on you.<<

Well, I must confess to having been guilty of this.  At this year's 20 Mule Team 100 ride, my horse was treated for a rather mystery condition (about which two very experienced endurance vets, the Duck and Jamie Kerr, said "I must confess, I have never seen anything like this before.") with 6 liters of IV fluids, and blood samples were drawn and given to me to take with me.

After which I put my horse in the trailer with the other horses I had come with and we took them back to their home (about 2 1/2 hours drive).  After conferring with the vets and discussing with the ride manager (Jackie) about keeping the horse at her place instead of trailering her, it was determined that she was sufficiently stable to handle the trailering and since the home barn was a scant 5 miles from Chino Valley Hospital (one of the best equine veternary clinics in the area and where she would have been sent from Ridgecrest anyway had she been in need of emergency hospital treatment) and at home she would have access to her regular vet who came out to see her the next day (despite the fact that the mystery condition seemed to have resolved itself during the trailer ride) to evaluate her condition, pick up the blood samples that were taken at the ride, and take new samples so that a comparison could be made, while at the same time being watched overnight by a barn manager with over 50 years of horse experience.

Shame on me for trailering my horse somewhere where she would  be close to immediate access to recongized experts with hospital facilities and a vet who has known the horse since the day she was born.  Instead I should have stayed in camp, tied to the trailer fixing my now flat tires (if Scott had his way) while everybody else, including all the ride veternary personnel left.

Being a trained EMT and having worked closely with many paramedics, I suspect that the general rule for emergency medicine in horses is pretty much the same as the rules for emergency medicine in horses.  The motto of the EMT is "Stabalize and Transport."  What you may have seen is somebody doing just that.  Hell, maybe the person you saw was me (although maybe not, because my horse wasn't pulled for metabolic reasons, she was cleared to go on but I elected not to because "she wasn't moving like she normally does, and I was worried that she would trip in the dark and injure herself"...and is in the ride results as being pulled because she was lame).

I mention this to demonstrate that it is extremely unlikely that one person watching one horse get treated briefly at base camp could have any clue as to what is actually going on with the physical condition of the horse, nor can s/he make valid judgements as to whether that horse ought to be trailered anywhere.  I, personally, don't know ANYBODY who has had any kind of emergency veterinary treatment performed on their horse anywhere (not just at endurance rides but at home as well) that doesn't ask the vet, "what should I do next."  If one has gone to the trouble to get treatment for ones horse (and if one is sufficiently worried about the seriousness of the condition to get a vet to do emergency treatment), one is unlikely to then not discuss all the options with the attending veternarian and then do what everybody thinks is best for the horse.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  We never did really figure out what was the cause of the mystery condition.  The blood work showed that she was mildly hyperkalemic...and some of the symptoms of the condition were that she seemed to have some neurological disconnect between her brain and her feet.  Since the only thing I did differently during this ride was to give her 2-3 times more electrolytes than I normally would and she has since (yes since being treated with IV fluids at a ride a mere three months before) successfully completed the Mt. Charleston 75...in the top ten no less :) so I was even...GASP!!!!..."racing" her :)...by going back to my old way of electrolyting, I am going to assume that I over-electrolyted her.

Four very experienced vets (add my own vet and Barney to the list of vets who have never seen or heard of anything like it before) and ~$500 worth of lab work and diagnostics...including having Barney do the blood work before during and after the Mt. Charleston ride have come up with no better ideas.




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