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Re: [RC] [AERC-Members] Ulcers - heidiSince Howard asked these questions on both forums, I'll answer on both. Anyway, back to the ulcer thing, here's a few questions. Does endurance, because of the fact a horse's insides, stomach in particular, were not meant to perform one hundred miles in a 24 hour period, cause ulcers? No, it would be quite a stretch to say that endurance "causes" ulcers. But undue stress CAN contribute to ulcers. The determining factor here is whether the horse is suited to the task or not. One of the biggest "causes" of ulcers is confining horses to stalls. This is really stressful to some horses. There are horses that are not mentally suited to the sport of endurance, and those individuals should go find another job. There are also horses that really struggle to do endurance. Likewise, those should go find another job. Additionally, too many people don't realize that going back to work too soon after some other metabolic event can be stressful--or that ulcers could well have been caused by something else and then exacerbated by endurance, whereas the horse might not have gotten them just doing endurance. A few scenarios: Horse gets a leg injury, is confined and given bute, ulcer is established, leg heals, ulcer is not detected, but horse goes back to work at endurance and ulcer gets worse. Horse is purchased and formerly had feeding/confinement issues, ergo horse came with undetected ulcer, and ulcer gets worse. And the biggie, imo--people pump electrolytes willy nilly down horse--the sport does not cause the ulcer, but the e-lytes do. Are these ulcers a result from the sport itself? See above. IMO, no. Is there any correlation between some of our equine deaths in the sport and "ulcers?" Probably. But again, if the sport "caused" the ulcer and there were not other contributing causes, then somebody has not been "listening" to this horse and has been trying to stuff a square peg into a round hole. Can the products used to heal them also be used to prevent them? If so, why on earth would we not allow them to be used during endurance competition? Sometimes, yes. But should we allow them in the sport? Hell, no. One could make the same case for saying that nerving prevents lameness. But robbing a horse of the feeling in his feet is not an acceptable substitute for good management. We could run them all on bute, too, so they wouldn't get sore. Gee, let's put in some bute for soreness, add anti-ulcer meds so the horse doesn't get an ulcer from the bute, let's just stick an IV line in so we can drip some magic energy goo in there continuously, and fluids, and whatever else. No, medicating isn't the way to go. What we DO need is better awareness of ulcers, more willingness to add scoping to the diagnostic list when warranted, better understanding of what we do that contributes to them, adequate time off for them when they ARE diagnosed, and a willingness to face the fact that Ol' Dobbin may not be cut out for endurance, if the problems with ulcers persist. We all seem to accept that a horse that cannot stay biomechanically sound in this sport needs to stay home and find another job. For the most part, riders have a good awareness that we can't just add magic pills and potions to cure or to ward off suspensory injuries, bowed tendons, etc. We accept that we have to do a certain amount of work to get these tissues fit, and that if something happens, we have to lay the horse off and do adequate rehab if we intend to bring him back. What too many people do NOT seem to realize is that "metabolic soundness" requires the same approach. We need to make sure there are not metabolic issues or lesions there to begin with. We need to condition, train, and manage the horse in such a way that we reduce the likelihood of metabolic injury. We need to understand that we cannot "cover up" metabolic problems with preventative drugs any more than we can biomechanical problems. And when metabolic issues or lesions occur, we need to keep the horse home until he is well again before asking him to compete. And, like with biomechanical inadequacies--if the horse isn't up to the task metabolically, he needs to find another job. Heidi ============================================================ Prudence and focus will carry you a long way on a horse. ~ Frank Solano ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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