Re: [SPAM] Re: [RC] Thumps - atdsarlingtonHeidi, I had a horse that was prone to thumping, but was one of those on which it meant nothing. He could be absolutely normal at every perimeter, but still have that slight tic in his flank. I controlled it with extra doses of calcium. In researching some of the reasons this particular horse was prone to thumps, I came up with some interesting information. One of the very well known Endurance vets told me this horse had a large heart for his body size. This was a very small horse, less than 13.3. It seems to me since the nerve in question runs near the heart and fires in rythym with it, that an extra large heart in a smaller body cavity would be more likely to cause thumps as the nerve would be positioned closer to the heart. Is this false reasoning? Another factor that I felt contributed was, this horse was raised in an area where the grass is very high in calcium. Cows pastured in the area often develop milk fever in the spring due to the high level of calcium in the soil. I was given this information from a local large animal vet who treated these cows so I assume it is accurate. I know when a horse is given an excess of calcium, his system loses the ability to source it from his skeleton which I believe is what the normal horse does under stress. So it stands to reason if a horse was raised in an area with an over abundance of calcium available in the grass, his system is probably not well developed to pull calcium from his bone. I participated in a study conducted by Dr. Nagota back in the '80's. He was researching calcium levels and how they related to thumps. At a 105 mile ride in Ohio, blood was drawn from horses participating in the study 6 different times throughout the ride. This particular horse finished that ride in 3rd or 4th place so I was not riding conservatively. After the ride was completed and all the data collected and reviewed, Dr. Nagota called me as my horse was the only participant whose calcium levels stayed stable or even elevated a little throughout the ride. Since this was inconsistent with the results from the other horses, he wanted to know why. The answer, of course, was the extra calcium supplementation I was doing. The only time this horse was ever pulled from a ride for thumps was at the World Championships in Front Royal. A Swedish rider had leased him and did not follow my instructions on administering calcium during the ride. The horse was thumping slightly at 60 miles, but was absolutely normal in all other perimeters. Had we had another 15 minutes in the check, I could have eliminated the thumps, but as I was unable to administer the extra calcium until the check and he'd had none for 60 miles there wasn't enough time to get the thumping under control. Therefore, he was pulled. The rider could not have continued any way. She was in far worse condition than the horse, but the horse could have finished easily barring other unforseen events. One other thing of note, at a convention where Valerie Kanavy was a guest speaker. During her presentation, she talked about horses that recover to extremely low pulse rates, stating, that in her experience, these horses often have issues in other areas. One of the issues she mentioned being thumps. My horse had extremely good recoveries under extreme conditions. He was often recovered to 32/36 BPM at a vet check very quickly. I wonder if the large heart may have contributed to the low recoveries and the thumping as well. Maybe this will shed a little more light on the issue of thumps. Linda Courts =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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