Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Patty,

What you are describing sounds very much like mechanical friction  
between your horse's back and his pads.  The skin is mildly scurffed  
for many miles, resulting in shear and sloughing of the top layer some  
time later.  My suspiscion is even higher when I heard it was DM pad  
that is normally a bit rougher/tougher material.  We used to see this  
at shorter distances with a Toklat Coolback pad.  The synthetic  
material scurfed - no more problems when we changed to the same pad in  
all natural materials (woolback).

The other possibility is a reaction to a chemical of some sort that is  
causing a chemical burn reaction for the skin.  It could be from soap  
residue, fly spray, skin brace etc on the horse's skin (unlikely), in  
the pad (slightly more likely), or from breakdown of the pad.  (Don't  
know how stable the chemical composition of the DM pad is - I suspect  
pretty stable or it would be trashed after a few long rides.)

I would suggest changing to an all wool pad (I prefer Woolbacks) -  
less problems with friction & they are good at removing sweat from  
directly next to the horse's skin.  I'd suggest that you plan to  
change the pad out at every opportunity - where ever you can send  
supplies out to a vet check.  That way you aren't putting a heavy  
soaked pad back on the horse.

Good luck!

Linda

Quoting Patty Stedman <procompsvc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> Well I've got the off season to figure this one out.
>
> On the last two hundreds I've done, my horse got soreness in his   
> back at about 90 miles.  Not muscle soreness, not bruising, it seems  
>  like an issue with heat, as it is tender/owie to the touch, then   
> scurfs within a few days.




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