I had a challenging experience with a mare " cramping" at races- the
more we conditioned, the more she came into heat. The vets were baffled, as she
would cramp, be extremely uncomfortable, but was not
metabolic-heart rates in the 30's to 40's, and not colicky. for 2
years I consulted vets-Nancy Loving and CSU drew every blood test possible.
All levels-se, etc-chemistries, enzymes, etc were normal. One CSU Vet ruled out
gastric ulcers, then said " you endurance people never want to accept that
some horses are intolerant to exercise ". So, we entered a phase of drawing
labs, riding 20-35 miles, then re-drawing labs. they finally believed me that
the non-stop heat cycles were the problem. 2 vets said to put on a bovine patch.
2 said do regumate. ( this was not possible with my erratic work schedule
).
one large animal vet @ CSU was doing a research project of spaying 28
mares with the same complaints-all competition mares, 26 arabs. this was
laparoscopic-standing scope-not the hemorrhage complication of open
surgery. Zoe had the scope dec 2004-back to work jan 2005, she has never been
pulled for cramps since. she also still has a few small, light heat cycles a
season-hormonal influence from the adrenal glands.
