ridecamp@endurance.net: Re: horse with chronic tie-up

Re: horse with chronic tie-up

Eric & Gail Hought (hought@humboldt1.com)
Fri, 19 Sep 1997 21:55:13 -0700

I had a mare, Diabla Caliente, Cali for short, that I rode endurance in
the 70's that would tie up. (We raised her and she died 4 years ago at the
age of 27, still sound and rideable.) She tied up the first time on her
first 50. It took us about 2 years to figure out how to deal with it. She
could not tolerate good spring and summer green grass. We did feed her
alfafla hay and lots of it, but at the time, everybody did. Good grass
hay wasn't even available. I fed her whole oats only when I had gone at
least 10 miles (1 pound per 5 miles). But the main thing we did is ride
her 6 days a week, at the very least 30 minutes of trot and loping in the
arena. In hind sight that routine probably could have been every other
day. Most to her riding was on trails. If she had 4 or more days off, I
would feed her local grass hay for a couple days, more if the lay off was
long. Most horses can't hold their weight on our local grass hay, so it
was never a full time option. The results were that we rode her
successfully on several 50's(top tened 2X) and our main goal, we completed
3 Levi Ride N Ties and we were able to keep her from tying up for 9 years
straight. The only reason I didn't do more Endurance Rides on her was
because we moved too far away from being able to train easily. She was 12
at the time and we spent 7 years there. Cali was my first Endurance horse
and I trained her way too fast. We thought all training rides, from the
very first day, should be done continuously at a fast trot, usually about
20 miles or more. I was very fortunate and she always stayed sound. I
would never start out a horse like again. Cali was 6 when I started and
had been ridden quite a bit. She did some calf roping, I barrel raced on
her and did a lot of stock horse classes for about 8 years at the same time
as the endurance. Needless to say she looked like she was fit for the race
track, not the arena. By now you have probably figured out she was a QH.
She would be the so called classic model for tying up. Cali was a very
hot, very competitive mare and real smoot fast gaits. I would say she was
competitive to a fault, but she loved to go up and down hills.
Back to subject of tying up. Cali dam tied-up once on me too, but was
just a kid and thought it was colic. She had a lot of thoroughbred in her.
Cali's sire was hot and sired many foals that were the same way, but I do
not recall any others tying up besides mine. I can't help but feel it has
a heritary factor. As I said we keep her from tying up for 9 years
straight and had some trouble when we got careless. She was in a small
metal pen and I had been riding her every other day. I fed about 2 pounds
of oats because she was 20. Anyway we skipped 4 days and tried to ride her
the 5th. She didn't get very bad. We had gotten in the habit of walking
her 2 miles before we did any trotting when she was on a real regular
schedule. That seemed to help with her a lot. If they are really going to
be in trouble it doesn't help as much. A lot of different people rode her
in her 20s and took her on some trail trials. I always had them walk her a
couple of miles first and they understood she had to have regular riding.
We feed a high quality grass hay now, and have for many years.
I have a friend that has a low keyed purebred arab gelding, average size
that ties up much easier than Cali did. Using a heart monitor has given us
a lot of information on him. He was ridden several times early this spring
while he was on pasture and some hay. They were about 10 mile rides,
mostly at a walk. His resting heart rate when saddling was in the 40's and
it ranged from 85-95 at a walk. That puzzled us. Then he had a break in
training and was only being led and tied up with a 1/4 of a mile. He did
this 3 different times, all when he was on pasture. He was taken
completely off pasture, given only grass hay. Now his resting heart rate
when saddled turned out to be really low, almost always below 30 and walks
in the low 60's. Again we find you have to be really religious about his
exercise.
I hope this information is of help to someone. I would like to hear more
input on the subject especially in relation to an excercise schedule. I
always felt that of all the ways to control this problem, the "regular
exercise schedule" was on the top of the list. That's my experience with
this problem.

Gail and "Shaq",my E.horse for the last 2 year(a big Anglo Arab,
reg.name-Kings Flash)
hought@humboldt1.com

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