Events
Groups
Rider Directory
Market
RideCamp
Stuff
Farmers, and such, used to work Monday through Friday, and let
their horses rest on the weekends. They would take their horses
out on Monday Morning and get to work. After a very short time,
the horse would tie up - thus Monday Morning disease.
For the endurance horse there are several factors that can cause
tying up. Let's say you have to trailer all day before the ride,
get to trot out for the vet, and then tie the horse up the night
before. Morning comes, you do a fast warm up, and then take off.
A few miles down the road your horse starts acting very lame and
then can't walk. Tie up. This would be a case where the lack
of activity the day before the ride was probably the major cause
of the tie up.
In another case, you might have only trailered a couple of hours
before the ride, you did a nice long walk at camp, the morning of
the ride you did a nice long warm up, yet still a few miles into
the ride the horse ties up. Here there are many factors, not all
of them understood by the vets. Possibly the horse had too much
protein in the diet. Possibly the horse got screwed up in the
electrolytes. Possibly the horse had imbalance in minerals. Possibly
the normal slow warm up wasn't enough.
You can avoid some of the tie up problems by doing easy work the
day before the ride, the night of, and a good warm up. You can
agregate the problems by locking the horse is a stall and not
allowing it out for the 12 hours prior to the ride.
If you are not doing an endurance ride, letting the horse stand around
won't cause a tie up. Just look at all the weekend riders out there.
Seldom do they see tie up problems. If your horse is out on pasture
(a real pasture of many acres), then the horse will exercise itself
enough during the days you don't ride to keep most of the tie up
problems from happening if you follow good management at the ride. A horse
that is kept stalled, or in a small paddock, needs to have a good warm up
before any training ride at all. After an endurance ride,
letting the horse rest in the pasture, or hand walking, or even
light riding is good. Putting the endurance horse in a stall for
a couple of days after a ride is asking for trouble of muscle cramps
if not tie up.
Until the vets come up with lots more research, all we can do is
common horse sense. Some research has been done, but each case seems
to be very individual (from what I've heard anyway). If you have
a horse that has tied up, then the more data you can get on your horse
with all the blood work taken immediately during the crisis, the better.
-- Wendy\|/ /\ -O- /**\ /|\ /****\ /\ / \ /**\ Here there be dragons / /\ / \ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\/\ /\ / / \ / \ / \/\/ \/ \ /\/ \/\ /\ /\/ / / \/ \ / / \/ /\ \ / \ \ / \/ / / \/ \/ \ / \ \ / / \/ \/\ \ / \ / / \ __/__/_______/___/__\___\__________________________________________________
Wendy Milner HPDesk: wendy_milner@hp4000 Hewlett-Packard Company e-mail: wendy@fc.hp.com Mail Stop A2 Telnet: 229-2182 (898-2182 as of Nov 1.) 3404 E. Harmony Rd. AT&T: (970) 229-2182 (898-2182) Fort Collins, CO, 80528-9599 FAX: (970) 229-2038 (898-2038)
Events
Groups
Rider Directory
Market
RideCamp
Stuff