Question about a horse

[Geraldine]

I had a 22 year old horse who died suddenly last week.

The horse was always quite healthy and apart from mild leg arthrosis was
never ill.

Due to his age we seldom used to backride it, and when it happened, only for
a short walk.

Due to his good health he used to jump very heavily when we took him for a
walk, by hand.

Last week when his caretaker was walking him, he made a pair of very heavy
jumps and began suddenly coughing and losing blood by his nose and mouth.

The vet ordered the injection of a steroid anti-inflammatory agent. After 4
hours he was dead.

Has someone any experience of such a case or any explanation for what might
have happened?

Thanks in advance

Geraldine

[littleditty]

Geraldine, I'm so sorry.

Our family has had to have two horses put down within 6 weeks. One was
about the age of your guy. Steroids can be very difficult on an older
horse, or at least that's what our Vet told us. As our horses age, their
bones become brittle just like ours. It's possible that when he made those
jumps, he fractured a rib and punctured a lung. Also, he could have had a
fractured rib beforehand and those jumps were just too much pressure. A
human example would be when our elderly fracture a hip. It was surprising
to learn that when a patient falls, it isn't the fall that caused the
fracture, because in many cases the hip was already broken. The fall was
simply a result of the injury and a means to diagnosing it.

There are some really savvy horse people in this ng that I'm sure will be
able to offer some advice, but in the meantime, please know my thoughts are
with you.
ld

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"Geraldine" <fanta...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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[Geraldine]

Thanks.

"littleditty" <littl...@uhdunno.zip> escreveu na mensagem
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[truly truckle]

hello Geraldine, sorry for your loss

My guess is that the horse ruptured an arteries in his lungs, it
sometimes happens with race horses. source can be from the upper
airway (nose sinus ect) or from the lungs. ranges from just small
trickle to a large flow. 22 seems young for a horse to have that
sort of a problem. there have been cases where a heavy infestation
of a certain parasite causing a large lung bleed. certain parasite
migrate through the lungs to the outside world as part of the life
cycle. these migrations generally occur in small numbers but can
occur as mass migrations. interesting that the vet gave a steroid
perhaps he noticed some other inflation going on but it depends
on what steroid he gave

[Le Montgaret]

will I write in french ? let's try my old english!
As a vet I used to learn that, in the horse, nose bleeding could be due to
heart disease, especially in race horses. Why not imagine in this case a
heart failure, as I saw it once in a jump contest (the horse actually
stopped its jump and heavily fell head first and broke its neck) ? Otherwise
hypertension and artery rupture due to the effort of "jumping"?
As a horse owner, I myself lost my horse after a jump : he had decided to
train himself for the next Olympic games without any coach... and broke his
hip (or femur?) He died three hours later with a pulmonary or cerebral
emboly (? : I mean a little piece of coagulated blood staying and stopping
the irrigation)
Hope you will understand all what I mean

"Geraldine" <fanta...@hotmail.com> a écrit dans le message de
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