I feel like I am pretty hardened now and accept the fragility of horses, but this is just ridiculously sad and unfair.
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So very sad. 
Damn it! 
RIP Ben’s Cat, what a great horse.
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I am so very saddened to hear of this…and I feel especially bad for his newest caretaker, Christina. How devastated she much feel. I’ve been in those shoes, and it just sucks.
My deepest heartfelt wishes to all of the people who loved Ben over the years…
The title of this thread has taken on a whole new meaning.
sad news re Ben’s Cat. Condolences to all involved with him - they must be devastated.
SO annoyed by some of the crazy comments on Bloodhorse…
Does anyone, other than me, wonder what kinds of silent health concerns ultimately stop these horses? I remember Lost in the Fog, and his losses causing his owners to determine what was bothering him. And them , he was gone.
This grand horse, who was not old, by horse standards, not himself, perhaps in the last few outs.
I lost a horse, many years ago, and I wish I had known what he was suffering through, before I lost him.
If only they could talk!!
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Here’s an explanation of what went wrong from his vet at Hagyard. https://www.paulickreport.com/horse-care-category/vet-topics/veterinarian-bens-cat-colic-complex-condition-unrelated-retirement/
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LaurieB, thanks for that post.
My mare had a 2.5cm small intestine resection related to impaction and yeah, the list of potential post surgical complications is long :eek:
She had 2 surgeries (18 hours apart). First included the resection, second was to strip massive gas buildup in the gut. We went through 5 or 6 days of ilius (no gut motility), one day of laying flag on her side (who knows what the issue was there), a week of random digital pulses. Enough to make one throw up.
From the onset, vet/surgeon always couched her survival potential based on getting back on the trailer to go home, not just surviving the surgery due to all the related issues. Yes, she survived a 25% survival rate and went home after 21 days of hospitalization. She lived another 15 or so years before loosing her to the “infirmities of old age” Did have a few scares over that 15 years but nothing major. Vet said after about 3-4 years, risk of adhesion related problems is fairly small.
I do wonder what the “complications” were that ended up being too much for Ben’s Cat to overcome or what combination thereof as it seemed to be the article was more what could go wrong, not what did go wrong with BC.
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Such a grand horse, and so sad to lose him.
Thanks for the link, LaurieB.
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I know he was stabled at Laurel but the 5 Jim McKay’s were at Pimlico. Maybe they were afraid his ashes would get covered up with a parking lot if they buried him there.
Perfect. A wonderful place for such a great horse to be laid to rest. I sure wish he was galloping over hill and dale as a foxhunter tho. :sadsmile:
Sad ending. Wonder if they changed his hay or grain or what?
See the link in post #88.
Sadly, there is a whole lot of truth to this thought…
I still wonder if he wasn’t feeling the effects of this earlier on, and it was the reason he just wasn’t himself.
Once again, I wish that they could talk…
Hell no. You don’t feel the effects of an entrapment for weeks or months. You have an entrapment and you die within hours if it isn’t fixed and blood flow restored.
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Not necessarily. I had a horse who had a tear is his diaphram, and was often a bit “off”. It wasn’t until he died, and was posted that they found what had been causing it. They theorized that the small intestine had been floating back and forth through the defect for some period of time. Finally, it became trapped, and ruptured, killing him.
It is never simple.
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I would guess the type of entrapment you’re thinking of ASB Stars isn’t what Ben’s Cat had. He had an epiploic forwent entrapment where the small intestine gets trapped between other internal organs (not through the diaphragm).
As the link in #88 notes, vets don’t know what causes this type of entrapment but are not thought to be associated with changes in routine, diet or other stress factors.
