Hi all,
Thank you for the kind replies—I needed them.
I talked to my trainer and the vet—both were entirely supportive. The vet said I did everything I could to help him, and there is still something going on. The sleep deprivation alone must feel like torture to him. For the folks who wondered if field turnout would work, this is a horse who was not properly exposed to new settings, out and about, etc in his formative years. Even grazing too far from the barn scares him. He is extremely sensitive to change and I run the very high risk of traumatizing him by switching environments (current barn does not have field turnout, and he panicked when we tried him in a big grass paddock, even next to buddies) and that causing ulcers and a very hard to manage horse. The sleep deprivation makes him aggressive and edgy at times. It’s an option I debated in my head, but even the vet thinks it’s a bad idea.
