Pepe sounds like an incredible and devoted caretaker of this horse. Absolutely tragic situation.
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In terms of the loan agreement and how it affects riding for the team, my question this whole time was if Kent or Mclainâs (if he had been there- so at other major shows) horses are getting taken to the treatment stall without any communication/planning between team vet, their personal vet, rider, and head groom? Lee Mckeever is most definitely not getting bullied into doing whatever the team vet says if he doesnât think its right for the horse. So I would bet not.
Unfortunately I think a lack of experience at that level played a huge role in how this all played out
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That is also an excellent point.
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Read the article and many of your questions will be answered.
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Pepe questioned it
He called the owner:
âAbout an hour and a half after the last of the awards ceremony, about two hours after the class, I get a call from [Chromaticâs longtime groom Pepe Rodriguez],â âŠ
âHe was worried and upset that they were asking him to bring the horse to the vet station. We had been very clear earlier in the week nothing be done to him without [permission from] me personally or my veterinarian, who was not in Riyadh but available by phone. He was concerned because I hadnât told him the horse was getting a shot.â
Branscomb said she was not consulted before her horse received the injection,âŠ
As soon as Branscomb received Rodriguezâs phone call, she headed to the barn, she said. She arrived just after Chromatic had received the injection and been walked from the veterinary station to the crossties, where Rodriguez started wrapping him. As she fed him carrots there, Chromatic suddenly screamed and collapsed, then began seizing, she âŠ"
Iâm curious what happened next, between Pepeâs call to her and her arrival.
Did she have Pepe put the vet on the phone and tell the vet to wait til she got there?
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Good question.
Also⊠what about the veterinarian at home who was consulting via phone on issues? Did that veterinarian give the go ahead to inject the horse with whatever they did right before its death, but the owner and groom werenât aware of that phone call between the two vets?
Those details are still unclear in public reports and comments on the situation.
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The articles donât say if the vet that did the injections bothered to call the vet at home. Since they didnât bother to talk to the owner before going ahead, I doubt they called the vet.
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Exactly. Or vice versa. Maybe the vet onsite called the vet at home. Who knows what was happening with calls though between vets. The article didnât speak to that issue.
If they were going to give the horse Legend, Adequan and Arnica prior to his final jumping rounds, there are time considerations for the medication to be legal. So maybe vets were in a hurry? Hard to know. The articles didnât go into that detail either.
ETA - another poster said on another thread the FEI rule is no injections within 12 hours of competing.
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I understand that, and to no fault of his own, he still took the horse to the treatment stall because of coercion. My point being if Pepe had been Lee and Mclain was to question it like Chromatics owner was, the horse probably wouldnt have gotten treated until the whole team had agreed on a plan.
Being a new comer to the fei scene is hard, you want to think the fei vets and rules have the best interest for the horses in mind but sometimes that has to be learned the hard way to look out for the horses yourself.
I give my horse legend/adequan in FEI and have given traumeel when needed if they make a huge effort or maybe were doing two weeks of fei in a row and after the GP week 1 to help recover for week 2. Does it make him sounder/mask anything? Absolutely not. But I do believe it helps as I take traumeel myself since I canât have NSAIDS and notice a difference if I take it vs the nights I donât.
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But a phone call is a seconds long thing.
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Thatâs the thing. Pepe can make all the calls he wants and she can do all the asking to wait etc she wants but under the release SHE signed they donât have to do jack. They donât have to cal the owner, the regular vet , the man in the moon or anyone else. And what Pepe does or did isnât relevant to any of it .
The âteam â and their vets had authority via a signed release from the owner of that horse to do whatever they wanted to with that horse whenever they wanted to do it.
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We donât know that.
Maybe the owner said go ahead?
Honestly, Iâm not sure we even know Pepe took him to the vet stall.
He was with him at the xties getting ready to wrap him when owner arrived.
That doesnât mean he took him.
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Based on all of the responses and non responses, Iâd say this is unlikely.
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This is a direct quote from KC Branscomb, the owner
âAbout an hour and a half after the last of the awards ceremony, about two hours after the class, I get a call from [Chromaticâs longtime groom Pepe Rodriguez],â Branscomb, Half Moon Bay, California, said. âHe was worried and upset that they were asking him to bring the horse to the vet station. We had been very clear earlier in the week nothing be done to him without [permission from] me personally or my veterinarian, who was not in Riyadh but available by phone. He was concerned because I hadnât told him the horse was getting a shot.â
Edited to add: they said they took him to the crossties to wrap him AFTER the shot, which is when the owner arrived. And then he dropped while she was feeding him treats.
Also edited to add: in no way whatsoever am
i placing blame on Pepe, I am only comparing it to the other top riderâs grooms, and making an educated guess that if Mclain/Laura/Kentâs groom had a funny feeling about the horse getting a shot per team orders, the horse probably wouldnt get the shot until all involved were on the same page.
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(1) It does not say by whom.
Now, if Iâm Pepe, and they insist theyâre taking Chromatic to the vet area⊠And owner has said no way⊠Iâm not sure what I do.
Id probably stall, hoping the owner gets there.
Or call security?
But if a groom has the ability to stop this, as you suggest other more experienced grooms would, why wouldnât Pepe or the owner saying ânopeâ not get that same consideration?
Re the signed release being a reason Pepe let Chromatic be given the shot⊠I doubt that form is available to show him to convince him to let the horse go or bring the horse to the vet area. So Iâm not sure thatâs helpful.
The only time I experienced anything like this, though a vastly different level of play for sure, was when one of my charges were being pee tested, and owner told me to stay with him and observe.
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What do you mean?
Iâm not following this on Facebook so I am missing bits, for sureâŠ
The owner said she did not know he was getting this. There has been no statement by USEF saying their vet had owner permission to give the injections.
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Like many details about this incident, the ownerâs statements that she was unaware the horse was getting these meds are somewhat open to interpretation.
Iâve read her public posts, and itâs unclear to me whether or not she was just unaware that the horse was getting administered Legend, Adequan Traumeel, Arnica and Selevit in the minutes before he had the fatal reaction⊠or whether she was unaware he was getting any of these medications period.
I would imagine, like many horses competing at this level, the horse does get Legend and Adequan on some sort of regular schedule. And Arnica is widely used as well in a number of different preparations. So I lean towards assuming that what she is saying is that she wasnât aware the horse was getting these medications in the minutes before the fatal reaction.
I can understand her frustration and anger and grief if there had been clear instructions prior to this that no one was to give the horse anything without first consulting the owner and the stateside vet who was regularly in charge of the horse.
However⊠the unanswered questions and lack of clarity in some of the public statements about this whole situation so far are noteworthy, and maybe itâs best not to rush to judgement about the Team vet or USEF just yet.
The only thing I am certain of after reading all this is that I would be VERY VERY cautious before ever having one of my horses get an E-Se injection of any kind.
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I think it is unclear whether he was getting those medications at that time.
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Itâs still terrible.
