I received the biopsy results today that my horse has SCC on his lower eyelid and based on the amount of healthy tissue remaining eye removal is likely. We should have a consult at the NC State Vet School soon to find out for sure but the GP did not have much hope of keeping the eye.
He is 13 and I am certain he will do fine with one eye but right now it is hard to imagine. For those of you that have had a one eyed horse or have known them I need your happy stories please.
Thanks!!
Horses do just fine with one eye. I ride a one-eyed horse (poked it out in a pasture accident some years ago). He jumps and competes and you’d never know the difference from his behavior or performance. It is hard to believe but true! I’m sure your horse will adjust quickly and be fine. Good luck to you!
No advice, but sending positive thoughts your way!!
My first horse was blind in one eye when purchased. He was a perfect child’s horse all his life and is buried in my parents’ camellias.
There is a poster who used a vaccine successfully, but I don’t remember
if it was squamous cancer. Someone with a better memory please post.
Ask If 5FU cream or imiquimod cream would work. We used 5FU successfully on a presumed squamous cell on the eye of our older horse. I met someone whose horse had a squamous cell tumor on his eyelid. Imiquimod cream cured it and his vision was normal. The imiquimod was very irritating, and caused major swelling of the eyelid for weeks, but cured the cancer.
I rode a horse for years who had an eye removed due to tumor. He was the same wonderful horse he had always been and did not get worried or ever seem unhappy.
I wasn’t seen for the same thing, but the NC State ophthalmology team is fantastic. They’ll do everything they can for your horse and give you all options available. My horse spent 3 weeks living with them in fall 2017.
Good luck — wish I had more info about your specific case to share.
Thank you all! We are hoping to keep the eye but since the entire lid has been overtaken by SCC we may not have enough healthy tissue to form a new lid. We will see when we go for our appointment on the 24th. I know our school is top notch and will do all they can to save his eye but they did tell my vet losing it is possible. I am sure he will do just fine as he is such a sweet horse.
I’ve known several horses who were minus an eye - some due to injuries, some to disease. All did absolutely fine. One did like to carry his head to one side so he could see more of what was in front of him. As long as you didn’t nag him about being straight and on the bit, he would just motor along. Some of the others competed in schooling show dressage quite successfully. The key thing I learned from handling them was to always talk to them when approaching them from any direction. I would forget who was blind on which side, so talking to each one whenever I approached was just easier.
star
I care for two one eyed wonder ponies, each had an eye removed at NCSU. Cody had a pasture accident in 2018, when he was 26; he returned to work as a therapeutic riding horse without missing a beat and is still one of our best therapy horses, who needs no special handling even being led by multiple volunteers each week. He even did a longlining demo a few weeks ago at a hippotherapy workshop for us. Kosmo had a fungal infection in a corneal ulcer that we fought medically at NCSU for three weeks before removing the eye. His surgery was in 2012 when he was 17. He returned to work immediately and was back to jumping a few weeks later; if you couldn’t see that his eye was missing, you would have no idea under saddle that he can’t see, as he goes just the same. He is retired now just because he opted out of working, but he is the alpha horse in turnout and is not bothered in the least by the loss of vision. He lives with my parents and my mom regularly lets him wander in from the pasture to his stall on his own.
I 100% attribute both of them doing so well to a fabulous vet and friend who told me before Kosmo lost his eye that as a horse, he had no frame of reference that this was abnormal, and that as far as he knew, all horses lost an eye at 17. So the only way he was going to get the idea that something was wrong was picking it up from us. We were really careful with both horses to only have people handle them for the first couple of weeks that were calm and confident and weren’t going to fret incessantly over the vision loss, and I think both of them responded really well to that.
Cody is in Mebane and Kosmo is in Pittsboro, you’re more than welcome to come meet either of them if you want to see how well they do. I promise it is not the end of the world, horses are SO much more adaptable than we are! I do think also that one of the reasons they adapt well is they have monocular vision vs binocular like us, so their brain has never had to understand images from both eyes; they function independently. So it’s not as much of a loss as it would be for us I think.
@Pookah Thank you so much for sharing your story! I know if we lose the eye it will be ok in the end and I will be mindful of how I and others handle him post surgery. There is a chance (albeit, slight) that he keeps the eye. I do often forget they are monocular and not binocular. I do remember when he first injured the eye a year ago we had him in a full blinder cup so he could only see the white cup, he was totally fine. We only had one incident and it was comical to boot. I was hand grazing him and on the left side (affected side), he knew I was there but maybe not sure how close I was. He suddenly swing his head up and around knocking me in the stomach, we both grunted then I laughed, he just nuzzled me. After that I made sure to keep a hand near his face or neck and didn’t stand as close. We often forget they have no concept of normalcy like humans, so while yes he may lose an eye he doesn’t know that this is abnormal.
Again thank you for giving me such great perspective on the situation. I also now have a rough idea of how long I can expect him to stay at the school should they operate.
I don’t have a one-eyed horse but I just met one at a local fair. She lost her eye four months ago. The vet did a fantastic job and the horse showed at the fair in a walk-trot-canter class and did great. She seems not bothered at all by the loss of the eye. I hope your horse does as well!
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
