Re vet exams, unevenness, Courtney, etc.
I don’t think one can assume anything about Courtney’s case. People have brought up a lot of good points on both sides and suggested alot of possibilities. Most of the public doesn’t seem to think Courtney would give her horse an anti inflammatory medication, much less take a horse to any major competition if it wasn’t right, but not everyone agrees and they site different issues to back up their view. Several have said they wouldn’t want a horse that was treated for irregular heart rhythm to be shown after that, others brought up their experiences that the treatment can be quick and the horse feel perfectly fine after.
What do I think? I think that riders can have a lot of pressure on them, and also that there’s a lot more people around the horse than just the rider. Based on some information, it does appear some horses ‘convert’ and go right back to work with no further problems.
I think we’ll probably never hear all the details, that there will be a lot of talk, and that I won’t ever be 100% sure what exactly happened, and that we’ll each come to our own conclusions.
As far as lameness, uneveness. There are many possibilities. This is another issue where people have very different views.
How do I see it. First, I think there are many times when a horse becomes uneven in the extended trot at the top level of competition. It isn’t necessarily that the horse is in any pain at all, this can happen simply because of ageing. Old, healed injuries often create a slight imbalance in the stride, so can just the ageing process, and if an injury has healed it can somewhat change the dynamics of the stride.
The horse alters his stride, very slightly, so he ISN’T in pain and can work comfortably. If he did get pushed to take perfectly even strides, it might actually be painful, but this sort of thing is a ‘gait adjustment’ or compensation.
There isn’t necessarily ANYTHING for a vet to find at all. Exams would be normal, there isn’t anything active, pathological TO find. And it may only happen at certain times - such as when there is a certain type of footing, the rider urges the horse more, or the horse gets tight and looky.
Of course there are many other possibilities. The horse could be in pain, and actually what most people call ‘lame’, taking weight off a painful foot or tendon, or the like, every time it takes a stride, such as it would with a bruise or just-strained tendon. If a horse is lame, the gait alteration is more consistently present, but it may take a good eye to see it.
But there are many, many horses that are in a very, very gray area, and even with these, a veterinary exam might not find anything definite to point to.
Under certain conditions, they aren’t in pain but if worked harder, more days or months, or different surfaces etc, they actually to the point of being uncomfortable, not just adjusting the stride. Some horses are just uneven, and aren’t at all uncomfortable.
Normally, when an older horse starts getting uneven, even when they are not uncomfortable, and only show this at the extended trot (so would not be eliminated), the tradition has been that this horse should no longer be shown at the top of the sport, even if it would not be eliminate-able. Even if he’s not actually sore, and is just adjusting his gait. While other organizations may be different, both the rules and the traditions of the FEI community follow those lines (no not everyone follows that).
In fact, this is a very strong tradition, so much that Reiner Klimke, at his clinic at St George Eq Ctr in 1993, said that he personally had pushed for an extended trot at the end of the GP test, so that a certain top competitor would be guaranteed to not win. It would lose enough points that the rider would no longer even place, and that was the idea. The horse was retired after the test was changed. Klimke gave the impression that he and his peers were not at all pleased that the horse was being shown , and that they wanted to stop it. He also laughed quite often during the discussion, which I interpreted as, ‘we have our ways of stopping this sort of thing’.
I asked which horse he was referring to. I was told it was Corlandus. Yep, that’s what I was told. Is it true? I wasn’t involved, so I don’t know for sure. But I do believe this kind of thing has happened and can happen.
Why aren’t such ‘grey area’ horses eliminated? Because a horse can’t be eliminated for being ‘unlevel’ or ‘uneven’ in one movement or even possibly, one gait. If it’s bad enough in one gait, it is possible, but in general, it’s not likely iin one movement or even one gait (which was the basis of a discussion here on stringhalt, and a few people told us their horses were never eliminated for lameness in dressage shows, since the odd gait only shows at the walk - part of that can be that it’s generally felt stringhalt isn’t painful, and that exercise is good for those horses).
The bottom line is that the ground jury inspects horses at a trot on a loose rein, and they are not using all their 4 legs (hips, back, shoulder, etc) to the maximum (no, I don’t think all unlevelness comes from the hind legs, but that’s often the case).
However, the tradition is, that when this happens, you stop showing the horse. If the horse is just adjusting his stride due to age changes, is occasionally uncomfortable, or is frankly uncomfortable. That’s just always been the standard people have been held to (no, it has not always been followed).
Do I know what was going on with Brentina? No. The above is a general discussion of issues and history.
