Here is a pretty good review of Aortic Rupture in horses for the person who was asking earlier. Horses do not die of “coronary events” the way people do - ie it is not a blocked coronary artery that kills them. More often the cause of sudden cardiovascular deaths in horses is a ruptured aorta or another major artery (uterine artery, carotid artery etc.)
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Another thing that I’m thinking about is why these major cardiac events only happen at competitions. Why not during gallop sets at home? I realize that there aren’t jumps involved and it’s not quite as intense as cross country, but still strenuous.
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According to the article you cited, the problem seems to be with blood not clotting properly.
Per the article @clivers cited in #1606:
You’ve probably heard horror stories like these: A breeding stallion completes servicing a mare, slides off, goes down to the ground, gasps a few times, and dies. A 20-year-old pony being ridden by his young owner staggers sideways, falls to his knees, and dies moments later. The trail horse starts lowering his head, stumbles a bit, and drops dead. The Belgian draft horse is found dead in the pasture. The racehorse fatally collapses during a gallop two days after a race.
I am deeply concerned about the horses we lose on course. My absolute nightmare is leaving the box and coming back without my friend and partner. But to everyone asking “why does it happen so often during xc?”, I would hope people consider the coverage. Unless it is a horse that is notable to the community for some reason (upper level horse, retired team horse, special to a UL rider, etc), there is little to no coverage of the horses that die from cardiac events at home.
Some of these “trends” that we see may not be limited to cross-country or eventing, and if as @Jealoushe or other have suggested there is an alternative driver outside of the sport itself (supplements, etc), I would hope that one day we could have access to and focus on the broader data set.
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Horses definitely sometimes drop dead, but the incidence on course upper level XC seems very high. My family has been boarding horses for 25 years and we usually have 15-20 among us At any given time, many of which are retirees. We’ve had exactly one drop dead from a suspected cardiac event. She was in her late 30s. It isn’t that common.
it is possible that things like omeprazole or Adequan weaken the heart and then under extreme competition stress it gives way. Sort of like the tiny stress fractures of daily wear and tear in a leg can eventually cause a catastrophic fracture like Crackerjack’s. Things like the “bad step” theory are being proven by science not to be real, but at the same time preventing these events does not have an obvious solution either. I mean, we want to treat ulcers and horses have to be fit which requires stress on their legs…it is hard to comprehensively prevent. Still, we can learn the best protocols with additional research for things like ulcer treatment and fitness
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This. They do have accidents at home, but they arent reportable to anyone. Infact looking at the lists im betting that the horse deaths reported are only at official events, as I know of horses fatal injuries that arent on that list at local events. The % would be significantly higher.
I went to an Andrew Maclean talk a couple of years ago, and he asked these same questions, he actually had some comments about eye sight in horses and how there is no reliable veterinary way to test a horses eye sight, and how could be be sure we werent breeding blind horses, and also said he wondered about the large amounts of magnesium that are now fed to horses. These werent researched comments, and he was just saying some off cuff things to get people thinking.
Im also shocked by how many people die on fun runs
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I’ve been wondering about this for the last couple of years. I’ve seen a couple of articles online about the effects of PPI’s on accelerated vascular aging, nothing really concrete though. The same effects I don’t think were observed with the histamine Type 2 (H2) receptor blockers (ie Cimetidine). I would love to see more studies on this.
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With regard to race horses, Baffert had at least several collapse and die a few years ago. No exact cause found, but he had been routinely treating with a thyroid medicine. Don’t know if he quit giving this, but I don’t think he has had a similar run of horses collapsing and dying for no reason since then.
Ahhh, that’s the story I was looking for, I knew it was a west coast trainer, but didn’t remember which one.
@kiwichick I was on the magnesium bandwagon for myself and my horse until my own doctor told me to stop. He said too much of any one thing throws other stuff out of whack and you never know what will be a problem until you have a problem. I got his point.
Taking supplements can cause as many issues as they cure. (if they indeed cure anything!)
Can you provide the horse names and locations? They really should be added to the list.
The internet and EN have been around long enough that I doubt that many horses that collapse and die mid-course are not reported. From what I remember (fuzzily at best) there were on average one, no more than two, per year at the most. It seems that at the bigger events there have been more of these recently, so many this year that I really doubt that it is attributable to a cosmic throw of the dice. Worth looking into, at least.
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I’ve been wondering about this for years. No one ever talks about this.
https://equusmagazine.com/management/easy-equine-vision-tests-8437
No sorry, I havent been keeping track. You would need to contact every pony club and adult ride club in the world, but you can see where some have been buried at certain clubs.
There is also the horses that recieve a ‘not immediate’ fatal injury. One I saw came off the xc in a bad way and went straight into a trailer and never made an appearance again. I checked results for years. I dont know what happened to that horse, but there is every chance some are euthed after the fact off grounds, also not reportable.
Loads of things happen on private farms that we know nothing about, especially injuries. But I have never heard of a horse dropping dead while conditioning at home or cross country schooling. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, but I don’t think that people are generally concerned about their horse dying suddenly at home at the same alarming rate that we are seeing in upper level competition so far this year.
BUT it is common practice now to load horses up on U Guard/Gastrogard before traveling to events, so if omeprazole does compromise their hearts, it would make sense that horses don’t keel over and die like this at home.
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Sounds like urban legends. We don’t need to “contact every pony club and adult ride club in the world”, we just need the names of the horses you personally know about.
Identifying as many as possible is the plan.
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thats quite the leap…I know if a few horses that did this and one retired to be a brood mare and another the rider quit eventing. Kind of a massive assumption to say it went home and was euthd.
I find it hard to believe you cant remember a single horse or event where this happened. I was present at one event where the horse broke its leg and I will never ever forget that event. Another event when I was 13 someone had a heart attack mid course and died (rider), also will never forget that event. Seems like something that would stick with you.
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Relying on my memory here, but wondering if age of the horse might have something to do with this. If the horse had been campaigned by rider #1, been passed down as a schoolmaster to rider #2 who then subsequently rode horse at its previous level, might there be some cumulative organ stress that finally gave way? Kind of like the theory that fractures of legs are the result of an accumulation of minor insults that finally give way. Perhaps horses that have been in the very top tier of competition really don’t have an infinite “shelf life” as teachers. Tigger Too comes to mind as an example.
And was it Arthur who was abruptly retired when they found a previously unknown heart murmur?
My first horse was euthanized for dilated cardiomyopathy secondary to mitral valve regurgitation. Basically a leaky heart valve contributed to his heart stretching up like a baloon ready to pop. At the time it was considered very rare and he was diagnosed at OVC after a vet at the finish line of an event in Ontario (at the Preliminary level where he finished clear and inside the time) noticed he was in atrial fibrillation. The heart muscle was stretched so much that it couldn’t conduct the electrical signal properly and hence the arrthymia. Dr. Sheard - the equine cardiologist who ended up caring for him at the University of Guelph said that there was a very real possiblity that his heard could rupture if I had taken him to Radnor CCI that fall as planned.
I do know of horses who have died schooling - mostly due to catastrophic injuries. There are probably fewer dying of cardiovascular causes during training and conditioning at home due to the competition representing the maximum cardiovascular demands made on their systems; when we condition at home we may be doing multiple 4 or 5 minute gallop sets and include hills etc. but it is still not as physically demanding as 10-11 minutes of galloping on a 4* course jumping obstacles along the way. Same with xc schooling - usually its stop and start, not balls to the wall for 7-11 minutes!
ETA my horse who died had never received adequan, but had been on cimetidine for melanomas (he was a grey). He died in 2001 or 2002.
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Very sorry for you loss, and thank you for sharing your findings. Very interesting.
thanks!
