I’d like to do a little series talking about classic equine myths that I grew up with (and you probably did too if you’re around my age). These are things that are absolute fallacies that horsepeople believed for years, and bad horsepeople still do believe. The only difference between us and them is the willingness to be educated (and of course, the brains to pay attention over our years with horses and learn from what we observe).
Here’s a big one this time of year:
He’s just skinny because he’s old. He doesn’t put weight on no matter what I feed him. You know those Thoroughbreds!
I’ve been through this myself – the horse who did not put weight on no matter what we fed her. She is a late 20′s Thoroughbred. Actually, what she did – and what is very common – is fatten up all summer and then drop 100 lbs. over the winter. I did all of the obvious things – she got a good waterproof blanket, she got her teeth done, we brought her in at night, we grained her. It didn’t make much of a difference. She never looked awful, but she didn’t look great.
This is the point at which I have seen people throw up their hands and say, oh well, she’s skinny because she’s old. And to that I say…nonsense. They’re always skinny for a reason and it’s not merely because they are old.
Here’s what I did with my mare:
1. Ran a blood panel which revealed some thyroid issues. Put her on appropriate meds.
2. Moved her to a warmer climate where she wouldn’t have to deal with temperature extremes. (Ontario, Canada to Tennessee)
3. Moved her to a farm where state of the art nutritional care was provided and even the soil was analyzed to determine what kind of nutrition the horses get from the grass. They experimented with different feeds to find the magic combination to puff this mare back up to weight.
Well, voila, another year has passed and while the mare is 28, coming 29, she has returned to perfect weight. She still looks 28 but her weight is just where I want it.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, an alert reader sent me this photograph of a school horse. The girl was upset because she went to a show and the judge knocked her for the horse’s condition. Well HOORAY for the judge. Wish I knew who she/he is, I’d like to award them the First Annual FHOTD Gold Medal For Responsible Professional Horsemanship. The girl feels like she got screwed, because the horse’s condition isn’t her fault and the horse is getting plenty of feed. To quote her: “he’s over 23 years old, gets 3 or 4 scoops of grain PER DAY! (which is a lot, our grain is like 25% fat) 3 flakes of hay per feeding, beet pulp, and supplements to keep his weight.” She also describes how she had to ride in spurs because he was dead sided (“like, complete breakdown right before the fence, basically landed in halt mode, so i’m crazy digging my spurs in him trying to get the six in”), how he refused, and how he was starting to get sore at the end of the day. And how her trainer was going to go yell at the judge for not placing him because he’s skinny “because that’s how cool my trainer is.”
Gee, I wish your trainer would go yell at the judge and can you video that and put that on Youtube for us, because I see a seriously amusing smackdown coming down the pike! (I am guessing Trainer figured out this would only make her look like the world’s biggest asshat and settled for pouting the rest of the day with her student.)
I understand you’re a kid. But your trainer has you showing a horse who is seriously underweight and it sounds like plenty sore to boot. The horse is not being a bad horse by refusing and “landing in halt mode.” He probably hurts like hell. He’s another good old boy that some greedy trainer is going to bute to the gills and wring the last possible $50 or $60 or $70 lesson out of. He doesn’t deserve that. He should be standing in the 20 acre field next to my mares enjoying his last years, but he’s not that lucky. So at the very least, kid, you might want to have Mom and Dad lay a little pressure on the trainer to get a damn blood panel run and see what is going on here. This is not normal. Not for a 23 year old. Not for a Thoroughbred. The fact that he eats a lot and doesn’t gain does not give your trainer the Oscar for Good Senior Horse Care…there is nothing noble about throwing tons of food into a horse that is not gaining because something is wrong with him.
FYI, chronic pain can be a major factor in inability to gain/regain weight.
He needs a vet exam. He may need a good dental, if that hasn’t been done. He needs a blood panel. Find out what is going on here and fix it, and until you do, stop using the poor thing for lessons and shows. Honestly, taking out a horse like this makes your barn look bad and it makes horseshows in general look bad. It just provides fodder for the extremist animal rights folks who don’t think horses should be ridden when they see your lame, skinny horse struggling around a course. Trainer, stop treating this poor old guy as some kind of carnival ride that earns money for you. He needs rest and care and I really do hope this post embarrasses you into giving it to him…although if I know your kind as well as I believe I do, we will probably just find him at the next auction.
I’d love to be wrong.
Add a comment | Comments RSS feed | Trackback
3. Moved her to a farm where state of the art nutritional care was provided and even the soil was analyzed to determine what kind of nutrition the horses get from the grass. They experimented with different feeds to find the magic combination to puff this mare back up to weight.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, an alert reader sent me this photograph of a school horse. The girl was upset because she went to a show and the judge knocked her for the horse’s condition. Well HOORAY for the judge. Wish I knew who she/he is, I’d like to award them the First Annual FHOTD Gold Medal For Responsible Professional Horsemanship. The girl feels like she got screwed, because the horse’s condition isn’t her fault and the horse is getting plenty of feed. To quote her: “he’s over 23 years old, gets 3 or 4 scoops of grain PER DAY! (which is a lot, our grain is like 25% fat) 3 flakes of hay per feeding, beet pulp, and supplements to keep his weight.” She also describes how she had to ride in spurs because he was dead sided (“like, complete breakdown right before the fence, basically landed in halt mode, so i’m crazy digging my spurs in him trying to get the six in”), how he refused, and how he was starting to get sore at the end of the day. And how her trainer was going to go yell at the judge for not placing him because he’s skinny “because that’s how cool my trainer is.” 
i just want to say to any fuckers who don’t buy their horses proper hay, i just put 125 bales in my barn…
WITH AN INJURED BACK!!!!!
get off your lazy asses and feed your horses!
Ugh, this summer we were at a show and some people pulled up with the most awful looking horses I’d ever seen. They were all underweight, one was clearly lame, and this poor old appaloosa was so over in the knee that he actually looked like he was starting to go down. The horses were shaggy and had been body clipped badly, you could see the tracks of the clipper, and in some places it was so close the horses had cuts. No one could believe the judged placed them, especially in the under saddle classes. They all had bad feet, long, cracked, unshod, and limped on the gravel.
The saddest thing was all the little girls riding loved the horses had no idea that anything at all was wrong.
People should be informed, true, but i’ll blame the trainers first in many of these situations. Those who don’t know any better defer to their trainer’s supposed knowledge. I’ll bet that the girl in question would be horrified if someone told her and showed her proof of what was wrong.
Also, is that lump I’m seeing on his back really there, or a trick of the light bouncing off the stall?
In addition: I give pro biotics after a course of antibiotics to restore the flora.
Also, I saw a great show on RFD-TV done by a vet that showed how horses tend to be hypoglycemic so simple sugars are not good for them.
I never gave my horses sweet feed but knew lots that did and they always complained about their tempermental horses. I suffer from hypoglycemia so I can certainly relate!
For my TB who is hard to keep weight on, we give Vita-bran and it works great with no side effects on his disposition, which is really quiet anyway.
Why do people think that once a horse is over 20, it’s old? It may want to slow down a bit and need some extra attention. My 24 year old horse doesn’t really want to keep packing my 230 lb hubby around the mountains. She is happy to, but we did get him a bit younger horse as we figured she deserved to pack the kiddos. Still strong and healthy!
Sometimes blood work and normal vet checks just don’t cut it…my vet was ready to diagnose my daughters horse with an ulcer because of stress that he indured from an injury 2 months earlier. He decided that he wanted to check one more thing…he did a rectal exam and something wasn’t right…We opted to put this loving, sweet, gentle TB down, the vet biopsied and found that his gut was seperated from his stomach. That explained why for the 7 months that we had no matter what we did we could never get him to gain weight!
I know I’m late to the game (I was away in Vegas) I just had to add my BS-call on older horses instantly being hard keepers. I have never met an older horse, that when properly cared for, could not be kept at a good weight. Never.
Here is our current “raisin paddock”. The chestnut (Anglo-trakehner) is nearing 30 and the bay (QH) is going on 23 and still in training (partly because he keeps TOO much weight on).
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s178/BeauAndClem/MaryPicsNew067.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s178/BeauAndClem/MaryPicsNew074.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s178/BeauAndClem/MaryPicsNew070.jpg
I love looking out and seeing our senior citizens having a grand old time (and apart from some stifness) playing like kids.
So shame on those who let their old guys go to waste. After everything they give to you theeir whole lives, you can’t give them a few good final years?
Well HOORAY for the judge. Wish I knew who she/he is, I’d like to award them the First Annual FHOTD Gold Medal For Responsible Professional Horsemanship.
—————-
Goodness yes!
I have seen judges place in hack classes horses that have been so lame they haven’t cantered and couldn’t even walk forward to receieve their ribbon.
A horse as poor looking as the one shown that placed.
Another horse that was noticibly lame, also placed.
What is wrong with judges/the system that they can’t say “I’m sorry, but your horse isn’t fit for competition for reason _x_, please leave the ring?”
At the very least, DON’T PLACE THE HORSE and let the rider know WHY.
I too would love to know who this judge is so that I could send them fan mail!!!
My 16yo unsound TB was on FREE paddocking (our own property), until he suddenly lost weight. He’s currently in our stables (hidden under a rug until he’s back in condition! *^^* ) being fed, loved and fussed over, and then he’s being sent to paid agistment. Since he’s been in he’s also had a vet check (to determine the sudden weight loss) as well as teeth floated, wormed etc etc.
The number of horses that deserve a retirement home and decent care, but never get it…really horrifying…
I have a 19 year old broodmare that is in great shape and my vet swears she looks like an 8 year old! Her only special requirement shoes with pads and extra hay.
Lordy! Can’t believe that poor thing was being shown/jumped. Good on the judge for tossing her! I really do NOT get these people. I recently retired my 21 year old 2nd gen App/TB. He was always a borderline hard keeper, and when in work got corn oil, Cool Calories 100 (a fat supplement), extra feed, Equavena hull-less oats (90%) digestable, etc. When I took him to the retirement place, he became depressed. They were POURING the feed into him but he shed 75-100 lbs. Man, talk about guilt!! The BM was on the phone to me regularly as we tried to figure out what to do. Even suspected ulcers (Figures – studies show that pastured horses are the only horses that DON’T have ulcers, but mine gets ‘em when turned out.) And this was turnout in nice, irrigated, tree-shaded pasture. He took to just standing in a corner by the water trough. They brought him in each night to a stall and paddock, fed him up, etc. Now, after three months, he’s finally picking weight back up and looking bright and enjoying his retirement. At about the mid-way point in this little episode, someone suggested that he might miss being ridden, and I agreed that might be the case, but that with the amount of weight he’d lost, I just couldn’t see riding him until he’d picked back up. (He’s arthritic in the stifles, but fine for walking trail rides). But these people take a horse in comparable condition and are JUMPING and SHOWING it?!? Aaaargh!!!! Inb the ’50s and ’60s (before I had my own horse) I rode at lesson barns, and if a horse noticeably lost weight, they dropped it out of the lesson string, fed it up, and if that didn’t work, sent for the vet. And these weren’t fancy H/J or dressage barns – the horses were a mix of grade QH, grade Arabs, a few OTTBs, and former U. S. Cavalry horse that was 23 and still quite a pistol!, and just plain mutts. But their health and soundness were ALWAYS a priority. One horse got a fractured knee while in pasture, and they nursed him through that for nearly a year and back to soundness, and that in an era when horses were cheaper and when no one would have blamed them for euthanizing him. I think there is a change in society, and below the big dollar horses, the attitude, for many, of “disposable” horses… after all, if you’re selling them for $350 down to $1, how much do you value them? Sigh.
Gawd. I had a 32 year old grade horse that we lost to natural causes and he looked fit and in fantastic weight till his last breath.
This horse needs veterinary intervention along with a new owner AND a new trainer. I cannot believe anyone would look at this poor creature and think “Heck, I feed him just fine – he just won’t gain any weight cuz he’s old.”
Knuckleheads.
*shaking head*
My riding instructor has an older pony. I believe he’s about twenty-two now, so not as old as your examples, but he’s getting there. As far as I know he’s a purebred Connemara but I have no idea if he’s registered or anything. He’s just the old anyone-can-ride-him pony, who also happens to jump three and a half feet when you ask him to. He gets some supplements, a handful of grain, and access to hay each day. And he’s still in excellent condition. (I jumped him two feet the other week.) In case you haven’t noticed, I love this pony. He’s the one the five-year-olds ride in their first lesson and also the one that I pick to go jumping, after about two years of lessons.