19year old tb, given up mentally

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williamgeorge

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I have a 19 year old tb gelding who used to race. I've known the horse 7years now and feel like i know him inside out. He has problems with his teeth (or lack of) and has had to have a few removed, he now has only one tooth on the left side of his mouth so can only chew on the right side. This has forced me to retire him as it was too difficult to keep the weight on him in full work, however he is perfectly health and eats his hay with slight quidding and I feed him masshed up hardfeed.

Physically he is fine, however mentally he has gone way down hill these past few weeks. He used to love to go in the field, so much so that I had big problems catching him, even in bad weather. Now I have to drag him through the gate and he will just stand in the same spot near the gate literally the entire time he is out, only moving ocassionally to get a drink. To ride he used to be quite buzzy and a little unpredictable (all in a good way, the odd spook on a hack etc) but now he can barely have the motivation to walk out, dragging his head on the floor. He is miserable in the stable, and he just always seems to have this sad look about him, I feel like he is a different horse now. My other horse is stabled next to him and they go out together so company isn't an issue.

Any suggestions?? I just don't know what to do with him, he's fine physically but I feel he's mentally given up on life.
 
are you sure he's fine physically? this sudden change would suggest to me, his age aside, that he is in pain somewhere. If you have a stash of bute I would consider giving him one to see if it gives an improvement?
 
maybe its just the long awful winter we are having...
my friend did have this problem with her retired tb, although he was about 27, and she decided the kindest thing was to pts when he didn't get any better come spring time....but he was alot older.

Have you maybe considered any other underlying problems? - although I can't think of any off the top of my head that would match his behaviour sorry :(
 
maybe, I am so worried about him! You know when you just know your horse really isn't himself...
Was thinking about changing his feed maybe, but my vet is down on wednesday so may ask him if he can suggest anything.
 
I would get the vet out to give him the once over, could be a virus. A horse on our yard was similar to yours, lethargic and disinterested in general. The vet took bloods and he had a virus which took some time to leave him. With regard to the feeding, an old pony on our yard hardly has any teeth. Her owner feeds her grass nuts which are mixed with water to make a sloppy feed and she looks well. She has various chaffs like the Mollichaff range, different flavours. She also has Just Grass or Badmiinton Grass, one or the other and theres a feed called Soft and Soak Mash. They do one for veterans which is full of vitamens etc. Shes a 34yr old and looks really well, maybe you could try something similar.
 
Yeh I think I will get him checked out to make sure. He is physically ok, i.e. good condition, well rugged, eating well, has plenty of stimulation. Its just he seems to have given up.

I feed him lots of mollichaff too, tried readygrass but he refuses to eat that (pretty fussy), and he eats alot of soft meadow hay with only miminal quidding. At the moment because he's not doing alot of work, just the odd hack, he only has sugarbeet and chaff and sarc-ex, a powder for his sarcoids (which are dormant, I just keep on the powder to stop them coming back). So was thinking of adding something to give him more energy to his feed.
 
No, all of this winter and most of the summer too, he gets ridden now and again but just quiet hacks.

The point when I retired him was when I did xc on him, and although he pulled like a train and jumped round about twice the hight of everything, he got very wound up about it, so much so that it was all too much for him and he bled out of his nostrils. Usually when I compete him its normal for him to go skatty, and I ride out racehorses so am used to that. But that time when he bled told me it was getting too much for him, so decided to go quiet with him, plus I knew I would struggle through the winter to keep the weight on with him having lost more teeth.
 
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