Allergic to arena surface??

[EmilyB94]

I work for a thoroughbred stud farm and we have had half our horses in work become very snotty, with quite a severe cough. At first we tried a course of antibiotics (no improvement), we have done swabs and nothing has come back with bacteria infection and so we are trying to pin point the allergen in our environment. We bed down on straw and feed hay (to all the horses). This year we added a large amount of carpet fibre to our lunge arena. Myself and the other staff on the farm all suffered immediately with the feeling of a tremendous and sudden head cold, streaming eyes and running nose after working the horses on the surface (so much so my partner and I now only lunge wearing a face mask) this lasts for the rest of the afternoon and evening. If the next day with don't use the arena we feel fine. I believe this is the common factor between the horses that have cold like symptoms. Before I confirm my thoughts and go to the boss I wondered if anyone else, had any similar experiences?

 

[ycbm]

Big study here on arena surface allergy in horses.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-51820-7
.

 

[[59668]]

Not quite the same, but I had a reaction in an indoor arena hire to a wax/sand/carpet fibre mix. REALLY itchy, red arms and face. After the session I rinsed my arms and face with water and was feeling much better very quickly. So I think it's a plausible theory.

 

[bluehorse]

Having schooled on a carpet fibre surface at my yard I found it really did catch my throat and nose. If the sun was at the right angle you could see all the fibres getting kicked up into the air. I can’t say I was allergic to it but it did affect me. I didn’t like schooling my horse on it as he already had low grade airway inflammaction, and when you consider how much closer their nostrils are to the surface than we are I can’t believe breathing that in for the duration of a schooling session wouldn’t affect them. I’d say the same for any dusty surface really but I think the carpet fibre is particularly irritating.

 

[Keith_Beef]

When I was living in the US, the town had some sort of ground up carpet rubber laid down as substrate and then astro-turf over the top for all-weather sport fields for schools.

A few weeks later the state announced that these fields could not be used. I think the reason given was the risk of volatile organic compounds being released...

The fields were left unused for at least six months. I don't remember, now, if it was decided that six months was long enough to allow those gases to dissipate or if the fields were resurfaced.

I'm sure that google will find you the answer.