Broken Wind

countrybumpkin727

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Hello All,

So I am currently looking to get a horse with a fairly tight budget. I found a really lovely ex racer who has done a couple of events and seems really ideal for what I want... but his owner said he has broken wind.. her vet said that he is fine to go up to 1*... but anything beyond that he would struggle. I am aiming just to get up to novice so if what is said is true then he should be fine. What I would like to know is if you can actually measure broken wind and can you actually say what level he could go to? Has anyone had any experience of a horse with broken wind? Is this something that is degenerate and in 3 years time he wouldn't be able to do anything?

Any advice would be great!
 
I would personally look for another, unless you can afford to have him operated on, which is often very successful.

If you really like him get him vetted, paying special attention to the wind and ask your Vets advice.
 
I have not heard that expression for years, your horse might be fine as a light hack, but really I don't think you should consider it for anything competitive. I would not be surprised if they were sellling due to this problem. [Otherwise known as COPD and ROA]
Operations are not possible every wind problem, and they are not always permanent, and some conditions can deteriorate. In my limited experience a broken winded horse has damaged the alveoli of the bronchi, it may be due to allergens, so you need to soak hay and maybe feeds herbs, special bedding etc etc, but if it were curable by management they would have done it already.
If you think this might suit you, you could ask them if they would lease it to you for a year, or some such arrangement. You would still need a five stage vetting by a top equine vet [not theirs!], but I doubt if any vet would say, OK for one level of competion and not another, but I may be wrong. The insurance would almost certainly exclude this from LOU.
There are lots of sound ex racehorses, though you may have to spend a while re habititating them and they may not suit the job. Horses are expensive and trying to compete on a tight budget is very difficult.
 
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I would confirm the broken wind diagnosis. It is a term used mostly these days for COPD, as bonkers2 says, but it has also been used by some for roaring (laryngeal paralysis) which can be operated on (as LJR says). Some mild roarers certainly do seem to do low level eventing without problems (I had a friend who did up to NOvice, though she never pushed for the crosscountry times) and scoping can sometimes give an indicaiton of the degree of the problem (though can need treadmill scoping to assess properly i believe).
If copd (allergy), then you risk having a flare up at the wrong time (e.g. when you have entered a competition) and if needs drugs then can't compete either. However, some horses with mild copd seem to be able to be controlled by excellent management or living out 24/7 (unless pasture-associated version i.e pollens etc. in which case not out).
So, you could talk to the vet if the owner doesn't mind (they will need to give the vet permission to discuss with you) and see just what is going on. However, speaking from experience of all the other things that can go wrong to stop an eventer getting to an event, i don't think i would want to start with a horse that had a known problem.
 
RAO is a nightmare. I've been there and would never get another with it knowingly. It's heartbreaking and frustrating.

I'm surprised the vet said he would be able to go up to 1*. Mine struggled to trot some days, and the vet said his airways weren't even in bad nick.
 
Not that he's a roarer? (Laryngeal haemaplegia, I think is the technical term?)

I had a horse with this and it just got better as he got fitter. He had been scoped and it was a low grade problem and never bothered us!
 
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