Heart murmur?

sheep

sheep

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Anyone have any experience with this?

My friend has an 11yo mare (ISH), she had the vet out today for colic and the vet said she had a heart murmur- the same one who vetted her last September and passed her- he said it could just develop over time.

What does it mean in terms of what the mare can and cannot do? Does it limit her physical capability as a general riding club / hacking horse?
 
Sometimes it's post-viral. Somestimes it's congenital but doesn't become obvious until the horse gets older. Sometimes it's veterinary error.

If the horse seems happy and healthy, not becoming unduly tired or stressed by its normal workload I would probably just carry on as normal but with a weather-eye out for any changes.

Groetjes!
 
My horse was diagnosed with a heart murmer and went on happily for another 10 years until he was pts with almost total heart failiure at the ripe old age of 28. We continued to hack him out and enjoyed our gallops although he was never pushed and only did what he wanted to do..... however try telling him that he could no longer go into a field and race the other horses across it. Take the advice of your vet obviously all horses are different, ours was only diagnosed after a routine check up whilst having vacs done. It certainly didnt stop Dover living life to the full!
 
I've got one with a heart murmur, although it wasn't picked up until he was around 20. It's often exacerbated by stressful situations, so it may be worth the vet rechecking your friend's mare when she's not unwell to see how significant it is then.

Heart murmurs usually have different degrees of severity, so it's worth getting some more details out of the vet. B's didn't really cause him any problems for 8-9 years and the vet's verdict was to just to monitor it annually with his jabs and teeth check up and see how he coped. He was out on loan when it was discovered and stayed that way for five years, hacking out most days, doing fast work several times a week, working for a good few hours each time.

When he came back to me (for completely unrelated reasons), I'd moved and I had him rechecked by my new vet, who agreed with the first. They both were of the opinion that he'd self-regulate. This is bearing in mind that he is half-Arab, ex-stallion, ex-BSJA and, to this day, a complete loony toon! They were right. If he seemed tired/breathless, we cut short whatever we were doing at the time and let him amble home.

It was only about 2 years ago, when he turned 28 that I retired him, and by then he had some nasty crackly noises going on in his lungs too. He's now a happy pasture ornament, head of the herd, and still an utter nutcase, first to lead the mad charge around 40+ acres! Get some more info out of the vet and watch out for stumbling, which can be a symptom. Depending on the severity, heart murmurs aren't necessarily a huge problem.
 
A large proportion of horses have heart murmurs. There is a lot of recent research showing as many as 70+% of young TBs in work have murmurs. The only way of telling whether its something to worry about or not is to get a full work up in a decent equine practice.
As it was found during a bout of colic though, Id be a bit less concerned as stress can cause temporary murmurs and temporarily worsen permanent murmurs. I would say get the vet to re-check the heart when he comes to do vaccines or next time hes out.
 
"Heart murmur" means nothing really. Your friend needs to know what is causing it and then there are a couple of indicators of its severity (or lack thereof) like how loud it is (out of 6 usually), whether it gets worse after exercise, whether it gets worse over time etc. A heart murmur can vary from nothing significant at all, horses can pass vettings for competitive careers with them, to life treatening.
 
Is a heart murmour the same as missing a beat now and then.. My vet said that was happening to my boy but would probably disappear with work and quite common?

Jane
 
My gelding who I have had for 7 years has a grade 4 heart murmur. He has coped over the years with everything we have asked of him from PC activities to sponsored rides etc. His murmur gets marginaly better with work and we were told to make sure that he had steady consistent excercise rather than weekend only type of stuff. Which I do. He can blow very heavily after he has excerted himself and seem very tired but his recovery rate is very quick.

He is 14 now and a happy hack / pleasure horse mainly due to lack of time ( allthough I have just found a very nice girl to come and ride him) he seems to have boundless energy but I never really push him as I dont need to. Vets are always surprised when they listen to his heart but he has never had problems because of it.
 
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