opinions on a 3yr old with a heart murmur.

H

happyhula

New User
Joined
10 January 2012
Messages
6
Location
warwickshire
Visit site
I have just found out that one of my horses has a bad heart murmur and cannot be ridden,i am a bit gutted he is a lovely lad and i had just started to break him as he is only three.Now i have no idea what to do with him as i think he is going to get bored just stood n the field,has anybody got any suggestions please!:confused:
 
I'd get a specialist to check how bad the murmur is. Many, many young animals have heart murmurs and they disappear with maturity. They are grades of murmur and if it is a low one I wouldn't be too bothered.
 
Don't write him off just yet. I had a TB at my yard with a grade five heart murmur. She had raced but her form was dropping off. However, three years on she is regularly competing at riding club events and is as fit as a fiddle. Horses can develop heart murmurs due to hard work or just as part of growing up. They can also recover from them too.
 
thanks i know his is between grade 4 and 5,so it is quite a bad one and i have had two vets look at it and recommended not to be ridden so i was a little concerned but good to know that is not necessarily the case for all, might wait and have it looked at again.:)
 
I had a dressage horse with a grade 5 heart murmur whom I competed up to PSG, he was sometimes a little puffed, but never had any problems. He died a number of years ago - not from anything to do with his heart. I'd be inclined to keep going and see how the horse gets on, surely you'll be able to tell if the horse is having any sort of problem with the work?
 
Hi Op, if it is a 4-5 I would definitely get a specialist to look into what it is. I have had a polo pony with a grade 4, there is a specialist called Lesley young in south area that I used. Where abouts are you in uk?
 
It's not the grade of murmur that's important, it's which chamber is leaking into which. They can have a really loud harmless murmur or a really quiet nasty murmur. Unless you have it properly scanned you won't know for definite.

We got Spud scanned last year as the vets kept picking up a murmur at rides and it turns out he's got three! Two definitely harmless and one potentially not harmless, although fine at the moment. It's the quieter one that's the potentially sinister one. But at least we've got a baseline now so if he does show any signs of deterioration we can get him scanned again and have something to compare to.
 
Sorry to hijack but why do the vets recomend not riding?

Is becasue of the additional strain it puts on the horse (i.e. possibly leading to pain/earlier death) or because of the possibility of the horse having some form of cardiac arrest during riding making it dangerous for anyone on top?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top