Pony lacking stamina and loosing fitness easily.

[Frans]

Trying to keep a long story brief!
We have had our 8 year old Connemara gelding for 18 months. He was fat and very unfit when he arrived but he did improve with regular work. However, he looses fitness incredibly quickly and generally has less stamina than other ponies in similar work and of a similar age and weight.
He seems to breath very heavily when making an effort but recovers quickly afterwards and has never coughed. His heart sounds normal at rest. He has tested negative for PSSM1 and is generally healthy, happy and willing. When tired he will normally do what is asked of him but with obvious effort and only after trying, mildly, to say no.
He seems to be generally less good in the spring so I had been thinking of either new grass or pollen augmenting an underlying problem, either respiratory or metabolic. I also worry that it could be pain related though nothing came up when our osteopath checked him over. The saddle has been checked by two instructors and the osteo as well as the saddle fitter.
Blood tests showed raised gGT, AST, GLDH, LDH and low WBC. There are a number of horses at the yard with liver issues currently and this is being looked into. I am not convinced that this is the complete answer for our pony but could explain why he has suddenly become much worse.
I shall be having another chat to the vet tomorrow and but any ideas or advice in the meantime would be gratefully welcomed!
Thank you!

 

[Dexter]

He sounds like he has PSSM2 sadly, so I'd be testing for that alongside the liver issues, although PSSM on its own can cause liver issues, so worth bearing that in mind

 

[teddypops]

My sec d has an abnormal soft palate which balloons up and blocks her airways. She has no stamina and tires very easily. She never coughed or made any noises breathing but she gets puffed out immediately.

 

[Frans]

Almost regretting asking now, but thank you!
Anyone have any ideas for things that can be easily fixed

 

[mavandkaz]

My sec d has an abnormal soft palate which balloons up and blocks her airways. She has no stamina and tires very easily. She never coughed or made any noises breathing but she gets puffed out immediately.

My mare is the same.
Came to me 18 months ago, fat and unfit. Gained fitness and was doing well, but she has no stamina. Well she's fine in the school, but get her cantering uphill and she really struggles.
I know from previous owner that she has a soft pallet issue. She was scoped and vet described it as a 'floppy pallet'. She basically runs out of oxygen during high impact exercise, you can hear her breathing loud and fast, but doesn't take deep breaths. A quick walk break and she's raring to go again.
Have been wondering if there was anything I could do to help her. She's a cob so a candidate for pssm too.

 

[teddypops]

My mare is the same.
Came to me 18 months ago, fat and unfit. Gained fitness and was doing well, but she has no stamina. Well she's fine in the school, but get her cantering uphill and she really struggles.
I know from previous owner that she has a soft pallet issue. She was scoped and vet described it as a 'floppy pallet'. She basically runs out of oxygen during high impact exercise, you can hear her breathing loud and fast, but doesn't take deep breaths. A quick walk break and she's raring to go again.
Have been wondering if there was anything I could do to help her. She's a cob so a candidate for pssm too.

Mine has her palate lasered which scars in on healing. This makes it firmer and it doesn’t balloon up quite so much. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference unfortunately. My vet said that usually they can cut out a bit before lasering but my mares palate was so abnormal they couldn’t do that. It’s common in racehorses apparently.

 

[PurBee]

Liver issues = access to clover in fields or hay?

 

[Frans]

The floppy palette idea is interesting. I noticed the other day that he made a kind of swallowing noise/action as if to clear his throat and seemed better after that, could that fit? I shall spend endless happy hours researching that tonight now.

For the liver issues, there is nothing obvious but tests will be done on all the food sources as there must be something causing so many horses to have issues all at the same time. Our pony doesn't have the worst results but seems to be the one with

 

[Frans]

oops, posted before being ready ..
the one with the most obvious performance problems which is why I think the problem is just exacerbated by the liver issues rather than caused by them.

 

[teddypops]

The floppy palette idea is interesting. I noticed the other day that he made a kind of swallowing noise/action as if to clear his throat and seemed better after that, could that fit? I shall spend endless happy hours researching that tonight now.

For the liver issues, there is nothing obvious but tests will be done on all the food sources as there must be something causing so many horses to have issues all at the same time. Our pony doesn't have the worst results but seems to be the one with

My girl makes a sort of burping sound on the odd occasion, not when ridden though.

 

[SEL]

Exercise intolerance is becoming my specialist subject sadly.

I have 2 horses with PSSM and a pony with a soft palate issue much like teddypops describes.

The difference between them is the pony makes a noise (can sound snotty without snot) when ridden. She will also head flick which I think is an attempt to clear her airway. She still moves well - just runs out of puff.

The PSSM symptomatic one looks and feels stiff when she's struggling. She will get puffed but it's a whole body issue if that makes sense? She's had raised liver enzymes but I think it was environmental because other horses had them too - took nearly a year and a yard change to get them back down.

 

[SEL]

My mare is the same.
Came to me 18 months ago, fat and unfit. Gained fitness and was doing well, but she has no stamina. Well she's fine in the school, but get her cantering uphill and she really struggles.
I know from previous owner that she has a soft pallet issue. She was scoped and vet described it as a 'floppy pallet'. She basically runs out of oxygen during high impact exercise, you can hear her breathing loud and fast, but doesn't take deep breaths. A quick walk break and she's raring to go again.
Have been wondering if there was anything I could do to help her. She's a cob so a candidate for pssm too.

My piny had a hobday and soft palate cauterization. It's helped a bit but I think she'll only be able to do small amounts of faster work. Vet has suggested trying her bitless or with bit and drop noseband to "seal" her mouth to prevent air displacing the palate.

 

[TotalMadgeness]

Sounds like my rising 8 connie. He has always run out of puff way too easily despite my best efforts to increase his fitness levels. Even just walking up hill has his nostrils flaring and heavy breathing. He also flicks his head a lot and hot days appear to be more difficult for his breathing too. I haven't had the heart to investigate fully as he's had other problems to deal with like malformed/weak stifles, melanomas and sarcoids.

 

[Frans]

Spoke to the vet. She has ruled out muscle issues as his muscle enzymes were totally normal (unlike many of the other horses with odd liver function results at the yard). She did though suggest bringing him to the clinic to do an endoscopy straight after exercise to check what was happening in his throat. It was a bad line so I wasn't able to discuss as fully as I would have liked but she will be calling back tomorrow from the office.

He doesn't get stiff, just looses oomph but recovers quickly. Its sustained effort, particularly going uphill, that he struggles most with though he can keep going longer in trot than in canter. He's done a lot of fitness work and improved massively, though never to the extent that you would expect. We were almost ready to put it down to character until he suddenly got worse again these last few weeks. The last time he was this bad was also spring - though as he had 8 weeks off due to lockdown then we weren't that surprised by the loss of fitness. This time he has been working steadily before getting progressively worse.

 

[Walrus]

Have you had him scoped for respiratory issues. It may be that he's not coughing but there is still something there. My mare started coughing and scoped clear and then stopped coughing and they scoped her and she had loads of mucus in her lungs. It might be worth a look as equine asthma may cause poor performance and it may be that soaked hay, dust free bedding and a supplement like winergy ventilate would help after an initial course of steroid and ventipulmin? When my mare starts to be affected she doesn't cough but she will start to heavy breathe and stretch her neck and groan or grunt (so.ladylike) to try and clear her airways...at that point we put her on ventipulmin and it clears up, we're quite switched on to it now. Also we keep her head down as much as possible so hay on the floor etc. And when I get to shows I untie her and feed her from the floor.in the horsebox for half an hour before I tack up.

 

[Annagain]

While it does sound like there's something going on, with those test results, could part of it just be that that's how he is? We have one - he's 25 now but was the same at 5 - who is so laid back he put the minimum effort into everything. He loses fitness quickly if he's not worked because he will literally stand doing nothing all day in the field, he'll barely move. He has zero adrenalin so he has nothing to sustain him when the fuel tank empties. When he gets a bit tired he drops like a stone, going fairly normally one minute to exhausted, head almost on the floor, dragging himself along in seconds.

He's had everything checked a few times and he's always smack bang in the middle of normal range for everything. It's just him. He's very genuine so always works nicely forward while he has the energy but the only thing that ever gets him even slightly perked up is jumping - and even that is just ears pricked and a bit more bounce to his canter. He'll pop a course and go straight back to sleep. It makes him incredibly safe - in 20 years nobody has fallen off him and he's looked after all sorts of riders from total novices to doing BE and BS.

 

[Frans]

Definitely checking respiratory issues as the next step. I have never ever heard him cough so its interesting to hear other peoples experiences of less obvious symptoms.

Also wondering how much is simply his character, he is quite a laid back pony. Adrenalin livens him up, a lot - then he will struggle during sustained effort (eg uphill) but go back to bouncing as soon as he it has stopped (eg at the top of the hill) so I still think there is more going on than just character.

 

[Dexter]

Spoke to the vet. She has ruled out muscle issues as his muscle enzymes were totally normal (unlike many of the other horses with odd liver function results at the yard).

You said AST was raised? Its also normal for type 2s to test with CK and AST in normal ranges. Might not be the issue with your horse, but there are enough red flags to consider it, but for anyone reading with similar issues, its always worth ruling it out before going down the vet work up route.

 

[teddypops]

Spoke to the vet. She has ruled out muscle issues as his muscle enzymes were totally normal (unlike many of the other horses with odd liver function results at the yard). She did though suggest bringing him to the clinic to do an endoscopy straight after exercise to check what was happening in his throat. It was a bad line so I wasn't able to discuss as fully as I would have liked but she will be calling back tomorrow from the office.

He doesn't get stiff, just looses oomph but recovers quickly. Its sustained effort, particularly going uphill, that he struggles most with though he can keep going longer in trot than in canter. He's done a lot of fitness work and improved massively, though never to the extent that you would expect. We were almost ready to put it down to character until he suddenly got worse again these last few weeks. The last time he was this bad was also spring - though as he had 8 weeks off due to lockdown then we weren't that surprised by the loss of fitness. This time he has been working steadily before getting progressively worse.

Nothing showed up when my pony was scoped because her issues are only when moving. We had to have a dynamic scope done to find out what the problem was.

 

[SEL]

Nothing showed up when my pony was scoped because her issues are only when moving. We had to have a dynamic scope done to find out what the problem was.

I ended up doing a video of me trotting when she was at her worst to show to the vet. When the surgeon saw it he identified straight away what the problem was just from the noise she made. Was surprised she'd managed to do 10 mins of trotting which made me feel bad for pushing her - but I really, really needed them to see what was going on.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Some horses get flatter/more lethargic when their coats are changing.

 

[Frans]

You said AST was raised? Its also normal for type 2s to test with CK and AST in normal ranges. Might not be the issue with your horse, but there are enough red flags to consider it, but for anyone reading with similar issues, its always worth ruling it out before going down the vet work up route.

Presumably a genetic test would give the quickest answer?

 

[DirectorFury]

You could be describing a Connie owned by a fellow livery to a T - I'd think you were but the one on my yard is a mare! She also had some funky bloods and tested negative for PSSM 1, but her owner opted to try and treat as PSSM 2. She was like a different horse after a few months.

 

[mavandkaz]

Spoke to the vet. She has ruled out muscle issues as his muscle enzymes were totally normal (unlike many of the other horses with odd liver function results at the yard). She did though suggest bringing him to the clinic to do an endoscopy straight after exercise to check what was happening in his throat. It was a bad line so I wasn't able to discuss as fully as I would have liked but she will be calling back tomorrow from the office.

He doesn't get stiff, just looses oomph but recovers quickly. Its sustained effort, particularly going uphill, that he struggles most with though he can keep going longer in trot than in canter. He's done a lot of fitness work and improved massively, though never to the extent that you would expect. We were almost ready to put it down to character until he suddenly got worse again these last few weeks. The last time he was this bad was also spring - though as he had 8 weeks off due to lockdown then we weren't that surprised by the loss of fitness. This time he has been working steadily before getting progressively worse.

You have just described my mare.
Please let me know if you find anything.
She just looses oomph when cantering uphill and has to come back to a trot or walk. But recovers quickly and is quite happy to go again. I'm now trialling increasing the amount of canter work but making her stick to a steady speed, rather then racing off, and she can go much further when doing this. She can also trot forever without tiring.
Previous owner kept her on shavings and soaked hay as said she had a dust allergy and her breathing was very noisy. She would cough if fed dry hay.
Since with me, I have been able to put her on dry hay and straw with no coughing, and her general breathing is much better. (Currently on wood pellets and haylage) she doesn't cough.

She dropped quite badly last sept/Oct and even a brisk walk tired her out. I do think this was related to coat change time as I was having to clip her every 10 days it was growing so fast. And as soon as we managed 3 weeks between clips she found more energy.
She is currently feeling a bit tired again, and although her summer coat isn't coming through quickly, she is a bit scurffy and and her any rub marks have grown back by the next day.

 

[scats]

Most on the forum will know about my situation with Diva and her exercise intolerance that was eventually found to be a full length tracheal collapse and a pharynx collapse as a result of trying to get air through a collapsed windpipe. It was pretty much the worst situation possible, but thankfully it is so rare (as in, there are no recorded cases of a collapse of that length) that I very much doubt your situation will be the same. I would push for a scope and possibly an overground, though, just to get a better idea of what might be going on.

 

[ycbm]

I know she is very young for it but I might also test for Cushings, because of her coat issues and being worse at coat changes. It has been found in many younger horses since we started actively looking for it.

 

[teddypops]

You have just described my mare.
Please let me know if you find anything.
She just looses oomph when cantering uphill and has to come back to a trot or walk. But recovers quickly and is quite happy to go again. I'm now trialling increasing the amount of canter work but making her stick to a steady speed, rather then racing off, and she can go much further when doing this. She can also trot forever without tiring.

My girl can also trot for miles without a problem, she struggles immediately in canter.