Scare

[hairruffle]

Hi all, I wonder if anyone can help. I was hacking my 15.3, 14 year old mare this morning just walking round the village when all of a sudden she stopped and refused to go forwards. I jumped off knowing it wasn't like her and all of a sudden she was leaning at an angle with her head and left legs all out to the side and I thought she was going to collapse. it was almost like she was unaware of anything going on around her. I loosened all her tack and gave her a few minutes and luckily she recovered and was completely normal after about 5 minutes so led her back home and sponged her down. She seems fine now and i wondered if anything similar has happened to anyone before? It has never happened before although she does suffer from COPD which can affect her breathing and give her a cough so I'm wondering if it was just a dizzy spell in the heat. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

 

[Haniki]

How scarey for you, I think I would get the vet to check her over in case she has a heart murmour or anything.

 

[kerilli]

i'd get the vet to check her over, definitely. you did absolutely the right thing, getting off straight away. i wouldn't ride her until the vet's seen her, if she was mine.

 

[ErinDoig]

Oh dear how horrible. very weird, has anything changed lately feed/workload etc? dehyrdation?
Again i would say better safe than sorry a vet check up wouldnt go a miss.

Hope shes ok x

 

[brighteyes]

The heat?

 

[hairruffle]

Thanks for all your help with this. The vet has been out to check her and can't find anything untoward and has advised not to ride for the rest of this week and to just walk her out in hand and observe so i think its going to be one of those frustrating undiagnosed things. I checked on her several times afterwards yesterday and she was fine and also when I put her in last night. (she grazes out with her companion in the day and is stabled at night. I have just came back from letting her and her companion out this morning and she is back to her normal self luckily. Nothing has changed feedwise or workwise, she is only in light work due to the COPD and is normally hacked out 3 or 4 times a week for about 45 minutes but just in walk. I'll keep my fingers crossed and keep a very close eye on her and get the vet out again if she isn't right and anything else untoward happens.

 

[Darkly_Dreaming_Dex]

I have seen this before in a friends connemara, It happened a couple of times in the field (that we saw)as a 3 year old , i broke him at 4 and it happened maybe once a month under saddle as well as in the field and then it started to speed up. From the first incident he had lots of vets check him out- full investigations at clinics, blood/allergy tests, physios, bit/saddle/rider changes- nothing was found. The conclusion was it looks like Epilepsy but its virtually unknown and so undocumented in horses. Then as he turned 5 he had loads of funny turns( alternating in refusing to move to shaking, leaning over at an angle where you wouldnt believe he could stay upright etc) culminating in a massive wobbly, just as his owner was about to get on, when he ran backwords round the field , falling over, getting up and all the time he seemed disconnected-"not there" and un bothered- we phoned the vet and as soon as we could catch him he was PTS . Nothing definative was found post mortum. Please please dont think i am saying this is the case with your horse but when the "fits" turn from stationary to violent- it is very dangerous so be careful