Showing a horse with one eye ....

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Castleway

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I have a welsh cob gelding who is already blind in one eye due to an accident as a foal. Over the past couple of years, he has started to contract uveitis in the damaged eye and it has gone more and more opaque and even shrunk a little bit. He has just got uveitis *again* and having spoken to my vet, as he is already completely blind in that eye, we think we're just going to remove the eye to avoid further pain for him.

Now, he already competes, jumps and hunts absolutely fine so I'm obviously not concerned about the loss of sight as that has already happened. My question is to the showing folk/judges - will it badly effect him from a showing perspective? He is a cracking example of a welsh cob and this year I wanted to move onto affiliated M&M working hunter pony classes and take him down to the Royal Welsh for the ridden gelding class (to fulfil a lifelong ambition more than anything!)

Previously I've competed at local level and his blindness has never affected his placings but I'm wondering if the rather more obvious hollow in the side of his head will, especially at a higher level.

Either way, I will obviously be doing what is best for his welfare, I will just not bother showing if we will get laughed out of the ring!
 
Hi I can't give you a very informed opinion as I've only shown my one eyed horse once at a local show (I usually event him).

I did riding horse and veteran. Both big classes. We came 2nd in the riding horse - judges comments were purely he didn't win due to scarring on his back legs. She didn't comment on his (lack of) eye bar to acknowledge it.

He was unplaced in the veteran class but it was huge and he's a bog standard bay warmblood so hard to judge where it was his eye or anything else, I didn't get a chance to ask about it.

But no one laughed or said anything much. To be honest I expected it to be treated as a fairly large blemish.
 
Thanks for your reply and point of view Ahrena - I would also like to do some BE80 this year so good to hear of other partially sighted horses eventing!

My feelings are that it is not a conformation fault and therefore should not affect him too much - I appreciate that if it was between him and an equally nice welsh cob that wasn't blemished, the unblemished pony would probably be placed above, but feel it *shouldn't* write him off completely...
 
I've never seen a horse show at any level with only one eye but I unfortunately think it will affect him. Whilst I agree its not a conformation fault as such it is an acquired blemish, I would compare this to cosmetic scarring which will be marked down I'm afraid.
 
I had a friend asked to leave the ring with her mare with one eye, the comment being something like 'we don't show horses like that'. A local show, but one with qualifiers for various things. Might not be the general attitude though.
 
There have been a couple of one eyed horses go to HOYS. Including one in SFAS last year (story on HOYS website).

As with everything, there will be a variety of reactions from unaffiliated judges (Qualifiers for many local championships, right through to Equifest, can be judged by people not affiliated or tested in any way). Be prepared for this and either call them out with the above information (and use the class for practise but accept you are likely to be unplaced) or leave the ring and request a refund based upon no rule stating that one eyed horses cannot compete!

I have worked with a couple of one eyed horses, including one who I saw throughout the process of having the eye removed. She improved greatly when the eye was removed - far beyond any expectations. She had already learnt to deal with the loss of vision. Removing the eye simply removed the pain.
 
Thank you for everyone's replies - ruth83, I did not know about the one eyed horse going to HOYS so off to find the SFAS story now :)

Yes, my boy has not had vision in that eye for many years now so it will simply be to remove the pain due to the recurring uveitis.
 
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