What could be wrong with this mare? Thinking caps on!

Wagtail

Wagtail

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Long story so will try to be brief. Beautiful 8 year old WB mare. Top European bloodlines. Fabulous paces, enthusiastic but very sane ride. Just a dream horse really. All went wrong a year ago when suddenly she started to act as though she was in pain. Tail swishing, bunching up in a false outline when normally she was very through and quite strong, and the strangest thing, looking round at her left flank like horses do with colic. Got the vet as so out of character. No lameness found. Thought it was behavioural, but no amount of strong riding would help, and she felt as though she would explode. In fact, she reared with me and almost fell over backwards.

Vet referred her owner to Sue Dyson at AHT Newmarket, who found no lameness but saw the behaviour when I rode her. We left her there a week and nothing was found to be wrong with her and did full xrays including spine. The staff there rode her and reported no problems, but her owner said it was obvious she was not working properly and was holding herself in the bunched up false outline. Had her back home and no improvement so she went to Rossdales who found bone spavin (missed by AHT), but such a small amount that it really should not cause a problem. The flexion tests were negative too. But they injected her with cortisteroids and she actually came right around 3 weeks later, back to her old self. However, it only lasted 4 months and the symptoms started again. She was fine being lunged, though I don’t think that she is stepping under and showing such floaty paces as she used to, but as soon as her owner or I get on she is back to looking at her flanks and refusing to go forward. When she does walk she holds herself all bunched up and her neck really arched with no contact at all. It feels as though you are riding a headless horse! She was injected again but this time it took over 4 weeks to work and only worked for 2 months. She has also had tildren, but seems to be getting worse and worse. It is not nappiness as we have checked this by having a horse that she is totally in love with walk ahead of her and she is exactly the same. All her tack has been checked, teeth done, overies scanned. I still suspect overies though as she is constantly in season and regumate appears to have no effect. I wonder if the hock thing was a red herring as it all points to a problem further up to me.

Any ideas, anyone?
 
Ulcers spring to mind, would it be worth trying some gastroguard and seeing what happens? The other thing that I would try to rule out is EPSM.
 
touchstone said:
Ulcers spring to mind, would it be worth trying some gastroguard and seeing what happens? The other thing that I would try to rule out is EPSM.
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There's no muscle wastage at all but I will certainly look into it. I had also thought about ulcers too though she is on an all forage diet with hardly any hard feed.
 
Yes, but found nothing. Though there were a number of large follicles. Vet said it was just that she was ready to ovulate.
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There shouldn't be a number......... How many are we talking about exactly? And what were their sizes?

And was she monitored through her cycle???
 
coligon is the other thing you could try, its used for a number of things these days, much cheaper than gastroguard and you would know fairly quickly if it was working or not.
 
Wagtail said:
Yes, but found nothing. Though there were a number of large follicles. Vet said it was just that she was ready to ovulate.
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There should really only be 1 - 2 dominant follicles present. Could well be polycystic ovaries, very uncomfortable.
 
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I would try forage only diet for a month, no chaff, no molasses, no sugar beet, no nothing! And certainly no alfalfa. We had a mare, who was beautiful a good mover and soft as butter, however if she had sugar or grain she became dangerous, developed a cough and came up short on one back leg. If her diet was strictly adhered to she was fine (sadly she had to be retired as we could not stop people walking in nearby fields from feeding her, no matter what we did!)
 
amymay said:
There shouldn't be a number......... How many are we talking about exactly? And what were their sizes?

And was she monitored through her cycle???
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No, she was just scanned the once. She had been constantly in season for around 6 weeks even though it was January. Vet does all the AI round here and was convinced her behaviour was behavioural. There were a number of large folicles, maybe four, and one was very large (but not sure how large - looked around 2 inches on the monitor). Vet said that was the one that was about to ovulate. He gave her an injection to bring it on but she was still showing in season a week later. She was put on regumate but still in season and no change in her behaviour under saddle. She did stop being constantly in season last year in June and cycled normally for the rest of the year. Now she is back in season but not constantly. We were wondering if the injections she had coincided with her getting back to normal but she went bad again around October. She's not normally bad to ride during her season. It just makes her really soppy with people and a tart with the geldings.
 
YorksG said:
I would try forage only diet for a month, no chaff, no molasses, no sugar beet, no nothing! And certainly no alfalfa. We had a mare, who was beautiful a good mover and soft as butter, however if she had sugar or grain she became dangerous, developed a cough and came up short on one back leg. If her diet was strictly adhered to she was fine (sadly she had to be retired as we could not stop people walking in nearby fields from feeding her, no matter what we did!)
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I will get some unmollassed chop and try her on that then. She doesn't really need hard feed at the moment. It's just for vitamins etc really.
 
What about having her scoped for ulcers? It's much cheaper than paying for treatment when there might not be a problem. I have had 2 mares go through the same thing. One had horrific stomach ulcers and the other had knocked her pelvis out. Both showed similar symptoms and had major loss in performance.

The ulcers one was also on a low sugar/acidic high fibre diet and after gastroguard the next best thing for her is to have half a scoop of dengie hi-fi with a teaspoon of soda bicarb 10 minutes before she is worked regardless of what she is about to do. This routine has kept her ulcers under control for over a year now.

The one that did her pelvis had lost her elevation in her paces, was dull to ride and suddenly hated getting groomed/girthed up. We had her checked for ulcers and her ovaries scanned and my physio had checked her out when this first started and it was a chance encounter 9 weeks later wih a different physio that told us what the problem was.

Hope you get to the bottom of it.
 
Thanks. Yes I will suggest to the owner that she gets her scoped. She's not at all girthy and doesn't mind being groomed anywhere, but obviously she's in pain when someone rides her.
 
Just thought. Two winters ago, this mare was starved at another yard where the owner had her on full livery whilst she had an operation (owner). One day she removed her rugs and found that she was a walking skeleton! She'd been starved which is why she was moved here. Could that cause ulcers?
 
Hi Wagtail, hope you find out what is wrong with this mare. Yes starvation can definately cause ulcers, even though it was a long time ago if they weren't treated they may still be around.
 
I was wondering if they had been caused when she was starved, but the symptoms started around 14 months after that. We are going to ask the vet when she comes out next week for her 'progress' check. Poor mare, she is such a lovely natured horse. We know she is in pain but having so many vets think it is behavioural is so frustrating! At least this latest vet seems to take us seriously.
 
I've also heard that scoping doesn't always show ulcers up if they are further back in the intestine, not sure if that is true or not but thought I'd better mention it!
 
I would certainly have her scoped for ulcers. Also it does sound as if ovaries warrant further investigation. Poor girl! I would stop riding her until it's sorted out - continuing to do so might cause behavioral issues that are tough to resolve. Not to mention it's not fair to subject her to pain.
 
If ulcers get ruled out it might be worth speaking to your vet about maybe using a marble to see if this stops the mare constantly coming into season. I believe they have mixed results but it certainly helped my friend's mare.
 
baymareb said:
I would certainly have her scoped for ulcers. Also it does sound as if ovaries warrant further investigation. Poor girl! I would stop riding her until it's sorted out - continuing to do so might cause behavioral issues that are tough to resolve. Not to mention it's not fair to subject her to pain.
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Don't worry. We have only been trying her once a week for a few minutes in walk before she tells us she is hurting. This is only because she has had tildren and we needed to see if it worked. We are resigned now to wait until we get a diagnosis except for having to ride her for the vet. Thanks everyone. I will update if we ever get to the bottom of it, poor girl.
 
spaniel said:
Sounds very much like ulcers to me....what is her regime, how is she kept and fed at the moment?
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She is on ad lib haylage (of the dry type low in protein and energy), and two small feeds of mostly alfa A with a few high fibre cubes and vegetarian glucosamine. She goes out every day but in bad weather it is in the all weather with hay nets. It's a very quiet yard with a regular non changing routine. Her droppings are good but I have noticed she has been slower to eat her haylage the past few months. She occasionally stretches for a long time after/during urination which can be a sign of ulcers. No sign at all of colic and gallops around in the field like she's the fittest thing on four legs.
 
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