It’s so important to know your horse. Years ago I read an article in “Horse and Rider” magazine about knowing what your horse looks like on the daily.
I began to train myself to give them a once over everyday. I’d check their legs, and then their body. I learned every blemish, every nook, every cranny. Beginning with my hands, and as I’ve been practicing this now for almost 30 years, I now find things that don’t look right with my eyes, first.
So even when I’m in uncharted waters with a horse, such I was in September 2022, because I know what normal is, when anything is off, whether it’s something I’m familiar with or not, I know.
The First Time
This summer my home-raised dun gelding Issimo tied up. This is one moment when I’m grateful for a vet that answers my call when she’s able, because I wasn’t sure the protocol, but I was fairly certain I’d killed him. She reassured me I had not, and told me if it happened again, to get him to her asap. It had been hot that day, and he was, after all, a 7yo gelding I’d been riding and training since his birth and this was a first – so likely a one-off, as it was 105 that day.
It was like colic, but instead of rolling and biting his sides he wanted to just lay down. A syringe full of banamine, delivered intravenously, and cold baths – with walking helped him come out of it.
I started to pay careful attention to how I rode him, when I rode him and more.
The Second Time
Fast forward to a couple months with no issues and we are in Wyoming the second weekend of September, 2023, and the temps go from 101F -35F-65 F -82F. Apparently horses that tie up, well that’s not ideal for them. A 10 minute warm up on Sunday in 80 degrees, despite having electrolytes in his system caused him to tie up. I knew about 2 minutes in- when I got him to the arena prior to our run that he was tying up.
He was drenched in sweat and his hip muscles were trembling. I could feel them in my hand.
The walk from the trailer to the indoor should have cooled him down. Instead, he got hotter.
I’m thankful for friends who helped while I ran my mare that day. And I’m thankful that long ago I had a great vet that taught me how to hit a vein- so we doused him with banamine and waited.
I’d planned to just come straight home. But I didn’t want him in a trailer for 5 hours. So we left Gillette, WY and laid over in Belle Fourche, SD. He looked bad upon stepping off the trailer. His hips were visibly swollen. His hamstrings were tight. I knew he needed to move and relax.
The next morning he wasn’t visibly better. I’d already planned to go see the vet on Tuesday for some other work, and I’m glad we had that appointment because a muscle biopsy, blood test and a very large bag of fluids later, revealed PSSM2.
Know Your Horse
We know now what he can and can’t eat, and how to keep him doing well – at this moment anyway. That could be subject to change, but the bottom line is this: know your horse. Check them out daily. Look at them daily. Run your hands down their muscles. Know what baseline normal is. They can’t tell us, in English, when they hurt, but if we know them, and we’re listening, they’ll tell us. They will tell us.
