yesterday on our ride an appaloosa ridden by someone I just met that day went into distress, and I honestly think he was fighting for his life tho everyone else thought he was "just overheated" or "out of shape" or "too fat". But it was only after 2.5 hours, and I was riding Tivar who is as much or more "overweight", as much or more "out of shape" and as much or more "overheated" and he was sweaty, tired, glad to stop for a rest, and breathing a little hard for maybe five minutes at most after we stopped. And he never breathed as hard as this horse. We did not even gait or canter once. We rode through shady woods and although it was hot I have ridden hotter rides lately. I took a video but it is over 33 million bytes. Does anyone know how i can shrink it? I tried uploading it but after all nite it still dodnt load....
There are two things that really bother me. First is that the lady said "the same thing happened earlier this week, in fact it took us three hours to get home after a two hour ride because we had to keep stopping and letting him catch his breath" and then she said "I am worried about him, lately he has been biting at his sides too". He has always been a big strong powerful goey horse she said and has never been "sick" a day. She says he has never colicked or anything. He is HUGE, very strong and healthy looking. Not old. I took the video an hour AFTER we saw him breathing so hard and stopped to take a break. When we first stopped I thought he was staggering and gonna go down but he stood like he was bracing himself to keep from falling over and when she walked him around a little his legs seemed shakey. After an hour I tried to take his pulse, I am not sure but I think it was around 120. he was barely sweaty! Maybe anhydrosis?? His breath was probably 220 per minute after one hour. Just constant panting, struggling for air. I looked at his gums and saw black veins but not a black line I think they say is a bad sign. No one else seemed to think it was an emergency situation but I finally acted so freaked I convinced them to let me call for help and I contacted the sheriffs office and they sent a deputy to take me back to the trail head and get my trailer and come back for him and Tivar,. I took her and the horse home. She lived in a really nice house on a really nice, nicer-than-mine place and when I said "I would get the vet out here today" she kept saying how much she appreciated me helping her but she was gonna keep cooling him with water and a fan and that he seemed much better but he was still huffing and this was after two hours. I just feel it was a life or death situation for this horse. What do you think? I wish I could load the video. I just know if it was my horse I would have called my vet to come to the site because I would have felt my horse was gonna drop dead…. Am I a hysteric?? Unfortunately her vet is the one around here I would not allow within a mile of any of my horses unless I wanted him dead. this is very upsetting, but I don't know the woman. I plan to call her and see how he is but I dont have her phone number and will have to track it down through others. maybe should just mind my own business! Janice -- yipie tie yie yo
