A shiny coat is one sign your senior horse is in good health. Photo © EQUUS

As a horse grows older, his needs can change rapidly. Before you fall into your warm-weather routines, give your aging horse a once-over to make sure you’re doing everything you can to keep him healthy and happy. Here are some areas to assess:

1. His coat. From 60 to 70 percent of horses over the age of 20 develop pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID, or equine Cushing’s disease), and one of the most noticeable signs is a winter coat that does not shed out normally. Contact your veterinarian if your horse’s coat remains long and shaggy well into spring. If he is diagnosed with PPID, the condition can be controlled with the drug Prascend, but for this year you may need to clip him to make him more comfortable.

2. His joints. Over time, most horses develop some degree of osteoarthritis. Overworking an arthritic horse aggravates the pain and stiffness of sore joints, but too little activity isn’t helpful either. Moderate exercise stimulates circulation, strengthens muscles and helps keep his weight under control. In addition, your veterinarian may suggest medications to ease discomfort and aid healing and/or supplements formulated to support joint health.

3. His teeth. A horse who has diffi-culty chewing hay or feed is at risk for a number of ills, including colic, malnutrition and choke. Regular dental examinations--ideally every six months--will identify and address issues such as uneven wear, cracked teeth and gum disease before they take a toll on a horse’s ability to eat.

4. His body condition. Keep tabs on your horse’s body condition and consult your veterinarian or an equine nutritionist if he’s getting too fat or too thin. Many older horses benefit from switches to easy-to-chew forages and/or higher calorie senior feeds. Implement any changes slowly to protect his digestive health. Also ask if your horse might benefit from a supplement. A number are available that can add vitamins and minerals to his ration as well as support joint and digestive health.

5. His feet. Make sure your horse’s farriery regimen is still appropriate. Does he still need shoes? Is going barefoot still the best for him? Also consider whether his feet are getting trimmed often enough.

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue #427.

When the spring weather finally comes, you may be anxious to quickly stow the winter gear so that you can get on with enjoying the sunshine with your horses. But if you take the time to clean your turnout blankets thoroughly and store them away carefully, you’ll extend their useful life--and you’ll thank yourself when it’s time to get them back out this fall. Follow these steps to keep stored blankets in good shape.

1. Wash them well. A quick spray-down with the hose may be enough to clean lightly soiled blankets, but for the best results, take them to a laundromat. (Before you go, be sure to ask whether they will allow horse items in their machines.) Run the rinse cycle twice to ensure no detergent residue is left behind.

2. Dry thoroughly. Hang the blankets in the sun until they are completely dry; this could take a day or more for heavier items. Storing them while they’re still damp can lead to mold.

3. Repair or replace, as needed. Examine all the fabric, stitching and hardware for loose connections, wear and holes. Have any repairs done now; waiting until the fall can leave you short of time as the cold weather approaches. Spring is also a good time to buy replacement blankets, if needed. You may catch a good sale, and you won’t have to rush to find one later.

4. Store them securely. Fold the blankets neatly and place them inside large plastic bags, then stack them in a dry place. To provide even more security against nesting rodents, store your blankets in clean trash cans or storage bins with lockable lids.

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue #427.

Carrots, apples and peppermint candies will pique the interest of most horses who like treats, but there’s no reason to stop there. Just for fun, try experimenting with other tasty tidbits your horse might like as an occasional snack.

• Fruits: bananas, watermelon rinds, mangoes without the seeds, grapes, raisins, fruit juices

• Vegetables: peas, green beans, lettuce, celery, pumpkins

• Other: bread, bagels, cake or pastries (without chocolate, cinnamon or poppy seeds); pretzels, corn chips or potato chips; pasta; eggs; dried pinto, red or fava beans (but these are better cooked); beer

To be safe, cut or break treats into pieces of two inches or less; offer no more than one or two bites of a new snack on the first try, and then never feed more than two pounds at once. Also avoid offering sweet treats to obese horses or those with insulin resistance.

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue #427.

Any horse might kick under the right circumstances, and the possibility of becoming the target of a well-aimed hoof is always with us. Most of us learn commonsense guidelines of defensive horsemanship early on, but it’s easy to get complacent among trusted horses. To stay safe, it’s wise to always keep these rules in mind:

• Stay alert. Focus your attention on the horse you’re working with as well as any who are close by. Pay attention to a swishing tail, pinned ears, flared nostrils and other signs that a horse is getting annoyed, and take steps to diffuse the situation before he “blows up.”

• Watch herd interactions. Steer clear of any who seem alarmed or threatened by your presence. Also sidestep any developing skirmishes.

• Avoid carrying feed or treats through a herd. Horses can become competitive and/or aggressive to get to the food, and you could inadvertently be on the receiving end of their blows.

• Don’t ride among loose horses. A horse at liberty may send yours a “don’t come closer” message that puts your leg in the line of fire.

• Tie horses far enough apart so that they can’t kick each other. You’ll also need a safe buffer zone so you can remain out of reach while walking between them.

• Stay close to a horse’s body when working around him on the ground. The most damaging kicks happen when a horse has enough room to fully extend his leg. Kicks at close range hurt but are less likely to cause serious injury.

• Put away your cell phone. Whether you’re on foot or in the saddle, stop talking, texting and indulging in other smartphone activities. Safety around horses requires your full attention.

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue #427.

When a rider uses negative reinforcement, she stops an unpleasant stimulus when the horse responds correctly to a cue. Photo © EQUUS

Q: I am helping a friend train her horse, an 8-year-old Appaloosa gelding she has owned for more than a year. Her horse responds well to my leg cues, but since her stirrup length is at least a foot shorter than mine (I’m much taller than she is), her leg cues touch him at a totally different place. This horse side passes and leg yields for her perfectly, but lately he has been avoiding the canter departure. We’ve already checked for saddling and bit issues, and otherwise he seems very willing to work. How can we teach her horse to respond to her cue for the canter? Any ideas as to why after learning leg yielding so well he would lose his canter depart?

A: I don’t believe this is a problem with leg placement or stirrup length; I think this is a matter of cue confusion: Your friend has accidentally trained her horse to do the wrong thing. He will probably be easy to retrain--he hasn’t forgotten how to do a canter depart; he just thinks the correct answer to her cue is to leg yield.

The cues for a leg yield and canter are easy to confuse because they are quite similar. I’ve seen many horses make this mistake, and the fact that you have been schooling leg yields makes it even more likely. I’m betting that what happened was that your
friend inadvertently rewarded the horse when he gave the wrong response to her cue for the canter.

When training, we often use a technique known as negative reinforcement, which in this case means releasing pressure when the horse gives the correct response. For instance, when asking for a walk, you apply leg pressure to his sides. As soon as he moves forward, you take away the pressure, thus rewarding the horse for the correct response. But, if you were to apply leg pressure to move forward and the horse ignored the signal, even if you stopped the pressure only momentarily, you would have trained the horse to ignore that leg cue.

Always remember this: Whatever the horse is doing at the moment you release pressure (either from the leg or rein) is what you just trained him to do. The next time you apply that cue, he will do the same thing he did the last time to get the release. It’s amazing how often this is the root of a problem: A rider hesitates after the horse incorrectly responds to a cue, and in that brief moment of pause the pressure is released. As a result, the horse thinks he did the right thing.

The key to successful training lies in how your friend responds when her horse does not “read” her cue correctly: She needs to take immediate action to correct the response and immediately reapply the cue, then release pressure only when the horse does the right thing.

If I had asked a horse for a canter departure and he began leg yielding instead, I would stop his sideways motion with leg and rein cues. I would bounce my outside leg (if you are leg-yielding left, the horse is bent to the right, so your outside leg is the left leg) on his ribs to say, “No, you cannot move that way,” close the outside rein (move my hand toward his neck), and reach forward to immediately send him on. Then, I would check his gait and, if the canter wasn’t picked up, instantly give him another strong, even exaggerated, cue. Using my voice aid to help the horse (with the kissing sound), I would repeat this process until I got the canter departure on the first request, then let him rest as a reward.

Without question, anytime two or more riders share a single horse, it is more difficult for him to distinguish cues because, no matter how similar two people are, their riding cannot be exactly identical. Luckily, most horses quickly adapt to each rider and learn to distinguish the variations in their signals. But I must add it seems unusual that you and your friend would ride with a full foot of difference between your stirrup lengths. This makes me wonder if one or both of you need to reevaluate your positions. For example, a rider with short legs would want a longer-than-average stirrup length to get more leg on the horse and lower her center of gravity. Adjusting your stirrups might make riding in general much easier and more comfortable.

That said, horses learn very fast, so keep up the training! Sometimes, good communication means being clear when a horse does not give the correct response: If he gives the wrong answer, he must be told he is wrong and to try again.

Julie Goodnight
Natural horsemanship trainer and clinician
www.juliegoodnight.com
Poncha Springs, Colorado

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue #427.

This is a story of a stupid mistake---one that led to a terrifying accident that could easily have cost my horse’s life. I still get anxious thinking about what happened that day, and part of me would like to forget it entirely, but I think it’s important to share my story. My goal is to remind people not to fall into bad habits or to forget that horses---even those you know and trust---are large, powerful and unpredictable animals.

My husband, Kurt, and I own a few acres in Columbia, Missouri, that gives us just enough space to keep a small herd for our family to enjoy. Our setup isn’t fancy, but it serves us well.

For my birthday one year Kurt built me a small but cozy barn that included one very large 10- by 20-foot stall and a smaller 10- by 10-foot stall. The walls are four feet of tongue-and-groove boards topped with vertical metal bars. The gaps between the bars are small---only 2  inches---but they allow plenty of light and air to flow through.

At the time of the accident we owned three horses: Cloud, a registered Quarter Horse gelding; Britches, a 12-year-old Haflinger gelding; and Jiffy, a 3-year-old Welsh pony cross. I’d bought Cloud just a year before; I’d been looking for a smallish, well-trained, unflappable horse, and he was a perfect fit. He was years younger and only slightly taller than Britches, so I didn’t anticipate my new horse would have any problems settling in. I was right. Britches took an immediate liking to Cloud, and they became good friends.

During the day, the three horses could come and go into the barn and stalls at will. I’d often find Cloud and Britches dozing together in the larger stall. To accommodate them at feeding time, I hung grain tubs at opposite ends of the larger stall and one in the smaller stall, for Jiffy, and I’d let Cloud and Britches eat their meal together.

Occasionally, I’d lock the two of them in the stall together for short periods of time--never longer than it took to receive a hay delivery or mow the fields. Neither horse had ever shown any aggression toward the other, and the stall-sharing arrangement worked well.

Until one day, it didn’t.

One Saturday morning in September 2009 I went out to await a shipment of hay. To get the horses out of the way I dumped a handful of grain into each corner feeder. Just as he always had, Cloud walked into the large stall and went to the far corner to
eat. Britches ambled in after him and went to his own corner, while Jiffy headed into the small stall. I then closed both doors.

Moments later I heard a horrible ruckus, and I spun around just in time to see Cloud kicking out at Britches with both hind legs. The kicks were high and powerful. There was no doubt he meant business. As Cloud backed up to take aim again, the pony scooted out of his way.

Cloud’s next kick missed Britches and landed squarely on the stall bars, four feet above the floor. His left rear hoof struck the metal with such force that it bent the bars just enough to allow his foot to slip through. His leg immediately dropped to the surface of the wooden wall, leaving Cloud standing on three legs, with his left hind stretched backward and upward, his hoof trapped between two thick metal bars. It happened in a split second.

Cloud panicked. He lunged forward and back, trying to pull his hoof free. With each attempt to back up, he pushed his leg into the adjacent stall almost to his hock. Then he’d scramble forward, scraping his skin down to the fetlock. Each time he lunged, it seemed he could rip his foot right off. It was horrifying to watch, and I was sure he was going to break his leg.

Two factors probably saved Cloud that day. One was that I had my cell phone in my pocket, and the second was that Kurt was home. He came running from the house as soon as I called him. I opened the stall door to let Britches out and tried to calm Cloud from a distance, but I didn’t want to get too close. He was wild-eyed with fear and pain.

With one glance at the situation Kurt sprinted to the garage and came back with a pry bar to widen the gap for Cloud’s foot. But he couldn’t get the leverage he needed to bend the bars.

Cloud’s panicky, crazed lunging continued, and his leg was becoming a bloody, raw mess. I feared he was stripping his flesh to the bone.

Kurt then ran into the adjacent stall and grabbed Cloud’s trapped hoof. I have no idea how he managed to hold onto it as Cloud continued to struggle, but he did. Arm muscles bulging, he lifted the gelding’s hoof high enough to reach the slight gap where the bars had been bent by the impact of the kick. Lifting the leg to such a steep angle must have caused Cloud intense pain. But with a mighty shove, and aided by a final lunge forward, Kurt forced Cloud’s hoof back through the bars.

The leg had been trapped for maybe 10 or 15 minutes.

Damage done
Cloud stood alone in the large stall, holding the injured limb in the air, his blood streaming down and pooling on the stall floor. With shaking hands, I called our veterinary clinic, and within 15 minutes Tawna Purcell, DVM, arrived at the farm.

Purcell listened carefully to our account as she examined Cloud’s leg. Then she gave him an injection of a sedative, xylazine. If his leg was injured and he placed his full weight on it in a fit of panic, he could make the situation much worse.

Within a few minutes, Cloud relaxed and rested the hoof gingerly on the ground. Purcell gave him an injection of phenylbutazone to control his pain and the inflammation, then she palpated and flexed his leg, looking for any indication of fracture, such as an area of extreme swelling or tenderness. Nothing made her immediately suspect a bone or joint injury, although that didn’t mean he didn’t have one; if he did, it just wasn’t obvious.

Next she began cleaning Cloud’s wounds, which, it turned out, looked worse than they actually were. In fact, most were just superficial abrasions that hadn’t removed any more than the top layer of skin. One deeper cut midway between his hock and fetlock gaped open and bled freely, but no bones or tendons were visible.

By the time Purcell was finished, Cloud’s leg looked much better, and he was bearing weight on it, but we were not yet out of danger. Cloud showed signs of pain as his fetlock joint was flexed, which, Purcell explained, might indicate some fractures in the area. Another possibility was that he avulsed a collateral ligament of the fetlock joint---in other words, pulled the ligament free from the bone. She took a series of radiographs of his pastern, fetlock and cannon bone to view later at the office.

Purcell covered Cloud’s wounds with Thermazene, a silver sulfadiazine-based antibiotic wound cream, and wrapped his leg from hock to hoof. Then, to protect his lower leg in case he had sustained serious bone or tendon injury, she used layers and layers of padding to create a thick Robert Jones bandage. She also applied a standing wrap to support Cloud’s uninjured right rear leg--sometimes, horses who injure one leg and are forced to bear a disproportionate amount of weight on the opposite side may develop laminitis in the “good” foot. Purcell left me a tube of phenylbutazone with instructions to continue administering it over the
coming days.

Rest and recuperation
Within an hour Purcell called to say that the radiographs showed no evidence of fractures or avulsions. That was wonderful news. But she did warn me that Cloud might have strained his ligaments by pulling so hard with his leg locked in such a high position. She suggested I keep him in his stall and leave the bandage on until she returned on Monday morning. I was to remove the bandage only if I saw any swelling of the leg in the region above the wraps.

Cloud was miserable confined to his stall. I spent most of the next day with him, brushing his beautiful coat, combing his tail, feeding him carrots, and wondering whether he would recover. I examined the leg above his hock so many times, I think I burned the image into my retina. The more I looked at it, the more I imagined it was puffing up. But Kurt, who came out to check on us four or five times that day, reassured me that the leg was not swollen.

Purcell removed the thick bandage when she returned on Monday morning, which was a bit dicey because the gauze pads were stuck to the wounds, but Cloud didn’t put up much of a fuss. I then walked him carefully around the exam area. To everyone’s relief, he was reasonably sound, considering what he had been through.

After examining the leg again and watching him move, Purcell said she doubted Cloud had sustained any serious injuries to his bones, ligaments or joints. His slight lameness, she said, was most likely the result of lingering pain from sore muscles he’d sustained during his struggle against the bars.

Still, we weren’t entirely out of the woods. As Purcell rebandaged Cloud, she said that we would have to wait to see if he developed a bony sequestrum. Sometimes, she explained, significant trauma bruises and kills a portion of a bone, which separates from the parent bone. The body treats that fragment of dead bone as a foreign object and tries to get rid of it--the signs are a horribly swollen leg and lameness that develops anywhere from one to three weeks after the initial injury.

The only treatment for a sequestrum is to surgically remove the dead bone fragment. Although Purcell assured me that the procedure is fairly straightforward and usually successful, we both hoped to avoid this complication.

Full recovery
Cloud was unhappy the next day, Tuesday. He’s not accustomed to confinement, and he paced in his stall all day. I gave him all the good-quality hay he wanted, but I could see that he was already losing weight.

Purcell came back on Wednesday to change the bandage. She had offered to show me how to do it myself, but I was too afraid I’d miss something, or wrap him too loosely or too tightly. The visit went smoothly, and Purcell told me I could begin hand-walking Cloud twice a day, which would help him cope with stall confinement.

She returned again late the next day and was pleased when she removed the bandage---the abrasions were healing nicely. She rewrapped both hind legs with plain standing wraps and turned Cloud loose in the ring for the first time since his accident. He cantered and bucked and had a great time. He was still noticeably lame at the trot, but Purcell said that was not surprising. He was probably still sore.

It was now up to me to take on cleaning, medicating and rewrapping Cloud’s leg every day. His wounds continued to heal well, and he was getting sounder, although I worried he was getting depressed because he couldn’t yet join his herdmates.

Purcell returned for a follow-up check when Cloud’s injury was two weeks old. The skin was nearly healed, but he had developed a two-inch horizontal crack on the outside of his injured hoof. Purcell explained that a cut on the coronary band probably disrupted the hoof growth in that area for a short time. She told us to keep an eye on the crack, but she suspected it would grow out of his hoof without causing any real troubles.

Cloud was still slightly “off,” but Purcell suggested I start light riding so he could stretch and strengthen his sore muscles. That Saturday and Sunday, I got on Cloud bareback and ambled quietly around the ring. On Monday, I trotted him under saddle, and he was sound.

We still had a few anxious weeks ahead of us, waiting for the dreaded sequestrum to appear, but Cloud continued to stay sound. Our farrier kept a close eye on the hoof crack, but it required no special treatment as it progressed down his hoof over the
following months.

Three years later, the only tangible reminder of that terrifying day is a single, very small scar midway down Cloud’s back leg. But we cannot forget what could have happened: If Cloud had slipped and fallen while trapped, his leg could have snapped, or he could have dislocated joints, torn ligaments or stripped flesh down to the bone.

We were very lucky, and for that we remain grateful.

Why did Cloud attack Britches? We’ll never know. But one thing is for sure: I’ll never again make the mistake of putting two horses in the same stall, no matter how friendly they are.

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue #427.

Recently, a friend told me she was having trouble finding a trainer to start her 9-year-old horse under saddle. One refused to take on the horse without giving any reason, then another told her that horses were no longer trainable after they turned 9. This surprised us both: Neither of us considers a 9-year-old horse to be “old.”

I am well aware of the prejudice against training older horses who’ve never been ridden or those still considered “green.” However, as founder and president of Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society in Waco, Texas, I have had the opportunity to work with such horses, and I can assure you that there’s no particular age at which it’s too late to start a horse. They’re all individuals---some young horses can be quite a handful, while some older ones settle right into their new jobs.

In fact, I’ve found that most older horses are more than capable of learning new skills or unlearning bad habits. Plus, they offer some important advantages that younger horses do not:

• Unless they were abused or totally neglected, older horses---even the untrained ones---often have a “been there, done that” attitude that enables them to stay calm in new situations. They’ve seen more of the world than younger horses have, and this, in many cases, allows your training to progress much more quickly.

• The personality of an older horse is already defined, so you know what you have to work with. However, this does mean that you need to carefully evaluate the personality of an older horse before committing to him, because he’s not likely to change. For
instance, work and experience may help eliminate spookiness, but an older horse who is more reactive and hotter than others will probably stay that way.

• Older horses have reached their full height, and any conformation problems will have shown up already. You won’t be left guessing what they’ll look like when they’re done maturing.

• The mental maturity of an older horse gives him a longer attention span. He’ll retain more from longer, more in-depth training sessions than a younger horse would.

• In most parts of the country you can probably acquire an untrained older horse for free or nearly nothing. Once you’ve invested your time in training, you may end up with a much nicer horse than you could normally afford.

Also remember that, thanks to improved nutrition and veterinary care, a horse in his late teens or 20s these days can still be in great physical shape. Riders who don’t mind putting in a little effort can often get a nice horse that they can enjoy for many years, for very little money.

Considering all of this, I would encourage anyone with time and training experience to take a chance on a slightly older horse, even if that horse has no or very limited experience under saddle. There are, however, a few things to keep in mind. First, make sure that your horse will be physically capable of participating in your chosen discipline (see “Health Check,” page 64). Then, consider whether you have the time, patience and experience you’ll need for the type of older horse you’re considering: There’s a huge difference between an older horse who has never been handled, one who has been handled badly, and one who has been handled well. Although I believe that any horse can be trained, some will take longer than others.

To help illustrate the challenges and rewards of working with older green horses, here are a few examples of some I’ve met who have gotten fresh starts later in life.

Jericho: Overcoming poor handling
Jericho was about 15 and still a stallion when he was discovered wandering back county roads. We can’t say for sure that he was abused, but it was clear that whatever handling he’d had wasn’t consistent. He had learned to get his way by pinning his ears and snapping. After he was gelded, his foster caretakers had to act as if he’d never been trained at all to relay a foundation of respect, working hard to establish good manners on the ground and to teach him that biting isn’t acceptable. Because he was so set in his ways, it took many, often trying, weeks to work through his bad habits. But once he was behaving better in hand,a trainer was able to begin preparing him for work under saddle. Jericho is ridable, and because of that it will be easier to find him a stable home, but he’s probably always going to be a handful, so he’ll need to be placed with experienced handlers.

The difficulty you’ll have training an older horse depends in large part on the handling he has previously received. Three types of handling in particular may increase the training challenge.

• Harsh discipline--immediate, forceful punishment for any misbehavior---may not necessarily be abusive, but it can produce a timid horse who is scared of making mistakes. He may be constantly waiting for you to come down hard on him, and it can take months of consistent, kind handling before he begins to trust you. This type of horse often benefits from a lot of handling on the ground before he’s started under saddle. You still need to discipline misbehavior, but you also need to give the horse a chance to do well and reward him promptly when he does the right thing.

• Inconsistent handling often results in a spoiled horse who doesn’t know how to behave. Although these horses were sometimes disciplined for poor behavior, at other times they were allowed to have their own way without consequences. These horses will try your patience with repeated attempts to test their limits. They benefit from consistent handling during groundwork to teach them that misbehavior is always disciplined but that good behavior is also rewarded.

• Abused horses are the hardest to train. Fortunately, outright abuse, where the horse has been repeatedly beaten or even tortured, is very rare. Some horses fight to save themselves in the face of abuse, and it can be hard to stop fighting. They’re the ones who become dangerous to handle: Their immediate first reaction to anything they don’t like is to kick, strike or bite. If you find yourself with a horse like this on your hands, seek professional help. It takes a lot of consistent and careful handling to help these horses overcome their past, and they can be dangerous until they learn to trust humans again. Occasionally, a horse like this has been so traumatized that he can never recover.

Other horses react to abuse by shutting down emotionally and not responding to anything. They simply stand and take whatever their abuser dishes out. One effective approach is to simply spend time near these horses without handling them, and then to work with them consistently on the ground. The length and degree of the abuse these horses endured will affect how long it takes them to begin trusting you.

Windy: An adorable blank slate
Windy, a pinto pony---probably about 10 years old---was halter broke when she arrived at our rescue, but it was clear that that was about the extent of her training. She was spoiled and pushy, and she had most likely always gotten away with her bad behavior because she was so cute and little.

Our trainer spent several sessions just teaching her ground manners, but once Windy got those down, her training went quickly. Because she had seen more of the world, she was quieter and more settled than a younger horse would have been, and she adapted quickly to work under saddle. It didn’t take many months before Windy was ready to be placed with a family, and today she’s being ridden, doted upon and loved by small children.

Mature horses with little or no prior handling can be a challenge and take quite a while to train. The tougher cases are the mustangs or other feral horses who have never seen people before. They need to be accustomed to human handling before you can begin any real training, and the longer a horse has lived on his own, the harder it will be to gentle him. His sense of self-preservation grows each year, and he is going to be likely to flee anything he deems scary.

That said, feral horses can be gentled at an older age, but I find that they often remain highly reactive for the rest of their lives, even if they’re successfully trained to ride. In the beginning, these horses are more likely to try to jump or run through a fence to get away from you. You need to keep them in an enclosure with a stout fence that’s at least six feet high and made of horse-safe panels attached to wooden posts, woven wire hung on posts, or strong boards.

Horses who have been kept around people, just never handled, can still be a challenge, but they’re far easier to train than truly feral ones. You don’t have to worry about introducing them to the sight of people before you can start working with them. However, it’s still a good idea to keep them confined to a smaller pen with six-foot fencing because they can be prone to trying to flee when you begin to put pressure on them.

Halter breaking is the first step with a horse like this before you proceed to other groundwork, and this can take much longer than it does with a younger horse. But once they’ve accepted a halter, their under-saddle training tends to advance pretty quickly.

One advantage of working with an older green horse is that you don’t have to worry about overcoming someone else’s training mistakes. He’s a blank slate, as it were, for you to make your mark on.

Hermes: Building on a solid foundation
Hermes was a neglect case. When we picked him up, the 13- to 15-year-old stallion was emaciated and needed time to recover his health, but it was obvious he had been well handled at one point in his life. He led, stood tied and knew how to longe. He behaved himself around other horses and respected his handler’s personal space. Once Hermes gained weight and was gelded, I started working with him. Because he had such a good foundation, his retraining went quickly. I taught him to carry a saddle and bridle in no time. He went to a trainer for a few weeks, and everyone who met him was amazed at his progress. But the training he had years before was so good, it only needed to be uncovered for him to excel. Hermes was quickly adopted by a family as a show horse for their daughters.

Older horses who have had positive prior experiences are the easiest ones to train, even if they haven’t been ridden or worked with in years. Since they haven’t been mishandled, there are no bad habits or associations to overcome. They’re used to people and know what to expect from them and are generally trusting. Chances are, they’re already used to the routines of domestic life: farrier visits, veterinary exams, being caught and haltered, etc.

As long as this type of horse is physically capable, you can begin working with them right away. These horses often progress quickly through the groundwork stages: learning (or relearning) to longe, carry a saddle and carry a bridle fairly quickly.
Many older horses who were handled well previously also take to a rider without much fuss. They are a delight to work with.

There is a potential pitfall to these easygoing older guys, however. They can lull you into a sense of complacency. You’ll never want to forget that this is still a green and inexperienced horse. He may still become frightened, confused or spook. It’s only fair to give him the same level of understanding when he makes a mistake that you’d give a 4-year-old. Similarly, it can be easy to push these horses too fast. Remember that’s he’s still learning skills, even if he seems to be picking them up very fast. Don’t cut corners or skip steps in his training or you may end up with a resistant, cranky horse despite his great foundation.

Ask your friends if they’d be interested in a 10-year-old green-broke horse and you’re likely to be met with a few suspiciously raised eyebrows. It’s a natural reaction to assume something must be very wrong with a horse who makes it so far in life without more than just basic training. But the harsh reality is many older horses weren’t lucky enough to have a complete or quality education in their younger years.

This doesn’t mean they can never be useful mounts. In fact, many turn out to be terrific. If you think you have the resources and patience to take on an older green horse, I’d encourage you to, creating your own success story to share.

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue #427.

Just like people, horses can be far- or nearsighted. © EQUUS

Q: I’ve read that horses can be near- or farsighted. Given how important good eyesight is for social interactions and performance in some sports, do horses ever receive corrective vision surgery? Many people with poor eyesight are treated with laser eye surgery; is that possible for horses? Or do those with poor eyesight simply compensate with their other senses?

A: Horses, like people, can suffer from a variety of optical aberrations that affect visual acuity. The common eye problems you allude to that can affect the eyes of both people and horses are refractive errors, such as nearsightedness (myopia) and farsightedness (presbyopia), and astigmatism, which affects the eye’s ability to focus. A veterinary ophthalmologist can perform retinoscopy to assess a horse for abnormal vision.

Fortunately, most studies report the majority of equine eyes are nearly normal in function. A horse with normal vision (emmetropia) can see almost 360 degrees around with just two small blind spots: The first begins at the forehead and comes to a conelike point about three feet in front of his body. The other is right behind his head, reaching over his back and directly behind his tail.

When refractive errors occur, images are not focused properly on the retina, the light-sensitive tissue in the back of the eye’s interior that transmits signals through the optic nerves to the brain. Other significant factors that can affect a horse’s vision include infectious and noninfectious corneal disease, uveitis and cataracts. These diseases can be treated successfully medically and/or surgically, but scarring and inflammatory changes can result in permanent refractive errors.

So, in answer to your question, yes, horses can have refractive errors and abnormal vision just like people, but as a matter of anatomical and other considerations, LASIK surgery and corrective eyewear are not practical for use in the horse. In general, many horses can adapt and compensate

quite well with visual adversities and are able to lead normal lives, so we rarely intervene with corrective measures. An exception might be following cataract surgery, when an artificial or intraocular lens is placed in the lens capsule to improve the patient’s refraction.

Early detection and intervention increases the chances of successful treatment of eye diseases that could result in refractive errors, so have your veterinarian address any suspected eye problems promptly.

Brendan G. Mangan, DVM, MS, DACVO
University of Florida
College of Veterinary Medicine
Gainesville, Florida

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue #426.

Moving closer I spotted a swelling on his chest, in front of his left shoulder. I stepped through the gate and ran my hand over the protuberance: It was firm but not hot, and it covered his left front chest and extended down between his front legs.

“What happened, Wes?” I asked, rubbing the star on his forehead. “You get kicked?”

Wesley is pastured with two other geldings, and these boys do get rowdy. My horse Zeke had once been kicked in the chest, and the injury had produced a hematoma, a blood-filled swelling, the size of a grapefruit. That must be it, a hematoma, I thought.

I slipped the halter over Wesley’s head, and we headed toward the barn. He was moving sluggishly, reluctant to bear much weight on his left front leg.

My brow furrowed. This could be more than a hematoma. Was it a shoulder fracture? A tumor? I’d lost my first mustang to an aggressive sinus cancer, and I am forever fearful of seeing equine cancer again. Taking a deep breath, I reassured myself that it was probably not cancer and Wesley would be OK. I stroked his neck and encouraged him to come along.

I put Wesley in a stall with hay and water and gave him two grams of phenylbutazone (bute), which I stock for my arthritic horse, to control his pain. In the meantime, my husband hitched up the trailer so we’d be ready to take Wesley to our local veterinary clinic first thing in the morning.

Wesley’s swelling looked about the same the next day, and he had trouble climbing into the trailer because his shoulder and leg made the step up painful. But he’s a good horse, and once he was loaded, we drove to see Steve Shideler, DVM.

Not so simple
“That looks like an injury. Could be a hematoma,” Shideler said as Wesley backed off the trailer. Walking slowly to accommodate Wesley’s pain, we led him to the treatment area.

The veterinarian palpated the swelling, then he cleaned the center of the mound and inserted an 18-gauge needle to see if he could aspirate (draw out) any fluid. Nothing. Shideler said Wesley had probably experienced some trauma. He administered a dose of penicillin in case some infection was present and prescribed daily warm compresses and continuing the bute as needed, but he said he would expect the swelling to go down over time as the injury healed. Relieved, we loaded Wesley and returned home.

Alone in a paddock, Wesley stood quietly for the application of warm compresses. He’s a mild-mannered horse, and he appreciated the attention and the head rubs. We gave him two grams of bute for three days and then tapered him off of it by day five. Bute can cause gastric ulcers, so I didn’t want to keep him on it too long.

But once the bute was stopped, Wesley’s pain seemed to increase. And, instead of shrinking as we expected, the swelling on his chest grew bigger. Now his head bobbed when he walked, a telltale sign of how painful weight-bearing had become. I put him back on the bute.

The Monday after Thanksgiving, I called Shideler to report that Wesley wasn’t feeling better and the swelling was getting worse. We discussed alternative diagnoses. The possibility of cancer came into the conversation; my heart sank. Shideler recommended taking Wesley to the university clinic, where a specialist could ultrasound the swollen area to get a better idea what lurked beneath that ballooning skin.

A different diagnosis
Worried, I emailed a photo of Wesley to Alison Eddy, DVM, at Mississippi State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine; she’s treated our other horses before. Eddy replied that, although she couldn’t diagnose the problem without examining the horse, she thought the swelling looked like pigeon fever---an infection that causes large pus-filled abscesses under the skin. Also called dryland distemper or false strangles, pigeon fever gets its name because the swellings, which often appear on the front of a horse’s chest, mimic the bulging profile of a pigeon’s breast.

She explained that pigeon fever is caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis and is more common in arid regions of southern California and the Southwest. However, she added, they’d been seeing more of this infection in Mississippi this year than they had in the past. Eddy assured me that pigeon fever isn’t usually life threatening, but it does require treatment. I made an appointment at the university for the next morning.

With Eddy’s permission, I gave Wesley two grams of bute one hour before loading to help reduce his pain, and he gamely climbed back onto the trailer. Eddy and the other equine veterinarians were waiting and ready to examine Wesley as soon as we arrived at the hospital. All his vital signs were normal---no fever---and he was bright and alert. His only sign of trouble was the classic hallmark of pigeon fever: pectoral swelling and pain from that king-size abscess. All of this pointed toward that diagnosis---most horses with pigeon fever eat well and have no fever. Eddy told us that an ultrasound of the swelling, to look for the pus pocket, would help confirm their diagnosis.

The swelling was shaved for the ultrasound, and Wesley’s dark-tipped ears flicked forward momentarily with concern as the equipment was wheeled toward him. He stepped back, but after being allowed to sniff the apparatus, he sighed and settled.

A hypoechoic area--one that is dark on the monitor, because it isn’t solid like normal tissue--was found two centimeters (almost one inch) below the skin. This was the abscess. The good news was that draining the pus would start Wesley on the road to recovery. But there was some bad news, too: The abscess didn’t appear to be well encapsulated; that is, it was ill defined and spread out somewhat. If it were opened, the pus might not drain completely, and the abscess would only return. If instead the abscess was left to mature, or “ripen,” the body would wall off the infection into a distinct area that would drain more readily. They couldn’t fix my horse that day.

Eddy estimated Wesley’s abscess might be ready to open in two or three days. Because draining an abscess is a routine veterinary procedure, we had the option of taking our horse home and letting Shideler take care of it when the time came. However, Shideler was heading out of town, so we chose to leave Wesley at the clinic, where he could be monitored until the abscess was ready for lancing.

Crash course
I knew nothing of pigeon fever, so Eddy took a few minutes to explain it to me. Caused when C. pseudotuberculosis enters cuts or wounds as small as fly bites, pigeon fever can take three forms. About 90 percent of the time, the disease causes abscesses, most often on the chest but sometimes under the belly or in other areas, usually near the lymph nodes. In a second type of pigeon fever, the bacterium is carried to the liver, lungs, kidneys or other organs and internal abscesses form; these cases are more likely to be fatal. A third type, called ulcerative lymphangitis, affects the lymphatic system on the lower legs and is much more serious and slower to heal. This type is extremely rare in the United States.

I gave thanks Wesley had the most common and treatable form of pigeon fever. But I wondered how my horse had contracted this infection. Eddy said that C. pseudotuberculosis resides in the soil, and it thrives in arid or droughty conditions. The bacteria enter the skin either directly, when a horse with a cut or abrasion lies down, or indirectly, when he is bitten by a fly carrying
the pathogen.

The disease is common in California and the Southwest because the bacteria flourish in the hot, dry climate. Eddy commented that Mississippi had seen an increase in cases over the past two years. Most of the South has been parched from reduced rainfall those years, and large swaths of the Midwest have been experiencing droughts; in fact, the whole country has seen warmer temperatures. These conditions have enabled pigeon fever infections to sweep eastward and northward in recent years, and veterinarians who had never seen a case in their careers are now treating horses with the illness.

We left Wesley munching horse treats offered to him by the staff. Eddy called me the following evening. The overstretched skin covering Wesley’s voluminous abscess was threatening to split. The veterinarians now believed the lesion was mature enough to make the procedure successful. I gave the go-ahead.

Well-mannered Wesley required no sedation, only the local injection of anesthetic (Carbocaine) to numb the area. Eddy told me that while the process of draining a pigeon fever abscess may be relatively straightforward, it is an extraordinarily messy spectacle. After piercing Wesley’s skin where it was stretched so tight an exudate was beginning to ooze, the veterinarians had guided a 14-gauge catheter into the abscess until pus was aspirated. With the abscess location confirmed, a scalpel was guided alongside the catheter to drain the abscess.

Copious amounts of tan, odorless exudate spilled from the opening; this characteristic appearance of the pus helped confirm the diagnosis of pigeon fever. Because the abscess wasn’t quite fully encapsulated, the veterinarians made a second incision to open another pocket of infection. Wesley fared well during the procedure, and with the wounds left open, he was ready for discharge.

Healing at home
I had to work the next day, so my husband picked up Wesley and received our discharge wound-care instructions. Because the drainage from his wounds might be able to infect other horses, we were advised to isolate Wesley until all the exudates appeared to have exited and the swelling had diminished. Some experts even recommend burning all bedding or hauling it to a landfill, then bleaching all hard surfaces in the stall and any tack that’s come in contact with the horse.

More recent evidence and expert opinion suggest that isolation of a horse with pigeon fever and disinfection of equipment may not be necessary. However, we decided it was just good hygiene to keep this horse with a draining wound away from the others. We also wore disposable exam gloves to treat him and washed our hands after touching him.

Wesley’s daily wound care involved inserting a soft rubber catheter into the open cavities and flushing the pockets with a saline solution. Eddy told us how to make our own saline, using distilled water and table salt. She also advised us to coat Wesley’s chest area below the wounds with petroleum jelly to help protect his skin from the oozing exudate.

Ever the stoic gentleman, Wesley tolerated the treatments well. In less than two weeks, his wounds healed, the swelling resolved and he was released to return to his herd and his duties as a riding horse. We did elect to disinfect his halter and the stall, and I washed the saddle pad

I’d been using on him, too.

Pigeon fever has been around for a long time in the Southwest, yet I’d never heard of it happening here. However, cases have been on the increase in Texas and the South, and the disease has appeared as far east as Florida and Kentucky. The hot, droughty summers we’ve seen in recent years could make the infection more common in states where it had never been before. I hope that my experiences help you recognize the signs of pigeon fever sooner should the infection appear in your area. Finally, Wesley and I are off for that ride.

For more information, see “On Watch for Pigeon Fever” (EQUUS 368).

This article first appeared in EQUUS issue #426.

When teaching your horse to walk through water, it's generally safer to be on his back than on the ground. Photo © EQUUS

Q: My 19-year-old Thoroughbred is very quiet and well trained, except when it comes to water. It is nearly impossible to get him to cross it, mounted or from the ground. I have tried practicing over

small puddles, but he just backs up and refuses to go across. I need some help before entering any cross-country shows.

A: Some horses take to water easily while others have a deep-seated fear of crossing even the smallest puddles. In nature, a strong suspicion of bogs and rivers is a good survival trait.

The good news is that with proper training and repetition, most horses can learn to cross water confidently and even enjoy it. However, it can take a significant amount of time and inconvenience to school them repeatedly in the right circumstances.

The first thing to do is to find or create a suitable water crossing to school your horse through. It needs to be shallow with good, solid footing because a deep or mucky bottom is scarier to most horses. Never ask your horse to enter any water unless you have thoroughly checked out the bottom. You also want the water to be wide enough to encourage your horse to walk through rather than jump over it. Smaller puddles are not ideal unless they are very wide because a horse can avoid them too easily by going sideways. Also, small puddles seem to be inherently spooky. I have known many a brave, advanced-level event horse who would jump huge fences into water on a cross-country course but who balked at walking through a puddle!

Next, you need a companion horse who will march confidently through water. Stand back and watch while a friend rides the other horse through and then, while mounted, follow with your horse. If he is still unwilling to go in, ask your friend to ride back and forth slowly through the water and let your horse take his time and watch. With patience and persistence, he should develop the courage to follow.

Once your horse decides to enter the water, follow the other horse back and forth through it, dozens of times, until he becomes more confident. Ideally, you’d do this on a warm day so that when he finally gets wet, it feels good. If he will relax enough to paw and splash, let him enjoy it. Watch that he doesn’t roll, though!

You need to repeat this lesson almost daily, always with a leader, until your horse will enter the water without hesitation. Only then can you graduate to taking him in alone. The next step is to get him to try as many different water crossings as possible, first with a lead horse then eventually on his own. Once he can do that, you ought to be able to negotiate water that he has not seen before.

As I stated above, this training process can be time consuming, especially if you do not have suitable water crossings to practice with close to home. But the results are worth it because with this system most horses will gradually become confident enough to cross water willingly.

You mentioned attempting to hand walk your horse through the water. Although this approach will sometimes work, it is risky and requires great caution. Often, once a horse decides to enter the water he will leap, and it is very easy for him to inadvertently jump on you. When you are encouraging a nervous horse to enter water, you are generally safer on his back than in front of him on the ground.

Phyllis Dawson
Eventing trainer and rider
Hillsboro, Virginia