(7/2019) A horse's situation in life is completely determined by his owner. It's not enough to have a kind and caring owner, but also one who is financially secure and willing to spend money on the horse after he is "no longer useful." I have had the pleasure of working with two incredibly sweet and sensitive grey Irish Sport Horses. Both were purpose bred and evented through preliminary (3'7") level. These two horses both met with good endings. They spent their last years with excellent care and when their quality of life deteriorated, I humanely euthanized them surrounded by people who loved them.

However they each had very different paths before ending up in their loving homes.

Treadmill was a very well bred Irish Sport Horse who sold for a lot of money as a youngster. He then went on to have a successful career as an event horse. While I don't know too many other details about his life, I do know that he ended up at New Holland auction and was being purchased at slaughter prices. Luckily it was not the meat man, but instead a draft horse rescue that bought him and brought him to his new home.

It was at the rescue that I met him and they were able to trace back and look up his bloodlines and competition record. He was far from looking like an expensive competition horse when I saw him. He was underweight, lame, and had multiple melanomas all over his body including several large ones around his rectum. I sadly explained to the rescue that his lameness was due to ringbone and would be permanent. The melanomas were likely to cause an obstruction and he'd eventually need to be put down.

Fortunately the rescue saw the lameness when he was in the auction ring and had simply bought him so he wouldn't go to slaughter. They had no intentions of riding him and just wanted to give him a kind and caring home until he was no longer comfortable.

Treadmill was started on high quality feed, given an anti-inflammatory for the ringbone and an H2 receptor antagonist to slow the growth of the melanomas. He gained weight and while he was never 100% sound, he was sound enough to take the volunteers for an occasional trail ride around the farm.

Treadmill was a favorite with the more timid riders because he was slow and steady and had a very kind disposition. He was loved by many volunteers and lived happily for over a year before the melanomas caused him to colic and the decision was made to euthanize him.

The second grey Irish Sport Horse also evented through preliminary although not very successfully. He started refusing to jump for his owner and she decided to sell him. She did not sell him at auction but instead sold him privately. Herbie had a sweet and kind nature but you could tell that someone had roughly handled him. He was nervous over fences and acted like he'd been spurred into jumping from long spots when his preference was to get close to the jump to jump over it. Even after his jumping style was figured out, he was only evented at low levels for a short time before it became obvious that he had a breathing problem.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is similar to human asthma. Certain things can trigger episodes and the horse will go into respiratory distress. While there are medications to treat this, it is best to try and avoid the things that trigger episodes. In Herbie's case, the dust and mold on hay was one of the main triggers. Even hay that looked and smelled like it was excellent quality could trigger an episode.

As anyone can imagine it is very difficult to manage a horse that can't eat hay. At the time there weren't a lot of commercially available hay steamers like there are now. There was commercially available bagged hay that had been treated to remove dust and mold spores. Herbie lived on that and high quality grain. He also received nebulizer treatments and oral medications whenever he would have a flare up. In spite of that, his jumping days were over. However, he was not sold and instead took up a career as a dressage horse. He thrived in dressage. While dressage is usually dominated by warmbloods, Herbie was very skilled and could hold his own in competition even against the flashy moving warmbloods.

There is no rule that says horses can only get one disease. Just as Herbie's respiratory issues were being well controlled and he was competing successfully in the dressage world, he developed navicular disease. This was managed with joint injections and he continued to compete in the dressage arena for another few years. He slowly started showing his age and was eventually retired from the dressage arena too. Again, even though he was "broken", he was not sold. He was lightly used as a trail horse and when he was no longer sound enough to go out on the trails, he was retired but still well cared for in the field for over 6 more years.

As most older horses do, he developed Cushings disease and arthritis. Fortunately for him he belonged to owners that could not only afford to keep a retired horse, they could also afford the medications and special feed that Herbie required. Even with the medications, Herbie eventually became too lame to be comfortable walking around in the field and his run in stall, and was humanely euthanized.

Luckily both of these horse came to good ends with kind and loving homes. When buying a young horse it is easy to envision all the fun one can have riding and competing. However, when acquiring a horse it is equally important to ask yourself if you can afford to take care of them when they get old and sick. It's not just the vet bills that add up but the farrier, and daily cost of feeding or horse boarding.

Horses can live for many years after they can no longer be ridden. Rescues are frequently at maximum capacity and can't take every unwanted horse. It is important to have a retirement plan for your horse so that he doesn't end up being starved in an overgrazed field or at risk of being bought by the meat man at an auction.