Ashley

To start I will give you the horses background I am asking about: 6yr Grade Geld I purchased at the sale barn I work 3 month prior. He was skinny and I had been having a hard time putting any weight on him. I had gave him his shots and wormed him to cover all kinds of worms. He came from a very large farm that trains horses for a dinner show preformance. He came in with several horses which they do often with the ones that they don't choose to keep for the show. All the others were in the same condition as he was. I fell in love with him and rode him around in the loose pen and saw he was well trained and thought I'd save him from going to slaughter and put some weight on him and find him a good home then this happened:

I left my farm one morning and most of my horses were laying down as usal. When I came home that evening I saw that this horse was still down and was clearly in distress I ran out to him and you could see he had been flaling around. I know that horses are not suppose to be down for long so I started tring to get him up my first thought being colic. I could get him up laying sternal but he would not get up then he would just kind of spasum and flop back over hard. Not a sizuire but when he was laying flat he would suddenly start moving his legs like he was running but not trying to get up. Being it was after hours I was trying to find an on call vet (of course mine who live within walking distance of me was on a cruise) we gave him some Banamine to try to help with any pain he was in. It took about an hour for a vet to get there during this time I pretty much knew he was gone with the shape he was in and just getting worse but I had gotten some warm water and he drank laying down and when he heard me throw hay to the other horses to keep them out of the way he actully whinned so I gave he some and he did eat. When the vet got there he said it was not colic, his temp was a couple degrees high, he did have a heart murmer but that wouldn't have caused this, he did have ulcers in his mouth but again wouldn't have caused this (checked the other horses who were eatting the same hay and they had no ulcers his were BAD but I wasn't riding him bc of his weight so I hadn't noticed them I feel horrible about that). He was really stumped he said his lungs sounded good that the grunting that I took for trouble breathing was actully just him being in pain. During his time being down he really mess up the eye that was on the ground and he was in so much pain that we just decided to put him down. I still cannot figure out what happened to him and it has been bothering me so much not only because I lost him but also worrying about the others who were in with him and are still in the same area. I did ask the vet if he thought is was contagious and he didn't think so but agian he didnt know what it was. I asked if he wanted to pull blood on him to test for anything before he put him down but he said he didn't know what to test for. I've also wondered about plants he had just recently been turned out to this pasture from a stall and right now there is just weeds no grass and a round bale but he tried to graze a lot. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this?

I bought a horse at a horse sale I work at about a year ago. He was very skinny and hadn't been messed with he was also really small. He is a papered quarter horse with well know parentage so I know his height was not due genes.(I have since had him DNA'd just to make sure they were his papers.) He has picked up weight nicely and has responded great to all his training! The only thing is he has never grown he is around 12.5 hands. I know he could still grow some but he will never be normal sized and that is fine because I am planning to make him into a cutting pony for my son or sell him as a cutting pony. Anyway my question is I am trying to decide on gelding him. First let me say that working at a horse sale I KNOW about over breeding and I have NO intention of breeding him! Being that my son is only 4 he is not going to be ready to do any cutting for awhile so I most likely will end up selling him. Cutting pony's are a big thing in my area and about the only thing that is worth anything. Do you think that it is most likely that his height is just do to the fact that he wasn't fed properly? If it is then he will produce normal size right? Honestly he is very well behaved for a stud and I don't mind to keep him that way but I also know when the time comes he will sell better and be safer for a kid if he is gelded if this is the case. The problem is he is picking up on cutting great and showing a lot of talent and if he could produce that in his size then someone might want him to have one or two colts out of before they cut him and I'd rather not have to pay to have him cut if I can sell him fine without it. But like I said I will not be breeding him and I also would not want to keep him a stud if he could not be bred to another small Quarter mare and it be pony size.