Never buy a lame horse or a coughing horse!

Brian Sheahan. B.V.Sc. M.A.C.V.Sc.

This advice was given to me as a student at vet school, not from the text books but from a person who had trained horses all his life. Sound advice then and reinforced every day throughout my veterinary career. I have added an extra line to the phrase so that it now reads: -

Never buy a lame or coughing horse,
Never ride a lame or coughing horse.

Riding a lame horse is not only cruel to the horse but exacerbates that which is causing the lameness. A minor lameness at one ride becomes ever so slightly more serious the more miles the horse does in training and competition. A strained ligament at the site of the pastern joint slowly and inevitable develops into a callus that finally develops into ringbone. A small navicular lesion
becomes permanent navicular disease. A suspensory ligament tear at the site of
attachment on the sesamoid bones on the back of the fetlock becomes chronic suspensory disease, sesamoiditis, fracture of the sesamoid and fetlock joint disease. The list goes on and on. This is the reason why the slightly but consistently lame horse should be examined as soon as possible for a diagnosis, treatment and rest until recovered.

The coughing horse is no different. Very few horses in exercise will cough. Occasionally, some horses will cough at the start of exercise but will then continue on in work with no further coughing. A horse that coughs regularly at rest or in light or heavy exercise has airway disease.

Airway disease may be mild at the start but with continued work, like the developing ringbone, will destroy lung tissue, suppress lung immune defenses, exacerbate airway inflammation - all resulting in a broken winded horse.
Coughs in horses are caused by any number of disease processes. Viruses, bacteria, allergies and foreign bodies which all cause inflammation of the respiratory tract. Inflammation leads to thick, tenacious fluid production in both the upper and lower airways. Fluid leads to blockage of the lower airways which in turn leads to poor oxygen transfer and ultimately poor performance. When you ride a coughing horse you will be causing irreparable damage. Viruses and bacteria, in addition to causing fluid production, invade the body causing ill health.

However, what you do to your own horse is your business. Lameness will certainly affect your horse's performance but it is not contagious. The cause of your horse's cough, in most cases, is infectious and contagious to other horses. So when you ride your coughing horse at a ride you are guilty of two evils -placing your own horse's health at risk as well as everyone else's.

Contagious diseases that lead to coughing include strangles, herpes virus and adenovirus. Complications from these diseases include pneumonia, pleurisy, lung abscesses, purpura haemhorragica, pulmonary heamhorrage and heaves. Endurance horses, due to long distance travel, are also susceptible to shipping fever. Signs of contagious diseases include high temperature, nasal discharge, cough and leg oedema which spreads rapidly from horse to horse.

If your horse has a cough, get it examined by a Veterinarian, in particular using an endoscope to fully examine the entire respiratory tract. Treat the cough immediately and leave the horse in the paddock until it no longer coughs.

Endurance Veterinarians are exercising due care for the horse and the sport by eliminating coughing horses at the preliminary examination.

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