Heat Strokes

Roger · Postby **Roger** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:23 am

I've noticed that there have been several horses vanned off at Lone Star Park due to heat strokes. It seems like most of those horses are ship-ins. They seem to occur only during day time racing and that makes sense since the heat index gets very high on days with a high humidity there. My question is what would do if you had to ship in and race there during the day. I'm pretty sure all horses are getting enough salt and electrolytes as that is a given down here. It would be interesting to see a study of those horses who have had a heat stroke there. I've had one that had a heat stroke there and she got really excited before the race which was not her usual demeanor.

Outermonvolia · Postby **Outermonvolia** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:06 pm

Prior to the race I would give the horse a nice bath.

majxmom · Postby **majxmom** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:39 pm

At Pleasanton we have some hot days. They have two hoses in the saddling paddock, and people soak them down continuously. We also lighten up on the Lasix dramatically, like instead of 3cc IV and 3cc IM, we might go 1 and 1, or even a half and a half. Usually I notice that when a horse is having a heatstroke, people don't act quickly enough. When it's hot like that, the groom should bring a small bucket and sponge to the unsaddling, and have the jock squish a dripping sponge over the horse's head immediately. It's the BRAIN that needs to be cooled off. Once they flop down, people usually call the vet, there's a five minute assessment, and finally out comes the hose, and they start spraying the body instead of the head. Water on the head works best, IMHO.

Also, you have to be careful to keep spraying the horse for a long time, and scraping off the water and reapplying. Water on an overheated horse gets really hot quickly from the heat transfer, and then it actually insulates! So you have to remove the heated water with a scraper and wash again, for a long time. Flood him with water.

Laurierace · Postby **Laurierace** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 2:18 pm

Outermonvolia wrote:Prior to the race I would give the horse a nice bath.

Every horse at every race track at every level in the entire country is given a bath before the race in warm weather. Even the $1500 claimers at the fair meets.

Roger · Postby **Roger** » Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:11 pm

Laurierace wrote:
Outermonvolia wrote:Prior to the race I would give the horse a nice bath.

Every horse at every race track at every level in the entire country is given a bath before the race in warm weather. Even the $1500 claimers at the fair meets.

It really depends on the horse whether or not it gets a bath. Some horses start getting excited when their routine is changed and an afternoon bath would trigger more heat than the bath would remove. I like to keep them as quite as possible and use ice water in the saddling paddock before jocks up.