my friends mare has just been diagnosed. shes about 12 I think. I hpe to have her one day does anyone know more about them, the future for a horse with one. its only just been noticed. her type is called atrial insufficiency. it happens in diastole when the heart is relaxing after the blood goes out. one of her valves is leaking and some of the blood is going back into the heart its a 4 on a scale of 0 to 6
the vets says its fine for her to continue as normal. shes used for schooling, hacking, SJ and dressage up to elimentary and 3ft 6 and cross country just for fun She was my share horse and i fell in love with her and just had to have an arab. her owner who ive kept in touch with is moving to the US when she finishes her degree and weve discussed a full loan
There was an excellent article in H & H very recently about heart murmurs. Would be worth trying to get a copy. Recent research has shown murmurs generally don't cause a problem and the degree doesn't necessarily mean it is any more of a problem. A great percentage of TB racehorses have murmurs and they used to think that it may affect their performance to a degree but recent tests have shown this not to be the case and horses with heart murmurs very rarely die of heart attacks. I have a young horse with a murmur. Had her scanned last year to find it was a leaking valve scale 3 but it hasn't affected her in any way up to now and the Vet who scanned her doubted it ever would but advised me to have her scanned again in a year or so particularly if I want to work her hard.
I don't know much about them, but I do know my vet said they are far more common than people think (a friend's horse was diagnosed) and there will be a fair few horses out there whose owners have no idea they have one, so I wouldn't panic too much. Good luck with her, x
Gedenski has a heart murmur - sorry forgotten it's name so I don't know if it's the same type as your mare's. But just to show a heart murmur isn't necessarily a hindrance Ged competed top level endurance for many years, completing and winning many 100 milers and at 21 is still going strong.
heart murmur 4
England
Posted - 08 Jun 2009 : 9:00:27 PM
