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“The best way to help a cast horse, I believe, is to soothe him initially, sedate him if you have to, and keep him calm while you make efforts to help him get himself up…”


of people,” she explains. “But you sometimes have to maneu- ver them to be able to roll them. It’s more of a ‘follow your nose’ type of thing—do whatever is appropriate so they can get their legs underneath them, and the easiest way is to roll them to the other side.” Sometimes changing a horse’s position can be helpful


even if they’re not stuck in a stall. “It worked once for an old neurological horse I was called out to euthanize because she had laid down in the paddock and couldn’t get up,” the vet continues. “I simply rolled her over and she got up (to the surprise of her owners), then lived another couple of years happily!” Horseman, journalist (and Pilates instructor) Robby John-


son of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, recalls that he has only seen two horses cast in his lifetime, and one of them could have had a tragic ending. “The first was in my backyard barn in coastal Alabama when I was probably ten,” he explains. “The ground is very sandy and soft there, and the floor of the barn and aisle were dirt. As such, the dirt gave way beneath the bottom board of the stall front into the aisle so the horse’s leg was beneath the board to about mid-cannon. He was a quiet older horse and I stayed at his head and neck to keep him calm, while my dad and neighbor quickly re- moved the stall front, after which he stood up and returned to dinner, no worse for the wear.” In the second instance, Robby says, things were more


straightforward, with a group effort required. “It was in a boarding barn, probably 15 years ago. It was around 8 p.m. and a few people were still around, including the barn man- ager. We looped a rope under his top hind legs, then two people held the rope at either end while a third put a halter on him. The rope holders applied gentle pressure to their rope while the head person encouraged the horse to stand up. The feedback from the rope gave him some biofeedback and he was able to stand right up,” he explains. “It was rather amazing and I’m not sure I could replicate it exactly.” His awareness of body and energy gives Robby a unique


perspective. “We may have looped a fetlock, now that I think about it,” he adds. “I just remember that lifting the leg gave the feedback the horse needed to get up, which is not surprising, actually. I use a lot of biofeedback as a Pilates instructor.” British-based Canadian three-day event rider Mike Win-


ter suggests tying a lunge line around both hind pasterns and pulling the horse over. He encourages the use of lunge lines instead of lead ropes, for safety reasons. “You can loop the line around the front leg, but the hind pulls them away from wall,” he advises. “Just don’t get kicked!! If the horse has a halter on, it helps to have a lunge line to that as well. I like lunge lines because you can pull from outside the stall, which is much safer as the horse scrambles to get up.” “The best way to help a cast horse, I believe, is to soothe him initially, sedate him if you have to, and keep him calm


Warmbloods Today 33


while you make efforts to help him get himself up,” Rose Sulli- van advises. “Do your best to minimize thrashing and panic.” If your horse becomes cast and you are able to get him back on his feet, be sure to examine him carefully. If he doesn’t seem quite right after the incident, call your veteri- narian immediately.


CAUTION COUNTS Many of us frequently joke about the need to wrap our valu- able show horses in bubble wrap to protect them from mis- haps. It’s true that horses seem to easily find ways to get themselves into difficult and often dangerous situations, no matter what their living situation is and how safe we try to make it for them. While you can—and should-- make every effort to pre-


vent your horse from getting cast, the risk always remains when stabling an animal with walls and fences whose in- stinct is to roll. Fortunately, a cast horse is a relatively rare situation—and


odds are that with a little help to get him back on his feet, your cast horse will be just fine. Still, it’s clearly a situation that requires care and skill to resolve. That’s why every horse person should have a plan for how to prevent casting and how to deal with it if it does happen.


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