Dead horse

[AZAggie]

I wasn't sure what forum to post this on, but I had a crazy thing happen last week. My parents had called out a farrier to trim the hooves on a horse at their house last week. They are on vacation so I told the guy to call me and I would meet him over at the house. Sunday afternoon he called and I ran over and got the old girl penned up. The farrier showed up and we got a halter on her and he moved her to the driveway next to his truck where his tools were located. I went inside and looked for a better lead rope. When I got outside, the farrier had trimmed 2 hooves already and was working on the third. I spoke to him for a minute and patted Ms. Cocoa on the nose. She was calm and seemed perfectly fine at this point. I took about 8 or 10 steps away from her to go look in another shed for a better lead rope and I heard her move on the driveway. When I turned around, she was standing straight up on her hind legs with her front feet up in the air. She did a pirouette and fell over backwards right next to me and was dead when she hit the ground. She never took another breath and had that far off stare in her eye. She never made another sound. Quite a bit of blood then started running out of her nose and mouth. I'm guessing she had a massive heart attack????

The farrier was freaked out. He said he's been doing that stuff for 40+ years and never had anything even close to that happen. He told me he had turned his back on her for a second to grab something out of his truck. He heard her too and turned and she had sat down on her butt and then stood straight up, which is when I turned around to see her.

 

[SmokinM]

Could have been , also could have been an aneurism or something along those lines. Flipping straight over like that they can break their neck but sounds like this horse had an issue before she went up. That could also have been the source of the blood. Hard to say for sure without a necropsy.

 

[wbvs58]

They can kill themselves going over backwards and coming down on back of head but this does sound like something has happened before she reared up. You described her as an old girl so am assuming she had a bit of age to her. I suspect something has burst in the brain for death to be that quick. A bit of anxiety associated with the farriers visit may have just raised the BP enough for something to burst. It gives you a bit of a fright when something like that happens for little reason.

Horses just seem to do things more dramatically than cattle.

Ken

 

[Redgully]

My mums family had race horses and one day they were heading out to the track to do some training. She was standing while they were adjusting some gear and did the same thing, she reared up and fell dead. They cut her up and found she'd had a heart attack. She was perfectly healthy and hadn't started training yet. Was a real shock as she had winnings of close to 1 million to that point. No known cause but i always wondered if she had been on some sort of juice to get her winning.

 

[Little Cow]

Do you have locoweed? You said you were looking for another lead rope, was the horse resistant to being led? Locoweed poisoning can cause neurological symptoms and they don't like pressure from the halter. If she flipped over because of the pressure, the landing could have killed her. I saw a horse with locoweed poisoning once back in Colorado when I worked for a large animal vet. I remember being very careful not to pull while leading because it made him throw his head backwards and I was afraid he would flip over. We put him down because he was so bad. Maybe another poisonous plant was consumed? A lot of them can cause neuro symptoms.