When the Heart of a Champion Gives Out
Often, sudden death occurs at the top levels of the sport in what appear to be the healthiest of horses—mounts that have been monitored closely and maintained with the best of care. | Photo: Photos.com

Researchers are trying to determine why healthy equine athletes suffer sudden death and if there’s a way to prevent it

It is one of the biggest mysteries in equestrian sport, and its name alone is ominous: sudden death. While cases are very rare and totally unpredictable, the effects of just one horse collapsing suddenly and dying, often in the midst of a competition with thousands of spectators, are far-reaching: Most instances, which can be very upsetting to witness, attract media attention and public scrutiny of equine welfare, and an investigation into the horse’s death can shed negative light on equestrian sports, whether deserved or not.

Often, sudden death occurs at the top levels of the sport in what appear to be the healthiest of horses—mounts that have been monitored closely and maintained with the best of care. In November 2011, the death of 2008 Olympic Individual Gold and Team Silver medal winner Hickstead, during a show jumping event in Verona, Italy, shocked witnesses while devastating all those involved with the horse, including his rider, Eric Lamaze. The 15-year-old Dutch Warmblood stallion had just finished an almost perfect course. Veterinarians later determined that he had suffered a ruptured aorta.  

Sudden death has occurred in nearly all equine sports, but the most frequent and attention-getting cases typically involve an event horse or a racehorse. Often, the media reports the cause of death as a “heart attack,” which is inaccurate. Peter Physick-Sheard, BVSc, FRCVS, associate professor at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, has a special interest in equine cardiology, and he and his colleague, Kim McGurrin, DVM, DVSc, Dipl. ACVIM, have studied sudden death in horses. Physick-Sheard explains that horses do not suffer heart attacks like humans do because they are free of serious disease of the coronary arteries

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