According to this study, the number of horses with some type of ulcers hovers around the 50% mark. Pretty scary stuff.
http://www.barnmice.com/group/horsejournals/forum/topics/nationwide...

I often think about how I can personally reduce the stress in my horse's life, but certainly some of the things on the list that can cause ulcers are part of his routine as a show horse and I can't eliminate them.

Does anyone else focus on reducing stress in their horse's lives? How do you do it? Does anyone here give their horses supplements (probiotics, etc.) to prevent ulcers?

The other really important part of the article that hit home with me was the part that talked about horses masking their pain.  It would be fascinating if there were a way to study what percentage of "misbehaviour" is actually a response to pain.

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Hi, Barbara:

This is a tough topic! Right now, as a trainer and coach, I am running into self-diagnosed cases of ulcers (diagnosed by owners/riders) as riders jump on every available bandwagon which delivers them from the responsibililty of poor riding and/or training. I have ulcer-prone horses in my barn, and each of them has been diagnosed anecdotally by me, as their manager, and confirmed by the vet, via endoscopy.

However, I'd like to share a shocking experience with ulcers. My Dad competes internationally as a para dressage rider, and as this requires shipping long distances and maintaining horses in less than optimal circumstances when away from home, we routinely dosed his gelding with Gastrogard when travelling. When at home, this horse lives in a quiet private barn at night, and is turned out in 7 acres of pasture with a buddy during the day. He works between 35 and 60 minutes 5 times per week, and is trail ridden as well. We had him scoped 2 years ago as a followup to his original diagnosis, and discovered unhealed ulcers after 2 months of layoff in the pasture. This was in spite of the regular use of Gastrogard when travelling/competing. As a result, we modified his management schedule to include grass/alfalfa mix hay, no concentrates whatsoever, free-choice pasture (in season), Total Equine (a vitamin/mineral supplement formulated by Shannon Dueck), and a double dose of Gastrogard daily when travelling/competing (starting 2 days prior to stress, and continuing for 2 days post-stress). That has taken care of the ulcers, but I think the message is that they are (a) much more prevalent than we think they are, and (b) harder to treat than we think they are.

I have a barn full of competition dressage horses, and they live in quiet and controlled surroundings, they are turned out on pasture for a minimum of 8 hours per day with friends, they have unlimited grass in season, and free-choice hay 24 hours per day, their concentrates are either minimal or non-existent, but I still have one mare who needs Gastrogard when travelling.

I am unconvinced of the value of prebiotics, probiotics, etc. when dealing with this issue. For the moment, my money's on good management and Gastrogard (unfortunately, that just lines Merial's pockets to a greater extent, but in their defence, they have provided the Canadian Para Team with free Gastrogard for all international team events, like the Olympics and WEG). My experience, and our equine internist's, with compounded omeprazole and rabeprozole has been unsuccessful to date. Our internist has been very specific about the best fix: hay, and as much of it as they can/will eat, both to buffer the acid and keep it moving out of the stomach and into the gut. Additionally, a belly full of roughage doesn't allow acid to slosh in the stomach, which is one of the hardest things to fight, and is one of the reasons that the prevalence of ulcers is so high in racehorses, who traditionally run empty, or nearly so.

I absolutely recommend gastroscopy for any horse suspected of having ulcers. There's nothing like a picture to convince you!

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