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  Discussion on New horse with heart murmur
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New Member:
lnichols

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 6, 2007 - 1:18 pm:

I just bought a horse for my husband to ride. I had a pre-purchase exam done on the horse and the vet was concerned that with exercise the heart rate went up and ten minutes later was still up. We could tell that the horse was not ridden regularly from the lack of saddle muscles, however, the exercise was merely being round penned at a trot for a few minutes. So we pulled blood for a CBC and the results were interpreted that he was getting over something. This was coupled with the owner confirming that the pasture horses had had some snotty noses recently. This was January in California with lots of rain recently. So I went ahead and took him home. The vet who did the pre-purchase missed the heart murmur. She did tell me that his teeth needed doing.

So when I had UC Davis out to do his teeth, of course they found a heart murmur. They send students out with a vet/instructor and of course all the students are eager to find whatever they can find so they are looking everywhere.

The heart murmur they found is localized to one area. My sheet says the PMI is over the pulmonary valve. The student wanted to grade it a 1 but the vet said a 1 was something you needed a quiet room to hear and this one could be heard in a relatively quiet barnyard so she gave it a 2. She let me listen to it and when she told me what to listen for it sounded really obvious to me. The regular lub-dub was replaced with a luuuuh-dub.

She said that something like 60% of horses over the age of 10 have heart murmurs and that this one didn't really need to worked up yet, only when he started to show signs of exercise intolerance would I need to take him in and have the echo-cardiogram done.

So in the meantime, my husband decided he didn't want to ride this horse and so I took the horse out for a trail ride the other day. I wish I had thought to put my heart monitor on him so I could see what his HR was on the hills. He has a lot of energy and I now understand why my husband was afraid to ride him. But I REALLY liked him and had a lot of fun riding him. The place where we rode has lots of steep, short uphills and downhills. He motored up those hills with no exercise intolerance at all. We did about 4 miles of that and he only started to fizzle out on the last 2 hills. But keep in mind that he is not in condition. So it seemed to me that his heart murmur was not bothering him in the least. In fact, the horse my friend was riding was breathing harder than my horse was.

So...I'm thinking that this horse might be fun to ride in competitive trail riding (NATRC) and since he's really not suitable for my husband to ride and I like him so much that I would like to do what I want with him. It wasn't going to be a problem for him to have a little heart murmur when he was going to be my husband's horse but I like to ride long trail rides and I don't poke around. Does it sound to you like this horse will break down if I slowly condition him to do NATRC? What causes heart murmurs to deteriorate? Does exercise cause them to get worse? or better? Does it sound as though this may be only a functional heart murmur?
Member:
imogen

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 6, 2007 - 3:36 pm:

Dear Lyn

Heart murmurs are graded 1-5 mild to serious. Dr O will doubtless add correct information but my understanding is that the type of heart murmur is also important as is the use to which the horse will be put.

This is one of my horses' prepurchase exam reports: "I note the presence of a cardiac systolic murmur. However, in my opinion this mare is safe to ride. On the balance of probabilities the conditions set out above are not likely to prejudice this animal's use for riding club activities or mild eventing".

He was spot on. I've owned that mare for 10 years. We've hunted, done dressage, evented, hunter trialled, trotted around in the sea, she's had two foals and never a problem.

What he didn't do was tell me I should buy her if I was a serious eventer and wanted to steeplechase her. Two vet students of my acquaintance and my normal teeth floating vet have all had a listen over the years and described the murmur as "loud" or "obvious".

So, you need to get an opinion on whether the murmur will affect your intended use. If not, great! If so, change of plan...

Best wishes

Imogen
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Mar 6, 2007 - 6:46 pm:

Welcome LVNicols,
Chances are any grade 2 murmur is a functional murmur and not clinically significant at all. Did the vet make a stab at diagnosis of the source of the murmur? One important test you don't mention is whether the murmur disappears following a short bout of intensive exercise, functional murmurs usually do.
DrO
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