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Posts: 22228
Apr 15 08 6:35 AM
PatB81 wrote: There are actually 3 stages of sedation a horse must go through in order for the drug to take complete effect. In the case of most Itramuscular injections it takes about 20 minutes or so for the drug to take effect the way it's supposed to. However, in all animals the second stage of sedation is an excitatory phase. They become more attune to noise, light, movement and become more agitated by those things. This is the reason why when you sedate an animal you're supposed to put them in a quiet, comfortable area for about 20 minutes before you fuss with them. If you stress the animal - horse or otherwise - out during that excitatory phase it will (if you're lucky) cause the sedative NOT to work or (if you're not lucky) cause the exact OPPOSITE reaction of what you want. In the case of the OPs horse who was already stressed out and strung out, chances are there would be either no effect from the Ace or even possibly the opposite effect, causing him to become MORE stressed out. It really bothers me to hear of a trainer wanting to "sedate" a horse that's already in that frame of mind - even more that she considered it an option at a show. As for horses being perfect at shows... I had a 3 1/2 year old I took to her first shows last year and she was an angel (before you crucify me, it was usually 2 walk/trot classes per show (which was every other week) just to get some mileage on her. I know plenty of people here believe no horse should have anyone on their back before they're 4 years old, and all that jazz. I respect that, but and return to you that I was working with a very knowledgeable trainer who kept close tabs on us to make sure no one was overworked). She was probably one of the best behaved horses at the show, but that was her personality. She was just a steady eddy by nature. On the other hand, some of the other youngsters we went with just had a really hard time settling down and just needed TIME being in a new environment and realizing work was the same there as anywhere. If only we were all so lucky that we could pull our horses out of the field, haul them anywhere and have them act as if it was just another day
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