Strangles:

My Experience on a Livery Yard with Strangles

It was a nice warm day in July when I went down to the field to bring my horse Hayley in to ride. When I approached her, she was standing with her head down low and looking very lethargic, with a heavy discharge hanging from her nostrils. So I brought her in and called my Vet out straight away. Once the vet arrived he asked me if any of the other horses have Strangles, I replied “no”. He said to be that “I will be testing your horse for Strangles just to be on the safe side.” He also said “it might just be a heavy flu, if no other horses have these symptoms”. I did tell the Vet that “Hayley’s jags are up to date and I have never missed any of them in the 14 yrs of having her.”

After the vet left I went straight round to the owners of the yard to let them know that Hayley was being tested for strangles and that is when they told me there had been a few horses already tested for strangles 4 weeks ago. They must have seen the expression on my face and they said “didn’t you know about it?” I replied “No” they then said “don’t tell anyone about this.” i said ok but I never kept quiet, I told everyone in my block and told them not to bring their horses in because Hayley had not to be moved from her stable until the vet said ok. They all thanked me for telling them this and said I probably prevented their horses from contracting the disease. I then told the owners of the yard what I had done and they were not pleased with me. However, one of the ladies went round to tell them that I had done the right thing by letting them know about this.

I had to phone my Vet to let him know that there had been other horses tested for Strangles and just that one of them had come back positive. He then told me that there was a good chance that Hayley would have strangles. I felt angry and totally gutted that people don’t care about anyone’s horse but their own and how selfish they were to keep this quiet.

Roughly 15 horses had contracted Strangles through ignorance by not letting people know. I had shifted my horse into the filed that was riddled with Strangles and no one had told me, and they watched me putting Hayley into that field.

Dealing with this type of situation was very difficult for me. I found out who my real friends are. Driving into the yard I felt physically sick because I was getting dirty looks, people were pointing at me, the nasty comments, I was getting ignored and someone even ran away from me. The people who used to say hello and talk to me no longer did so and only a few people would support me and ask how my girl was getting on. No one cared about my horse or about me or any one else that had a horse with Strangles.