There are not so many dressage riders who leave the arena at a CDI show with a big happy smile on their face after the horse developed a thousand legs and increasing in hotness during the freestyle minutes before. German Sabine Becker caused quite some astonishment among the spectators in the almost sold out Schleyerhalle at the 2011 CDI Stuttgart, when she seemed over the moon with her 15-year-old Oldenburg gelding Lamarc WRT, who behaved like a 3-year old in the Kur. What most of the onlookers didn’t know was the reason behind Sabine’s delight despite her being aware that “Marci” could do better.
The elegant leggy dark bay gelding (by Leggiero x Kronprinz xx) had a brilliant season a year earlier. Making his debut on the Grand Prix circuit in 2006, Lamarc grew gradually and was finally able to produce some strong results in 2010, placing 3rd in the Grand Prix Special at the CHIO Aachen and CDI Donaueschingen.
The future seemed bright for the reliable pair which is based in the Ruhr area and trains regularly with Johnny Hilberath. However, about a year ago Lamarc’s health, apparently out of the blue, started to deteriorate.
A Turn for the Worse
“We had been third at Donaueschingen in September 2010 when soon after the first problems occurred. Lamarc became lethargic which is not typical for him as he is a sensitive horse. The vet took a blood sample, which showed no significant deficiencies. As there were no obvious health problems I continued riding him, but didn’t ask too much. We went to the World Cup in Odense and I started also at the Frankfiurt indoor show in December 2010, but afterwards everything intensified. We had qualified for the Meggle finals in Dortmund, but it was unthinkable to train or even compete him. He stood in his stall with hanging ears.”
The curious Oldenburger, which delighted the Stuttgart spectators in the warm-up ring by putting his silky nose over the board straight into the crowd to say “hello” to his onlookers, got worse and worse. His legs swelled in turns; one day a leg was that thick that the vets thought him to have a tendon problem, while the other the legs were crystal clear. Sometimes the legs even went down within minutes and that made it obvious that it couldn’t be a typical tendon problem.
”It was exasperating. He had this and that. His legs swelled up and down, he didn’t like eating his oats and he got loose hoof walls and as a consequence also hoof ulcers. I showed him to many vets, brought him to different clinics, but it was quite impossible to fathom the problem. There I was with the horse I love to bits, the horse that had made me a Grand Prix rider and I was unable to help him to improve.”
In the spring of 2011 Lamarc’s career as a dressage horse seemed over, and even worse, it looked like he was in danger of his life if the cause for his problems could not be found.
A Flash of Inspiration
His rider, a rather timid and quiet person, suffered together with her horse but one day a sudden inspiration came into her mind. “Today I can’t comprehend why I didn’t think of it much earlier. I have food allergies myself and because Marci has never liked oats very much and has often refused to eat them the idea came he might have an allergy.”
Sabine stopped feeding oats to Lamarc and the situation quickly improved. The unpleasant symptoms which had plagued him so long disappeared. “All the different health problems were a consequence of his metabolism not working properly and luckily they never returned after we left the oats out of his diet plan.”
As happy and relieved Sabine was when she saw her horse was on the way of recovery, other problems appeared. “No longer in training Lamarc had already lost lots of muscle bulk, but after we stopped giving oats he really deflated and lost much weight. The big question was how to build him up again and supplying him with enough energy without being allowed to feed him oats.”
At the beginning of his recovery the horse was undergoing an intestinal sanitation and a detoxification on a herbal basis. “During this period which lasted some weeks we only fed him hay, carrots and alfalfa until his body came to rest again. Then we were challenged to feed a sport horse like him in an alternative way. Apart from hay he gets barley, Pavo Energy and corn, but it remains tricky to supply him with enough energy like that.”
The changed feeding plan has to be taken into account when it comes to training Lamarc who still doesn’t have his old look back when he had more muscles and looked rounder. ”I take care only to keep him fit, but not to work him too much in his training. He is ridden for no longer than 30 minutes in the morning. He knows the stuff and there’s no need to exercise him too hard. After that he also hacks 30 minutes in walk and goes out in the paddock where he can exercise himself if he wants to. Of course he still needs to get more muscles again and who had known him before his illness will now see a horse a bit different in its look, but we take it slowly and we have to find out what suits him best to even more build him up again.”
The Comeback Kid
After half a year out of action Lamarc celebrated his international comeback at Sweden’s premier outdoor dressage show at Falsterbo in June. They placed 2nd in the Grand Prix behind Patrick Kittel and won the freestyle. But the horse with the big dark eyes experienced another hiccup due to Sweden’s annoying horseflies.
“Most horses at Falsterbo reacted to the horseflies in getting small spots, but not my Marci. He was the only horse getting really big spots, looking like pox’. Although he won the freestyle I asked myself if I had started him too early and if it was right to travel to Sweden in June," Sabine still wonders to this day.
She continues taking it rather slowly and quietly with her long-time partner, which she had bought as a young horse and “is the horse of a lifetime.”
Even though Lamarc’s ranking at Stuttgart (6th and 8th) may not seem to be that outstanding, Sabine feels it was some kind of a break-through for her four-legged friend’s battle back to his old self.
”Lamarc is on the one hand like a dog and he’s self-confident and curious. You have seen him only just in the warm-up ring where he loves saying “hello” to everyone around. But on the other hand he is really sensitive, in particular to noise. When I went into the Schleyerhalle everybody was still clapping and shouting for Nadine Capellmann’s freestyle and Marci became a bit edgy. But it doesn’t matter at all. I am so happy he showed life again and reacted to it all. At the shows before he was still rather uninspired and now he was himself again. That’s the reason why I was all smiles after his freestyle.”
Sabine does not have big plans for the future, but instead is taking each day as it comes. She is just grateful that Lamarc feels so much better compared to a year ago.
”It’s not that I am not competitive, but my horse is top priority. Lamarc means the world to me and he will never leave my stable until he dies one day, hopefully in a 100 years.”
Text and Photos © Silke Rottermann
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