Cob Jockey

For the first time ever (really), I was able to be at the barn for Connor's spring shots this year, which meant I got to pepper my vet with questions.  My vet is an eventer herself, so she's a great person to interrogate about the care and keeping of sporthorses.

One of my questions was about ulcers.  I told her how I had seen great results a couple of years ago when I treated him with Nexium, but that the symptoms had slowly crept back since then even though I've had him on a preventative this whole time - primarily head tossing and a worried look back while girthing, and unease under saddle.


I also told her about how a distant relative living the best life a horse could ask for had been asymptomatic for ulcers until it was too late - that's not at all to say Connor's relatives are predisposed to ulcers, just that the Welsh Cobs I know are generally very stoic compared to other breeds, so staying on top of things even when the symptoms seem minor is important to me.

I will take any excuse to repost this GIF.

My vet recommended doing 1/4 tube once a day of Ulcergard for 30 days and not scoping, partially because I had seen results with the Nexium.  I trust her so I didn't question that, but I did go online and do some more research into the quarter dose recommendation - would it treat the ulcers or just provide temporary relief?

That led me to a published study that compared the effectiveness of 3 different doses of omeprazole on 60 racehorses with clinically diagnosed ulcers.  (Yay legit science about horses!)  The conclusion was:

The results of this study suggest that, under the conditions studied, where omeprazole is administered before exercise and following a brief fast, doses of omeprazole as low as 1 mg/kg bwt per oss.i.d. may be as effective as higher doses. The proportion of glandular ulceration that heals with 28 days of omeprazole therapy is less than that of squamous ulceration.

TL;DR: If you give a quarter dose of omeprazole on an empty stomach, it may be just as effective as a full dose at treating non-glandular ulcers.

Success and failure rates of healing (as opposed to just improvement, which they measured separately) at various doses for the two different types of ulcers

To be sure, this is not enough of a study to draw definitive conclusions from, and there are some major differences between what I'm doing with Connor and what they did, the biggest of which being that they treated with enteric coated omaprazole (pop rocks) and I'm treating with a paste.  But he has to get his 1/4 tube at some point in his day, it may as well be first thing in the morning before he eats if there's even a shred of science behind that timing.



So far he's three weeks in and I've noticed a major reduction in attitude when I girth him up, and more relaxation under saddle, so we're doing good so far!  The true test will be whether or not symptoms return quickly after we taper off though.