Performance & Sport

Heightened spookiness/inner restlessness — often multifactorial (housing, management, deficiency, pain). Rule out behavioural causes first.

Acute exercise-related breakdown of muscle fibres with painful stiffness, usually shortly after the start of work. Released myoglobin can darken the urine and burden the kidneys. The recurrent form (RER) is a disorder of muscle-contraction excitability and must be distinguished from the hereditary glycogen storage disorder PSSM.

A persistent mismatch of load and recovery that leads to declining performance, poor regeneration and altered behaviour. It is a diagnosis of exclusion — other diseases (pain, stomach, airways, metabolism) must be ruled out first.

A life-threatening heat build-up when heat dissipation can no longer withstand the load and/or ambient heat — often combined with dehydration. Body temperature rises sharply and circulatory collapse is possible. This is an emergency.

Partial or complete loss of the ability to sweat, removing the horse's most important means of cooling. It occurs mainly in warm-humid climates and increases the risk of overheating under exertion.

With long/intense exertion — especially in endurance sport — large amounts of electrolytes (including sodium, chloride, potassium, calcium) are lost through sweat. A visible sign of a severe shift is thumps: a diaphragm fluttering in synchrony with the heartbeat (synchronous diaphragmatic flutter, SDF).

Acute overstretching or a tear of muscle fibres, usually from sudden peak load, a misstep or insufficient warm-up. Unlike tying-up, the damage is locally confined; a correct diagnosis and controlled healing are decisive.