Sedative/Traq for Trailering?

[Lone]

Next week we're going to be trailering my 5 year old OTTB home from college, it's about a 12 hour drive. She's been having soundness problems (as I've posted on here about previously) she usually travels okay-ish by herself, but she does get stressed. She's much hotter/spookier/sillier than normal since she's not working right now. I'd really like this trip to be as stress free as possible for her, so I'm wondering if there is some kind of mild sedative or tranquilizer we could give her for the trip? Obviously not so much that she can't safely balance herself, but enough to maybe take the edge off?

I'm going to call and talk with my vet on Monday too, but thought I'd ask you all to see if it was even an option.

[onelanerode]

Yes. Talk to your vet about your particular situation and see what your vet recommends.

My vet was aware of my mare's trailering problem and recommended a combination of ace/xylazine for my mare, who had a freakout in a 3-horse slant and tried to climb out the window. She was sedated for her next trip, which was in a big, open, airy stock trailer, and she handled that well though she was pretty anxious. We did the same thing for another trip (same trailer) ~6 weeks later and she was much improved from the earlier trip. I followed the trailer both times and she had *no* problems keeping her balance and loaded/unloaded easily.

We did a run-through first to see how sedated she was going to be and how long the sedation would last; you may want to talk to your vet about that too since you will be on a much longer trip than we were.

Obviously I'd prefer not to have to sedate, but if my options are sedation or my horse's legs hanging out the window at 50 mph, well, I'm going to choose the sedation, thanks. I have no desire to EVER see that again! :eek:

[DMK]

If needed, I usually prefer ace, at about 1/2 the dosage that I would use to knock them out. It's good to know how your horse reacts - I've used amounts from a 1/4cc to 1cc. The 1cc horse was a yearling and the 1/4cc horse was ... 17'2 - I would have considered it a danger to my person to try and lead him on 1cc of ace. :eek:

I've had a horse who was a fine loader and stood like a dream but he very much was claustrophobic and usually washed out. Hauling him was the same for me with or without ace, but clearly he was a lot happier with something to take the edge off, and after a while and learnign about which side to put him on, use ear plugs and so on, he was fairly relaxed for up to 2 hour trips. Another horse just lost weight on long hauls (over 6 hour trips). Again he was/is simply the best hauler I've ever owned, but he internalizes his stress. The key to keeping his weight on was banamine before he loaded and a 1/2 cc of ace every 5-6 hours (assuming both these horses weren't headed to a show). Most recently, I hauled a yearling 7 hours straight after only a few loading lessons/good short trailer trips. I gave him 1cc IM just before I loaded him with a plan to give him more if he looked like he was getting stressed. A few hours his biggest concern was a critically low supply of hay in the bag, so I figured he could do with more hay and no more ace. ;)

I'd recommend talking to your vet and knowing which is the right dosage for your horse before you need it. Some horses are cheap drunks, some are not. ;)

[alteringwego]

gastrogard and ace IM. Can always give a repeat dose of ace during the trip if you need to but generally the beginning of the trip is the stressful part then they'll settle. Plenty of yummy hay too!