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14 horses die just before polo match

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14 horses die just before polo match




(CNN) -- Fourteen thoroughbred horses dropped dead in a mysterious scene Sunday before a polo match near West Palm Beach, Florida, officials said.


Teams are trying to figure out what happened at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Florida.

State and local veterinary teams are trying to figure out what happened at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington, Florida, as team Lechuza Caracas prepared to compete in a U.S. Open match.

Two horses initially collapsed, and as vets and team officials scrambled to revive them, five others became dizzy, said Tim O'Connor, spokesman for the polo club.

"A total of seven died on our property," O'Connor told CNN. Seven other horses died en route to a Wellington horse farm and a veterinary hospital.

The cause of the deaths has not been determined, and necropsies and blood tests were underway, he said.

O'Connor said each team brings between 40 to 60 horses for matches, and they are continuously switched out throughout a match to keep the horses from overexerting themselves.

A meeting will be held to determine whether Lechuza Caracas will compete at a later date, he said.

"Everybody is kind of in shock and trying to figure out what happened," he said. "Nobody can recall an incident in which this many horses have died at once."
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Hmmm,be interesting to see the cause! I've never heard of anything with this large of a loss happening :???: :???:
 
Steroid injections? My wife said she might have heard this on the news. Is this right? Has anyone got any updates??
 
Curly said:
Steroid injections? My wife said she might have heard this on the news. Is this right? Has anyone got any updates??
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They were banding the word"Steroids" in the AM news but I have not seen any 'proof' put out yet. Anyone heard any updates?
 
NMRANCHER said:
Curly said:
Steroid injections? My wife said she might have heard this on the news. Is this right? Has anyone got any updates??
Click to expand...

They were banding the word"Steroids" in the AM news but I have not seen any 'proof' put out yet. Anyone heard any updates?
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Now 21 Dead...And Vets say 'Toxic Substance' likely killed the horses..

All the horses came from the same Venezuelan team- and that some started showing signs immediately as soon as they were unloaded from the plane....They say blood test results haven't been completed yet...

With all the drugging battle going on in about horse racing- if this was a guy with needle 'roiding" them up-- this is going to give the Humane Society folks a hay day.....
 
I've been to a few of those polo matches @ WPB.......and I usually leave mad and upset cause of the way some of those horses are handled and treated.

It's not all fluff and dandy stuff....they are rode into the GROUND. I've seen many with blood running from their noses.......

There is an ugly side to it....just like everything else I suppose :roll:
 
kola, we used to find Polo horses for players...until I watched a polo
game. Didn't want any part of that, thank you, so we quit the deal.

There isn't much horsemanship involved, they just tie the horses heads
down and jerk them around. I hated it.
 
The TV is reporting that the supplement they had the Pharmacy make up is illegal in the US- so they gave them the formula to make it up for them.....

Florida pharmacy says it wrongly prepped horse meds before match


(CNN) -- A veterinary pharmacy in Florida acknowledged Thursday that it incorrectly prepared medication used to treat 21 horses who all died around the time of an international polo match last weekend.


Veterinarian Scott Swerdlin talks with reporters Sunday about his Palm Beach Equine Clinic's response.

The deaths of the ponies, witnessed in full view by spectators Sunday in a dramatic scene where horses collapsed one after another, have jolted the prestigious polo tournament at the marquee International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington, Florida.

An internal investigation by Franck's Pharmacy in Ocala, Florida, "concluded that the strength of an ingredient in the medication was incorrect. We will cooperate fully with the authorities as they continue their investigations," the company said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon.

"We extend our most sincere condolences to the horses' owners, the Lechuza Polo team and the members of the United States Polo Association. We share their grief and sadness," the pharmacy's chief operations officer, Jennifer Beckett, said in the statement.

A memorial ceremony for the horses is scheduled for Thursday at the U.S. Open Polo Championship, where officials hope to resume play after matches were postponed by rain Wednesday. The memorial service will include a brief speech and a wreath-laying on the field.

On Wednesday, the captain of a polo team at the center of the mysterious deaths told an Argentine newspaper that he has "no doubts" vitamins administered to the animals by a laboratory are at fault.
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Faster horses said:
Soooooooo...what was the supplement...what were they medicating all those horses for...and what was the illegal drug?
I'd really like to know. :x
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The TV and the Radio are just saying a Vitamin supplement that is illegal to sell in the US....
 
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- An official at a Florida pharmacy said Thursday the business incorrectly prepared a supplement given to 21 polo horses that died over the weekend while preparing to play in a championship match.

Jennifer Beckett of Franck's Pharmacy in Ocala, Fla., told The Associated Press in a statement that the business conducted an internal investigation that found "the strength of an ingredient in the medication was incorrect." The statement did not say what the ingredient was.

Beckett, who's the pharmacy's chief operating officer, said the pharmacy is cooperating with an investigation by state authorities and the Food and Drug Administration.

The horses from the Venezuelan-owned Lechuza polo team began crumpling to the ground shortly before Sunday's U.S. Open match was supposed to begin, shocking a crowd of well-heeled spectators at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington.

"On an order from a veterinarian, Franck's Pharmacy prepared medication that was used to treat the 21 horses on the Lechuza Polo team," Beckett said. "As soon as we learned of the tragic incident, we conducted an internal investigation."

She said the report has been given to state authorities.

Lechuza also issued a statement to AP acknowledging that a Florida veterinarian wrote the prescription for the pharmacy to create a compound similar to Biodyl, a French-made supplement that includes vitamins and minerals and is not approved for use in the United States.

"Only horses treated with the compound became sick and died within 3 hours of treatment," Lechuza said in the statement. "Other horses that were not treated remain healthy and normal."

Lechuza also said it was cooperating with authorities that include the State Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.


(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
 
Well depending on what vitamins and minerals were being used, many can be VERY toxic at high doses. It would depend on how the shot was given. that could play a huge part in it as well. If it was given under the skin but not in the muscle it would take longer to disperse into their systems, I.M is the next fastest and then of course if they got the shot in to a vein well it wouldn't take but minutes to get into their entire system and start doing damage. Many Vit. and Min. given at to high of a dose can cause heart palpitations, muscle tremors, liver and kidney failure, high blood pressure, internal bleeding, etc. The stress of the trailer ride would have also played into the amount of time it took before problems would have been seen..Even a horse who is used to traveling gets a little bit stressed in the trailer. If nothing more than the extra workout it gets keeping its balance during the ride. The heart would have been pumping a bit faster than just a resting beat, then if you add the horse starts to not feel well there again most heart rates will start to go up at first sign of trouble which will again help to disperse the drug faster into the system. I truly think it was just a case of " perfect storm " syndrome. The horses got the wrong meds. Then they were loaded into a trailer where no one could see them for however long the ride to the playing field was. It wasn't until they started to unload the horses did someone notice something was wrong...maybe if things had gone differently the out come might have been different...say the horses had the shots then stayed at the stables..surely someone would have noticed something wrong pretty fast. Maybe a vet could have been called in to help. Maybe not. Who knows??? The vets on scene couldn't help either because they had no idea what was happening or there was just nothing they could do, the horses had to much damage already done. The owner of the horses suffered a huge loss not only in horses but in $$. A well trained,fit polo pony is not a cheap thing to go out and buy. I might not agree with some of the drugs they use in the horses be it racing, polo, showing,etc. But no one should have to just eat the cost of someone else mess up..I hope the owner sues the A**es off of the pharmacy. I know I sure would be on the phone to my lawyer if it was my horse/s. The Biodyl might not be legal here in the USA but whatever RX that vet wrote had to have been legal or the pharmacy would have never filled it be it for use in horses or not....
 
The only info I can find about this biodyl is in french...so needless to say I can't read/make out a few words of it. But from what I could find about it is that France is the only country that it is sold in by Merial. Heck the stuff isn't even sold in Mexico and I think everyone knows how easy it is to get just about EVERYTHING in Mexico. Anyways back to what I could make out about it. The directions for use say that it can be given S.C. Or in the U.S. we know it as S.Q. or it can be given I.V. The listed things it contains can be very harmful if giving in the wrong dose. Now we know the horses DID NOT get shots of BIODYL. We know this because a pharmacy in FL has said they compounded a mix that this trainer had an RX for from a U.S. vet. Now had they of done the compounding right I'm 100% sure there would have been no problems. The pharmacy has said they messed up the compound. Now one thing to remember is that when giving these types of Vit./min. shots is that something so simple as 1 extra cc of the wrong thing can be toxic. Many of the solutions they are using are very strong! I also have no idea if this pharmacy treated the mixing of the compound as they should have...did they keep everything sterile while mixing? Or did they treat it like an animal drug and just toss the mixing needle on the counter top while grabbing the next drug to add? If the mix became contaminated that could have accounted for some of the problems the horses suffered. The vets have said there was fluid on the horses lungs and internal bleeding within the lung tissues. What scares me the most is a lot of pharmacies offer drug compounding for people! The drug does not have to be injected either many can make "custom" pills or liq. Many places mix drugs up for small kids! The next time you ask for penicillin,amoxicillin/etc. in liq. form that many places flavor to your kids taste ( berry,bubble gum,etc.) Your getting a compounded med! Make sure you ask about the dose strength, not just what is printed on the bottle or how often you should give it. Be sure to ask your Doctor before you even go get it filled. That way when your pharmacy say oh, that mix calls for x amount of x per cc or ml you can go O.K. thats what my doctor said...or huh..thats NOT what the doctor said! I hate to say it but in the long run the guy/gal filling your RX is human and well we all know we make mistakes!
 
Looks like selenium killed those polo ponies
Tuesday, April 28, 2009, 5:12 PM

by Bob Meyer

Florida officials say an overdose of the trace mineral selenium was probably what killed those 21 polo ponies in Wellington on April 19th. Florida State Veterinarian, Dr. Thomas Holt said the animals had "significantly increased selenium levels" in samples tested by the state agriculture department's animal diagnostic lab. Those results were confirmed by independent testing conducted by the University of Florida, University of California-Davis and Cornell University.

Selenium is essential for cell function but large doses are toxic. The source of the selenium is still under investigation however Franck's Pharmacy, which admitted they had made a mistake on a medication prepared for the horses, confirmed the mistake was with selenium. Franck's Chief Operations Officer Jennifer Beckett says they will continue to cooperate fully with authorities in the investigation.
 

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