Anxious horse

Question
Hi, I'm sending from Malta.
I own a sulky trotter racing horse aged 11 years old, I bought same horse from France a year ago and brought him to Malt. A month before I bought him, the horse was in an excellent condition infact he won a race. When I first tried to give him a speeded up training, from the moment I mounted the harness on his back, he got so anxious that couldn't control his bowel, (both from the back and the front to put it this way) When I called the doctor, he performed an endoscopy (inserted a camera in his stomach) it resulted that due his anxiety, the horse had a high level of stomach acid. The horse was properly cured introducing to him a specific food including yogurt and new medicines as ordered. The problem is that when I try to race him, he performs the first few meters very well but then seems like he holds no more energy and never ends up the race. This is due he uses alot of energy before the race because of the enxiety problem. When I spoke to the previous owner, he told me that the horse never did such things before. Can you please help!!?

Answer
Hi Roderick,
           Its a great game racing but it certainly throws up some very perplexing problems at times. In short I don't know what to do here to help you.

My first thought is that this may be a mental problem and that your horse is getting overly stressed prior to a race. If this is the case then he needs some therapy to help him settle and handle the situation.
You are probably looking for a micro problem that is causing the stress. Does he not like the noise, the other horses, the people, the float trip, the change in environment and so on. It might take quite a while to work that out so you have to ask yourself if its a good idea to put in the time and effort or get another horse.
Another thing to check is eyesight. Horses don't always exhibit signs of blindness that are easy to pick up but failing eyesight can affect a horses performance.

Sorry I can't do more for you but you are up against a difficult problem.

Don Boddie
New Zealand