News

Faith was a beautiful TB RoR mare and was supposed to be my daughter, Lily’s forever horse. We bought her 2 years ago from a dealer, she was very wary of people but with my daughter’s hard work she became a very sweet loving mare that would only give my daughter kisses, they bonded so well. They went Pony Club and camp, fun rides, clinics, XC she basically had to retrain her. They had an incredible journey together and Lily adored her.

Faith was living out 24/7 with our other two cobs. In October 2022 after school my daughter called me at work to say that Faith was acting strange and sweating so I left work to see her. When I arrived, she was reluctant to walk, sweating with her head down so I called the vet immediately.

The vet arrived in 30 mins and checked her over. She thought it might be colic and took bloods, pumped out her stomach, and said it wasn’t colic and told us to try and keep her walking about. Later that evening Faith would not walk and collapsed so I called the vets again and asked them to come out.  The vet asked if we have Sycamore. I said “no” just the non poisonous Maple.  The Vet then instructed us to get her to the hospital but we tried for over an hour and could not move Faith at all, she was down in her stable.

First thing in the morning the bloods came back with extremely high muscle enzymes and the vet came to give her fluids to flush the toxins out of her.  She seemed to be brighter. However, she took bloods again and when we saw her urine, I knew then that this was it. I remember it clearly; it was dark red and having read over the night about Sycamore I realised that this was Atypical Myopathy.

The bloods came back even higher and they had never seen it so high in any horse. The vet said that there was very little chance that she would live, and she will be back in the morning to put her to sleep. Faith collapsed again and died in my daughters’ arms that night.  This all happened the day before my daughter’s 16th birthday and she still cannot talk about her without bursting into tears. She hasn’t been the same happy girl; she has gone from riding daily to now riding once a week if that.

We found the Sycamore, it’s in the byway at the far corner of our field. There are trillions of seedlings now and my cobs are in about half an acre in the furthest corner as the seeds can blow as far as 300m away. They have not been affected but I wake up most nights terrified that they have got out and are eating the seeds/seedlings. There is 5 acres so impossible to remove.

The only option is if I buy a ride on mower to collect the seedlings, but I am still paying the vet fees and they have to only eat one to kill so the safest option is to not allow any horses to graze in the vicinity until it is completely safe.  We can’t chop the sycamore down as its not ours. We have grazed our horses on these fields for 5 years with no issues. I have contacted Pro Green on what to use to kill the seedlings but they are still poisonous even when dead for many months.

Obviously in hindsight Faith should have had treatment straight away rather than 24hours later but they didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t realise at the time there was Sycamore near her field. I obviously blame myself for it and my daughter is not the same.  It is all incredibly sad.