If only any one of us had wondered why.
As it tuned out the owner was selling Champ minus his QH papers and for good reason. Champ had HYPP. A double dose of it. The worst kind. For those of you that don't know what it is, its a genetically passed down disease where the muscles cant properly channel potassium ions. What it causes is tremors, seizures, and in the worst cases death. You see these horses lose control of their muscles and fall down if its just the hindquarters affected, and die when the heart stops beating if its the muscle that's affected.
Sounds horrific and rare doesn't it? Horrific it is, rare it is not. You see these horses were winners in the halter (conformation) ring because the fluid that built up in their muscles gave them, well.... an Arnold Schwarzenegger look. Judges loved it, those that will stoop to anything to win embraced it. AQHA did their best for way too long to ignore it. Horses like Champ suffered from it.
Poor Champ, he was such a sweetheart. He really tried to please his rider, and Cody was fast falling in love with him. It all came to a screeching halt when she came in the house complaining that he kept "going down" on her while she was riding him. She thought he was just young and clumsy. Upon witnessing what was happening I pretty well knew what the deal was. Nevertheless I told her to stay off of him until I could send his blood sample off for testing. It came back H/H. A double dose of the disease.
One of the worst things about this story is the fact that this is incredibly easy to avoid. You see you have to breed an affected horse to even get it. You have to breed two affected horses to get one like Champ. To avoid it all you have to do is not breed affected horses and its really, really, easy to know if its a concern because every single incidence of this disease the horses pedigree traces back to the AQHA horse Impressive. Not all of his offspring were affected, and as long as your Impressive bred horse is N/N or.. negative/negative for the gene they don't have it, and can't pass it on. I'm sure even you non horse people can figure this one out. Only breed N/N horses! DUH!
The very worst thing about this story is the long line of people that really, really, ought to be ashamed of themselves. The breeder for breeding such misery for the horse, and danger to future owners, AQHA for not putting a stop to allowing these horses to reproduce without a N/N test result when they first became aware of the condition, and an extra big helping of shame to the heartless jerk who sold this horse with a dangerous condition. Cody was with us when we went to check Champ out so the owner not only knew who the horse was for he had nary a single concern for my sweet daughter being exposed to the danger of it ( if they fall on you while you are on, or near them, it can easily kill you) all for a whopping $600 in his pocket. I hope he laughed all the way to the bank and rots in hell for doing so.
I gave Champ to a very experienced horse woman who worked at our local feed elevator at the time. Of course with FULL disclosure about the HYPP status, and the blood test results proving it. She said she just wanted something to show in halter and thought she could work around it. I sternly warned her to keep her toddler away from the horse. That was actually unnecessary because Tina was if anything an overly protective mother. The mother in me had to voice it anyway. Since we lost every bit of the money we spent on buying Champ for my daughter it was a long time before she got another horse to call her own. As it turned out Cody opted for a very well trained and finished Team roping horse. A little Tobiano paint horse we called Toby. She rode Toby for the next several years.
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