Champion sire Silvano
A very relieved John Slade, currently at Germiston looking after the Maine Chance sale draft, confirmed that Silvano is doing well after a sudden bout of colic on Easter Sunday.
“We’ve got a very nice girl called Hundra Prins standing in for me while we’re away at the sales. She called me at about 3 o’clock on Sunday afternoon to say that he was a bit niggly. We called our local DVC vet, Ben Smit who came out immediately and suggested that we take him through to the hospital. Ben set up all the drips and stuff and then drove behind the trailer all the way there.”
“We were very lucky. It turned out that he had got a twist in the small intestine, which wouldn’t have rectified on its own, so he required surgery. It was a very quick op – only 1 1/4 hours – but thanks to the fact that we got a good assessment early on and could treat him immediately, he is doing really well.”
“I just want to say a huge thank you, because the guys at the Drakenstein Veterinary Clinic are just so damn good. I really think it’s worth saying that the old perception that horses that go in for colic surgeries don’t come out again has totally changed. With a hospital and staff of this calibre you can send them in with confidence and know you have an 80 or 90% chance of survival.”
“Andrew is just the most brilliant surgeon, but they all work so hard. With most veterinary hospitals, they close in the evening and then you only get to see them again in the morning, but Pia and all the girls on the after care team are fantastic. The news and updates have been great – I’ve already had a video of Silvano eating apples, he’s had a groom and been for a walk around and I got to hear him calling to all his other inmates. I can’t tell you what that means when you’re stuck so far away.”
“These big horses are not only a huge financial responsibility to a manager, they become family and a loss would be just as much of an emotional one as a financial one. It was a very nerve-wracking day yesterday.”
I spoke to Dr Pia Randleff-Rasmussen, who despite being on theatre duty for Silvano’s anaesthetic yesterday, was still on duty and manning the DVC after hours emergency line when I rang this afternoon. She confirmed that the hospital’s success rate for colic surgeries is 78% for small intestine lesions and as high as 88% for large intestinal lesions, so Maine Chance’s flagship stallion was in very good hands indeed. The team who attended to Silvano’s surgery were hospital director Dr Ian Heyns, Dr Andrew Gray and Dr Ben Smit. Although Pia cautioned that the first 72 hours are critical for any post-colic op horse, she said that the team were really pleased with Silvano’s progress. “He’s been really bright and is looking exceptionally good and it’s not even been 24 hours yet. He’s on fluids at the moment and is only getting handfuls of green grass and the obligatory green apple every hour or so, but we’ll do a scan tomorrow and if all’s going well, we can start introducing solids slowly.”
John Slade says “When you have a situation like this, there are a number of people who just throw in their support. We’re all competitors on the battle field, but when it comes to things like this, the support is just amazing. Thank you to everyone for all the messages.”
