A charity that has lost nine horses to a mystery condition that kills within minutes is making a desperate appeal for help in understanding the cause of the problem. Italian welfare organization Italian Horse Protection Onlus has contacted vets, scientists and authorities since the deaths, of horses who had previously been in good health, but no answers have yet been found. The first horse died two days later.
“At first it looked like something natural, a heart attack or aneurysm or something, that’s what the vet thought,” President of the charity Sonny Richichi said. “But the next day, two horses died. They’d been checked two hours before and were perfectly fine but they were found dead, with no signs of suffering.” There was no disturbance to the ground, as might be expected if the horses had colicked, nor any other signs of the cause of death.
The next day another horse died, in front of a volunteer, and the day after that, four more succumbed. All had appeared normal before they fell to the floor and were dead within minutes. After the second death, charity staff “started to panic”. Suspecting poisoning from something the horses had eaten or drunk, they arranged for the fields to be checked, sent some of the bodies and samples of others for autopsies and lab tests but have had no answers.
Police and authorities have been alerted, and a working group has had a meeting, with the Italian health minister keeping an eye on the situation, but no action has been taken. In total now, nine horses have died. The survivors are being kept in barns at night and two small fields during the day, but Sonny says they are stressed as they are used to living out full time, and the space is not large enough. The charity is still waiting for some toxicology results.
