Al-Marah Fights For Indraff's Life

by Bazy Tankersley, originally printed in Arabian Horse World magazine February 1961 issue.

Once again Dr. Stephen Lange has snatched from the jaws of death what looked like a sure victim. On the morning of Sunday, January the 8th, the stud groom of Al-Marah, John Delventhal, went to give breakfast to the senior sire, 23-year-old Indraff.

The old horse, who is normally as spry as a 3-year-old, seemed stiff. Looking back on it, this must have been the early stages of the paralysis and pain. John put in a call for Dr. Lange who lives on one of the other farms about 10 minutes away.

The symptoms at that time were not alarming and Dr. Lange said he was going to stop by the hospital to give shots to some puppies and he would be along in a little while. John called the stud manager, Billy Brite, to look at the horse.

Indraff had eaten some hay but would not touch his grain. He seemed more distressed and Billy was greatly worried and called Dr. Lange at the hospital.

Dr. Lange left immediately, arriving about 25 minutes from the first call he had received from John. When he arrived the seizure had become intense. Billy and John could not control Indraff.

The horse would flop down, come up into a sitting position and try to remain stiffly in that position but go over backwards. Dr. Lange said the symptoms were something like tetanus.

His eyes were rolling and he was confused, evidently with terror and pain. The rapidity of the development of these symptoms made Dr. Lange suspect a stroke.

There were no signs on the horse's body or in the stall of him having been rolling as from an attack of colic. The thrashing continued and at one point he got his head between the open door panels and they were terrified that he would kill himself.

They had sent out the call for help. The other 2 men on the place had been called in, 2 neighbors had been sent for and Tank and I rounded up assistant manager Lee Bolles and a pre-vet student working in here at the home place, Sonny Farwell, and were speeding out.

It took 5 men to hold Indraff down so that Dr. Lange could treat him. First examination revealed only the slightest of irregular rapid flutters for a heart beat. This suggested a heart attack but it was quickly apparent that he was developing extreme weakness in his hind quarters.

A check of his reflexes and the fact that his left front leg was jerking (which it continued to do for 17 hours) confirmed the diagnosis as stroke.

We will never know whether he had a capillary hemorrhage or a blood clot formed in the brain. By now he had a jerky motion to his head and his eyes were glassy with pain. He was grabbing at things in agony.

His gums were first white and then blue as the blood supply from the brain diminished. At that point Dr. Lange was afraid we had lost the horse but he was fighting for Indraff's life with every ounce of his skill.

They rammed into him anticoagulants to help get the blood past the obstruction and caffeine sodium benzate, which is a mild heart and respiratory stimulant. The men got the horse to his feet but he was too weak to stand and they literally held him up while Dr. Lange got dextrose, amino acids, and vitamin B1 into him intravenously.

He gave Indraff intramuscular injections of vitamin B complex. Then he gave him digitalis to slow and strengthen the heart beat and they lowered the old horse slowly to the ground.

Periodically he still had violent spells of thrashing, which, even in his partially paralyzed condition would toss the 5 men on him like they were so many balloons. They were able, with the aid of grain sacks stuffed with straw to cushion him, to keep him from hurting himself.

By that time the supervisory personnel from the farm and cattle operations had been gotten from their homes and church and they took a huge canvas from the hay drier and a big load of baled straw.

With the bales stacked from the floor to the top of the stall and covered with canvas, Indraff now had a completely padded stall.

Before we let him up Dr. Lange gave him an enema and passed a tube into his stomach and pumped in mineral oil and a mild anti-ferment because he said:

Only a horse with a constitution of iron could have withstood this attack and if he should have colic it would surely finish him."

He also gave Indraff vitamin E which is a specific for muscle improvement where it has been impaired by circulatory failure. Ropes were passed under Indraff and they pulled him around so that he would be in the best possible position and then the men all slipped out of the stall and the door, padded with stuffed sacks, was closed.

Tank was on his perch on the high stall side by John and Billy and the other men. Dr. Lange and I stood on a bale of straw while we watched what to me was the most dramatic thing I have ever seen a horse do.

By now the pain had receded and the panic and Indraff's innate courage and sense was restored. He rolled onto his stomach and easily brought himself to a sitting position but there he was stuck because his great powerful quarters were all but useless.

He quickly realized this and while we watched, breathless, heavy muscles bunched and gathered along his back and over his shoulders and his forearms bulged and he strained to lift his 1000 pounds with his forequarter. He could not do it so he subsided only a few inches and rested.

Then like a weight lifter in a contest, he slowly and grimly strained again and failed again. It took him 30 minutes during which time he never panicked or allowed himself to topple.

Wilson Magaha, our cattle foreman, who is pretty powerful himself, braced himself on the top bale of hay and lowered Billy, Indraff's closest friend, into the stall with a muzzle because the vitamin B and nervousness were combining to make him snatch mouthfuls of straw and Dr. Lange wanted nothing in his stomach.

It was a dangerous mission because we had no assurance of what Indraff would do at the approach of another possible needle bearer (he has fought needles like a tiger all his life) or whether he might lunge to rise and crush Billy against the wall so Wilson kept leaning over with his hand out to snatch Billy up the 7 feet to the perch.

Once Indraff swayed dangerously and Billy shot up in the air but Billy's voice seemed to reassure Indraff and he allowed the muzzle to be put on and then went back to the work of getting himself to his feet.

When he finally made it he rocked drunkenly but put his feet out spraddled front and back to brace and we all could have cried with relief to see him start agitating at the muzzle.

He hardly moved that first day. He was given nothing but water. The men took shifts all day and night he had someone with him in case he should get down, cast, or try to roll.

Monday he had a hot bran mash and a tiny flake of hay. He announced his improvement by trying to kick Dr. Lange.

Tuesday, because of his antipathy to needles, he was lead 20 feet from his stall to the stocks for his shots - stronger heart stimulants, more anticoagulant, and vitamins.

While he was in the stocks they changed all his bedding and when they put him back he laid down and rolled then got up and laid down and did the other side. We were all jubilant.

Jimmy Dean, who had come up from Charlotteville to see him, remarked that the old horse would never have gotten down if he hadn't known he could get up again. He even paced his stall a little and Wednesday he whaled the side of it with his hind feet when *Count Dorsaz went by.

He gets five tiny feedings a day of half and half grain and bran and small amounts of hay. Dr. Lange wants very little in his stomach at a time because he wants to keep all pressure from the heart sacks and lungs. Dr. Lange said:

He has made a remarkable recovery. Now if we can just keep his activity down and if he doesn't have another attack his chances are good."

Dr. Lange says that in six weeks he could recover completely. If at the end of six weeks he has improved but is still wobbly in the hind quarters he could still recover completely over the next 3 to 6 months. Even if he is left with some impairment we may well still have years of service from him.

He will always be treated as an invalid and if at any time we think that using him in the stud is a danger to his life he will, of course, not be used.

We are fortunate that we have Radames, Schahriar, and "Little" Indraff, his 3 proven sons and several more promising youngsters as well as his better than half brother Rapture.

For however long it is, I will be eternally grateful that he has been spared to me this time by Dr. Lange's great knowledge and the loyalty and ability of Billy and John and Lee and Sonny Wilson and the farm foreman, Charles Knill in his Sunday suit, and Wilson's son, Ronnie, and Emmett and E.J. and James and the neighbors without whim we couldn't have pulled him through.

And part of the horror-to-joy picture will always include the kids stuffing the sacks and the wives of the men dashing off in cars for foam rubber to pillow his head or this strap or that hammer and Mrs. Lange with hot tea and coffee and Carol Malone who stayed over a day because she knew it was a time when having old friends about was mighty nice and William Peebles up from Richmond, who walked up and peered in the door and said,

I feel like Indraff is kin."

LAST MINUTE NOTES: After Mrs. Tankersley wrote this report for AHW, she attached some last minute information that we feel is important to the story. The very first drug that Dr. Lange used on Indraff was nitroglycerine.

On Wednesday (January 11) at 5 pm Dr. Lange said that the heart beat was improving constantly. It was 49 BPM Thursday morning and 38 BPM in the afternoon (normal for Indraff is 32). His respiration is down to 10 per minute.

He is doing so well that Dr. Lange will discontinue the digitalis, which he has been giving Indraff right along, and see how well he does without it.

Indraff's attitude improves noticeably daily also. He now stands at his stall door looking out and permits people to pet him which has really irritated him the past few days.