How EIA Affected My Life

E.I.A. are the initials for Equine Infectious Anemia.  A Coggins test is used to test for E.I.A.  When I was 8 years old and living in Texas, I had a life-changing lesson about just how deadly E.I.A. can be on our herd of horses. 

You see, our horses never went anywhere.  My father was a farmer and my mother worked in the local factory.  On the weekends, they were always busy trying to get everything done that didn’t get done during the week.  Our herd had a pretty easy life of just being ridden in the pasture and in the yard on our 10-acre farm.

Our herd consisted of:

My father had a gray appaloosa with a blanket with spots named Governor.  Governor never caused any issues because he had always been ridden by a strong handed cowboy.  He knew the pecking order and was a handy horse, but most definitely not a kid’s horse.

My mother had two horses:  Dolly May and Doc.  Dolly May was given that name because “Dolly may buck” or “Dolly may not buck”; you literally didn’t know which version of Dolly May you would get each day.  She was a bay mare that my mom would never give up on.  She was the only one allowed to ride Dolly May because at the time she was the best rider in our family.  Doc was my mom’s almost three-year-old up and coming gelding that she thought could do no harm.  He was her first registered horse, and that piece of paper meant the world to my mom.  She always wanted a registered horse and when she finally had one it felt like she had achieved something special. 

My brother’s horse was kind of an accidental purchase on my birthday.  I wanted a horse and my dad’s friend came to the horse auction after my parents had already bought me a horse at the auction earlier.  The friend didn’t know that and was trying to help and bought a welch pony named Dusty.  We called him that because no matter how much we brushed him, he was still dusty.  I do believe the gates of hell opened and delivered that pony to the auction.  Dusty was one of the ponies that if you survived you would end up one heck of a cowboy. 

That brings us to our last herd member, Blacky.  He was 12 years old when I received him on my 5^th birthday.  Blacky could drop any horse in the pasture by getting under their belly and double kicking them.  He was the hardest horse in the pasture to catch, but once you caught him, he was golden.  I remember pretending he was Black Beauty.  He is the reason I will always find black horses to be the most beautiful of all colors. 

I will never forget the day that my mom ran to my dad with a hand full of yellow papers waiving franticly while she was sobbing.  Almost all of our herd had a positive Coggins because they had contracted E.I.A. Our family did not understand since our herd had not gone anywhere since the last time they had their yearly shots.  We quickly realized that the only contact our horses had was with the neighbors horses where they shared a fence.  However, their two horses weren’t trained and had not left their property, either.  The neighbor’s horses ended up being positive for E.I.A., too, even though the previous year they were negative and had also not left the farm. 

We figured out that people had been road riding all summer on a road that went in front of our neighbor’s house that we shared the back fence with.  His horses got infected from the horses that were passing by during a ride and then his horses infected our herd.

The neighbor’s horses and our infected horses were all humanly put down by our veterinarian.  I will never forget hearing my mother cry while she was petting the horses for the last time.

E.I.A. is a horrible disease that does not have a cure or a vaccine.  Your only defense is prevention.  This is why new equine need to go into quarantine at boarding barns.  This is why it is important for all equine events to do their part and check for current negative Coggins.  This is why you have to do your part.  The ripple effect is real.  Just ask 8-year-old Brandy.

Remember how I told you that almost all of our herd contracted E.I.A?  The lone survivor was Blacky.  He lived until I was a senior in high school. 

By Brandy Von Holten