“ARCHIE DEVELOPED A BACTERIAL INFECTION”
Kate street, Your Horse’s editorial assistant, owns 10-year-old Archie, and it was just a few months after she got him that she noticed his susceptibility to sunburn.
“I’ve had Archie for 10 months now,” says Kate. “I discovered he was photosensitive by process of elimination really. He’s a grey and pink-skinned, so his skin is a little thinner anyway, which makes him more prone to burning in the sun. He also came from Scotland, where there’s plenty of cloud cover, so over the years he probably hadn’t had much exposure to UV rays and it hadn’t really been a problem for him before. “Not long after I moved him south, I noticed that he was getting a little sunburnt on his heels and his muzzle, but it wasn’t until I moved yards that it really flared up. He was turned out in a field that had more clover and less shelter and, because the sunburn wasn’t in just one area, I figured out it was photosensitivity. It became so severe that Archie developed a bacterial infection because of it. “Since that’s been confirmed by a vet, I’ve taken a few measures to try to prevent sunburn. I turn him out in a rug to protect him from the sun and I try to avoid him being in the field between the hours of 7am to 7pm, so he’s out of the UV rays as much as possible. “If I’m riding, I coat his heels and muzzle in barrier cream. I’ve also added a liver supplement to his diet and I’m planning on getting further tests done to see if his photosensitivity has any relation to his liver.”