The Will to Survive: Eline Borrey de Coninck's Dollars Returns at 2025 CDI Aachen Festival 4 Dressage

Veterinary

For Belgian dressage rider Eline Borrey de Coninck riding her small tour horse Dollars at the CDI Aachen Festival 4 Dressage on 3 - 6 April 2025 must have felt like a celebration of perseverance and love. One year after their last CDI start in Compiegne in May 2024, Dollars returned to the international stage after surviving a severe health scare that put him at death's door.

Up the Levels

Dollars is a 12-year old Oldenburg bred gelding by Destano out of Son Amour (by Sandro Hit x Davignon x Freiherr). He is bred by Michael Piette.

Eline bought the dark bay gelding from Julie Dessauvages in December 2021 and has produced him to small tour with the help of trainer Wim Verwimp. He became a barn mate of Eline's other FEI level ride, the now medium tour confirmed 13-year old KWPN gelding Haressel (by Uphill x Hemmingway).

Eline and Dollars made their international show debut at small tour level in December 2023 at the CDI Kronenberg indoor, while in 2024 the gelding gained mileage at the CDI's in Lier, where he finished third twice, followed by Sint-Truiden and Compiègne.

Fight For His Life

Dollars' sport career was abruptly interrupted on 13 September 2024 when he showed mild colic signs.

"I always think 'better safe than sorry' and immediately transport my horses to the equine clinic in Merelbeke, where I prefer to keep them in observation when they have colic signs," Eline told Eurodressage.

At the clinic blood work was done and an ultrasound of Dollars' belly made. A big impaction was discovered in his stomach. It was a ball of petrified feed, a bezoar, that could no longer be digested.

"It is apparently very rare and inoperable as the risk for contamination in the abdominal cavity is too great. Also the stomach is known to recover poorly. So at the clinic they said the problem was untreatable and they didn't want to take a chance as the beozar was so big," Eline reminisced. "They tried to flush his stomach a few times. They pumped coca cola and water with magnesium salts in the stomach and sucked the fluids back out, like they do with colic. But they didn't see any improvement so for them it was the end of the road and recommended euthanasia."

Not Giving Up: To the "Clinic of Last Hope"

Eline was not ready to give up though because she saw the fire in Dollars' eyes still burning.

"Before his colic I never felt that he was not doing okay, under saddle, on the ground. He always was a bit on the skinny side so we did provide him long-term stomach relief, but he never had a problem with collection or the heavy work and was always so full of life. I was not ready yet to put him down," said Eline.

She went for a second opinion at Tom Mariën's equine clinic Equitom in Lummen, Belgium, "the equine clinic of last hope," Eline added. At Equitom they made the same diagnosis of the bezoar which had enlarged the stomach four times the normal size.

"His stomach was so big that it pushed his other organs behind his last rib and to the right. They decided to do constant stomach flushes with coca cola and fluids, every two hours, 150 liters in total at a ratio of 5 liters at a time, constantly in and out of the horse. What came out was incredibly rotten and sour smelling substance," Eline remembered. "They had given Dollars five days to show signs of improvement. After three days there was no improvement, but Dollars kept his spirts high, he looked lively, had his ears pricked. He was treated without sedation as he stood still all the time and underwent the treatment as if he knew his life depended on it."

They couldn't give Eline a prognosis about the future. "There is no literature of a horse that survived it," the vets told Eline. "It was an experimental treatment that depended on how far the horse allowed it to be taken. After five days the bezoar had shrunk minimally, by a few centimeters."

When asked what caused a bezoar in his stomach, the vets told Eline that Dollars had a diminished peristaltic movement there, either caused by nerve damage or "maybe because he once ate a foreign object, a piece of metal, plastic, or a textile. It was also suggested he could have had stomach paralysis because of eating a weed. This could have happened before I bought him. It stays a mystery and we'll only find out on the day he has died and we do a necropsy."

Building Back Up

Dollars did not give up, even though his condition weakened over the days. Finally after a 14-day treatment, the cardia and pylorus were freed again, but then new worries started: will Dollars be able to digest food?

The next phase in the recovery of his health was finding a feed plan that could strengthen him and make him gain weight.

"First they were going to build up his feeding routine with liquid feed and the first thing they gave him was pulverised grass, a vitalbix type of mash, very runny. He ate that for three days in very small portions. At the start he got eight small portions per day. After three days we noticed that the feed digested well. Then they gave him feed with more fibre but still in a very liquid form, something like a soaked hay cob, and after three days they saw that he was also digesting this type of feed well. Then some beet pulp was added to the hay cobs. At that point in time the clinic said he was ready to go home but he had to be fed six times a day, with the first feed at 5 AM and the last feed at 11 PM in intervals of three to four hours."

Dollars moved to QC stables in Sint-Niklaas, where Eline is based. She slept at the barn for a month to follow the strict feeding schedule. After one month a check-up followed and that was positive as there was no build-up of feed in his stomach. His diet was then supplemented with chopped grass fibres, so his chewing would increase.

"He needed to eat those fibres also during the night, so we ended up buying a trough with a grid on top that gradually allowed him to eat the fibre during the night," said Eline. "We did this for a month in combination with his six liquid feeds a day and the check-up was again positive. We were then able to reduce the feeding sessions to four times per day between 8 AM and 8 PM and fibres at night. That's the diet he's still going on to this day."

The Will to Survive

After two months of experimenting at home with his liquid fibre diet, Dollars' health stabilized, he gained weight, and one month later was allowed to be ridden very lightly.

Back in action at the 2025 CDI Aachen Festivak 4 Dressage

"I really felt my horse was relieved. He always does his best, he's always willing to work. He can be a bit tense at shows, but he's always with you and very positive minded," said Eline. "The advantage is that this was not a tendon injury. He was never lame, so he was quickly at his usual level again, but I took very good care that first he gained the weight and then mentally and physically felt really recuperated before anything else."

In February Eline took Dollars to a first national show again in Turnhout and rode one test, the Inter I, to score 69.192%. At the CDI Aachen Festival 4 Dressage in April they scored 66.470% in the Prix St Georges and 68.235% in the Inter I. Eline opted not to ride the freestyle as she didn't want to tire him too much.

"From September till now, from the first show we did again, a felt a horse that really wanted to do it and I never felt any discomfort," Eline stated. "Of course he will stay on this liquid diet for the rest of his life and we are doing a check-up with an ultrasound and gastroscopy every three months, to be sure there is no new build-up. We'll have to do this for the rest of career."