Too late now but whenever you’re buying a horse and bringing them home it’s best not to change as much as possible. A lot of horses need front shoes and even if they’re ok without it’s a tough transition to barefoot in the fronts. It’s best to try and keep feed shoeing etc the same until the new horse has settled and then you can make changes one at a time.
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Just a thought…horses with sore feet or chronic neck/ back pain often do not limp as more then one foot hurts and/or not using one normally stresses the other(s). Bucking requires rocking weight back onto the hindquarters and pushing off, sore horses are reluctant to engage back and hind end to generate a buck. If they work over fences, they start stopping. If they have bi lateral front foot pain, they wont want to land either jump or buck and often are balky, not wanting to step out.
Its very easy to dump time and money into treating something thats not the root cause of a problem thats creating behavior issues.
One other very important thing…READ your insurance policy carefully. Do NOT ask your very nice commissioned sales agent who earns a living selling policies for the underwriters. The underwriter reviews the diagnostics, pre approves the surgery and signs the checks. It’s their call, not the agents.
Read actual policy before planning on how much they will reimburse and how much you are going to have to come up with. What does your policy actually say it will cover? Do they call for additional diagnostics before pre approving? Want additional imaging of the area? How about aftercare coverage? Find out now.
One other thing, your mare has a long back. NBD, none are perfect. But it is considered an unsoundness as many do have issues when put in consistent, regular work.
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This this this.
They may even claim this issue was “pre-existing” and refuse to cover it. A friend had that happen, she got the dx too early in the insurance cycle on a new horse and they denied it because they decided the horse must’ve had the problem to start with since she jumped to a lameness workup so soon. Or that’s how I understood it secondhand.
Read the policy and ask the underwriter before proceeding! Insurance is a godsend but also a pain sometimes
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Did she have shoes on when you looked at her/bought her?
Did you remove the shoes?
100%
Sore feet could certainly explain this balking you OP says happens
I kind of had the same question. It sounds like she had front shoes when you looked at her and tried her at the sale barn, correct? Who decided to pull her shoes when she arrived at this barn?
And were her front feet xrayed during the PPE?
I am sincerely hoping that once she gets shod again, and she has a chance to readjust, she’ll be much more comfortable.
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Who is the “she” who “had the shoes pulled off when she got here”? Did you own mare at that time? Were you asked at the time if you already owned mare? Did you pay for the shoe removal and re trim?
Its your money but, in horses, lots of others make decisions on how you spend it. Be careful. Those people often have your best interests ranked below their income requirements….that goes for any trainer, insurance agent, vet or body worker… You are their source of income. Remember that when making decisions.
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I think “she” is the mare. “The mare had her shoes pulled”. I interpreted it that OP (the owner) had the horse taken barefoot to see if the mare could handle it. On whose advice, we don’t know.
Personally I don’t mind trying a horse barefoot but I’d like X-rays first if possible. Since mare is sore, boots and pads or shoes and frog support would be a good first step.
But did OP or trainer know or suspect mare was sore when they pulled the shoes?
When buying with unknown history, IME, best to leave things as they are for the first few weeks unless there is a compelling reason to change anything ( or the drugs wear off).
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Did your vet xray her front feet?
Did your vet so flexion testing, and see if one front foot is worse than the other?
Did the vet do any nerve blocking?
I don’t mind putting shoes in a horse if they NEED them, but I’m curious how else your vet determined that her front feet are sore or what else they did.
That’s also going to be valuable information for your farrier. Such as, for example, are the soles thin and she would benefit also from a pad? Are the angles off and she would also benefit from a wedge? Etc. Etc.
I also don’t mind pulling shoes on a new horse, although I may or may not do right away - just depends. When I bought my mare 3 years ago, she had shoes on all 4 feet. However, she gal selling her had her down in Arizona for the winter (horse is actually from North Dakota) so that was the first time she had shoes on in her life, and only b/c of the Arizona desert. I pulled her hind shoes right away after I bought her, but I kept the front ones on all summer. When our riding season was winding down, then I pulled the front ones and gave her the winter to get used to being barefoot on front again. I haven’t put shoes back on her. She doesn’t need them.
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I don’t like to fix what isn’t broken.
Certainly things can be done to improve the horse, but at first leave well enough alone til you’ve had time to watch them.
Most people think barefoot is a way to save $$.
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In addition to a discussion with the company who holds the policy (not the agent) I would also make sure you document those discussions with follow up emails so that you have answers in writing from them.
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Up thread, horse has been difficult for handling of her front feet for some time. Because she doesn’t want to put weight on just one of them. How the trainer didn’t recognize this very common thing, I don’t know, among all of the other signs pointing to sore feet. Perhaps shoes will be enough to help her, but I would have done at least basic farrier X-rays while the vet was there so the farrier has something to go off of this week.
Bucking and difficulty for mounting could also be due to feet—she doesn’t want the addition of rider weight and she doesn’t want to go forward. The back might be an incidental finding. But an important one when working on a conditioning, ongoing bodywork, and saddle fit plan.
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Update 9
Vet and surgeon talked over the weekend and I called my underwriter today and kept detailed notes and took down names. I am going to talk to the surgeon about injections or shockwave treatment but right now the recommended course of action because of the structural changes to the bone and the degree of contact is to have her receive a nerve blocker to determine that the pain is for sure originating there beyond what palpation etc can do, and then to do a potential wedge osteoectomy. I asked the vet if in her opinion the feet could be the root cause and she said that while they might contribute, it is unlikely that they are causative, and that there isn’t an abundance of reason to suspect them when all signs point to the KS as being symptomatic. She said it is extremely unlikely that the back stuff is incidental only.
The good news is that insurance will cover the nerve block test, foot x rays, and surgery if I choose to do it at 100%. I have been looking at rehab etc exercises and publications through the support group someone rec’d in another thread and a lot of it looks like our daily rehab/postural correction work that I have already been doing for generalized back pain before I knew what it was.
The vet said she seems to be in pretty significant pain. Farrier coming on Thurs and I’m going to schedule foot xrays for her fronts. She was stiff when I asked her to bend yesterday on the fan but she’s clearly putting in her best effort and doing what she is able to do. Emotionally I now have some huge decisions to make but the relief of knowing for sure the bill will be on them and that I’ve already paid all I will have to pay is massive and ironically exhausting. Since Friday I’ve been feeling every emotion in extremes. I’m very tired and plan on probably just lying down when I finish our training/posture work today.
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I am so sorry that this is your first horse and you’re already overwhelmed with so much.
It shouldn’t be this way. Those of us who’ve had horses for many, many years accept that there will be anxiety and heartache. It sort of comes with the territory. But to be hit with it right away… again, I’m so sorry. The anxiety and heartache should be outweighed by the joy.
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Oof. Well good job on doing what seems like all the right things! This has been quite the rough start for you both, I’m sorry.
Hopefully you’ll get some good results and see some improvement in her comfort level soon!
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FWIW, this is exactly what my first vet said about my horses KS. I’ve had two other vets look at him since, and even when he’s been out of work, his KS is only symptomatic when there’s other issues going on(feet, ulcers, nerve damage, and epm). In hindsight I wish I hadn’t let the vet push so hard that the KS was causing all of his issues, I’d have saved a ton of money and heartache.
If it were my horse, I’d get the foot X-rays and get her feet as pain free as possible, rehab as aggressively as possible for 4-6 weeks before making a decision on surgery. The 6 week mark with my horse was when I could tell that rehab wasn’t working, but my vet was so sure that KS was the problem I kept trying and ended up just causing a lot of frustration for my horse and myself.
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Update 9.5
Talked to the surgeon on the phone. I definitely like him and got a good vibe. He was very upfront about the potential complications of surgery and the alternatives but did recommend the osteoectomy. He sent me the discharge instructions that are typical to this procedure so I can see what rehab would involve as part of the decisionmaking process.
What bothers me the most is that initially she’d have to be on stall rest for 2wks, and while I know that’s by far the lesser of 2 evils… it would cause this horse extreme distress, as she panics and endlessly calls for others any time she’s alone in her stall in the barn. I’m wondering if the walk to the paddock area would be allowed if I were to get a four panel fence and have her ‘stall’ be outside where she can see her friend, as I saw someone with a horse with a susp injury do back at a barn I did research at.
It would involve not riding her for at least 6 months, and (less significantly) not going to Europe for the first time as I’d been planning at the start of this year because rehab will be daily and that’d involve me being gone for 2 weeks. Given that I’ve been at the barn every day except for one (slept all day, this was the day after the KS diagnosis, I think it was the emotional exhaustion) despite snowstorms over these past 3 months, I feel good about my ability to be there for the necessary daily care.
This just… is not how I saw any of this happening at all. I’m trying to tell myself that it was a stroke of random good luck that I was able to get a horse this early in life anyway, and that if I hadn’t gotten this job I wouldn’t be riding anyway, and I still take lessons, so it’s not like I won’t be riding weekly. It’s just a huge time and care commitment regardless - though really I feel like it’s kind of the responsible thing to do.
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So–you have a horse who is ulcer prone, not easy on the ground, has mild KS and is very foot sore. You are considering a major surgery and rehab, with no guarantees you will ever have a realistically rideable animal for YOU. If you want to spend the financial and emotional investment to go all in with possibly no return, proceed. If you want a pet to hang out with and continue practicing your ground work and horsemanship skills, get her feet comfortable and do some unmounted rehab exercises. If it all seems overwhelming and you would prefer a more suitable rideable horse to own, euthanasia is a humane and sane option for a horse that is unrideable, uncomfortable and not easy to handle. It sounds harsh but it is a better option than passing her off or letting her continue to be uncomfortable. Some may find this option harsh but I feel it is a far better end than many, and you are already going above and beyond. Horses will always break your heart and if you can only afford one better to have one that brings some joy rather than constant angst.
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You could ask the barn owner if there might be a couple of horses who could take turns on turn out for those two weeks so she’s not alone in the barn by herself.
Maybe one horse could stay in for the mornings, and then they could switch it out with another horse who could stay in for the afternoons.
Generally speaking, stall rest after a veterinary procedure means just that. Stall rest.
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The reason for the stall rest is the incision and stitches. It is not the same as suspensory rehab. I only have experience with ligament snip cases so I don’t know how much more gnarly or not the wound is for the bone shave surgery, but wound care and keeping the stitches in is important.
Likely best chance of success would be for her to be in a specific rehab program at least for the initial healing where she would be somewhere with other horses inside and knowledgeable care. It might be good for some of the initial conditioning rehab to be done at a place like that as well. The cost of this service can be at least as high as a full training program. Some insurance companies may pay for some of it if you are in a vet-run program. A lot of them won’t, or will only pay for part of it but not for some of the other therapies that might be recommended and add-on charges like water treadmill use. Insurance companies don’t reimburse for call charges and certain other fees associated with diagnostics, treatment or recovery which can add up—I’m rehabbing a horse from a severe injury who is so far mostly a success case but the cost to really support him through this (and deal with some secondary setbacks) that are not covered have far outweighed the costs that were covered for the acute injury.
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