hello, a friend of mine has a coming 4 year old gelding who had surgery to remove a small fracture from his splint. He got the splint when sent for training back in Sept. He was given time off until mid January but still sore when tried to bring him back after his rest, at that point they had the vet out for X-ray and found the small chip at the bottom of the splint. He had surgery to remove it mid Feb, surgery went well. 2 weeks stall rest, 2 weeks turnout then slowly back to work was the vets instructions. Follow up after the surgery was all good, the vet said everything healed well no concerns and he was ready for turn out. He actually ended up having closer to 4 weeks turnout before she tried to put him back to work (a light trot on the lunge) but he is still a bit sore on that leg. Called th vet but by the time he could make it out (about a week) horse presented sound. He said keep working lightly. Couple days later horse is off again. Has anyone had this type of experience? From what the vet explained we expected the chip removal to be like “an instant relief” (his words) and that the soreness wouldn’t continue. Afraid to call the vet out again and pay another expensive bill for her gelding to trot up sound again. Vets advice if he went sore again was to try another week off or have him back out. Any thoughts?
“Removing a small fracture from the splint”? Can you explain that a bit better? They usually just remove the splint bone if it’s fractured and splints also refer to painful bumps on the insides of the front cannons, starting hbut gradually cooling and setting. Often seen in younger horses starting serious work, sometimes from hitting themselves, sometimes from stressing the leg or over training, sometimes for no known reason. Are we talking a chip below a splint or a chip around the splint bone???
Lunging in small circles can make many horses off for a few months then just 6 weeks after surgery to move awkwardly, not a great tool, how lame is this one? Has the vet blocked him to locate the origin? It’s very possible the horse needs more time off if friend is out of money, that would be a good place to start. And no small circles.
Always hard when you don’t own the horse and weren’t there with the vet to hear everything that was said or ask questions. Still a good opportunity to try learn from it. Never wrong to rest longer.
There was a small piece of the splint which fractured off so it was a bit of a floating chip. The horse wasn’t being worked on a small circle so much as put on the lunge to see how he looked before trying to ride. When the vet came out the horse was not sore enough to block, I’d say maybe a 3 out of 5 when he actually looked sore. He said keep lightly working but soreness came back again after a couple light rides (no further lunging) just walk and a round of trot each way.
If it were my horse, I’d have the vet take a look when he’s lame, or maybe get more imaging done. I’d also consider just waiting and letting him rest with no work for another 3 weeks or so.
Depending upon the location of the fracture in the splint, it’s possible there was suspensory ligament involvement. Unfortunately in these cases of intermittent lameness, the advice is either to baby it along with NSAIDs until it’s more obvious, or (and I hate doing this but sometimes it’s necessary) work him as if nothing was wrong until he’s really broken and it’s worth the vet looking.
If your friend is concerned about pennies, she can take the first route, and be met with the frustrations therein. However, because I suspect suspensory ligament involvement and THAT’s another ball of wax, I’d have the vet out now, regardless of how hoss presents that day. Vet should be able to create slight lameness through flexion tests, then block accordingly. At least a good vet should 
Once location is determined, vet returns at a later date to perform u/s.
Honestly, I’d start with a radiograph of that splint now regardless of soundness, just to be sure there’s nothing else going on near that splint bone.
When the splint was examined by X-ray the first time (when the chip was discovered) they did not think it was in a place that would suggest suspensory involvement. When the vet came out to see the horse post surgery and horse turned up sound he did do a bunch of flexions on hard ground (in the barn alleyway) and we put him on the lunge to try to coax out some soreness. (Horse is boarded at my
place and I have been helping with the vet visits so she doesn’t have to take time off work every time) I did see the horse move sore the night before so it was pretty surprising to see how sound he looked the next day. There is no filling in the leg anywhere but the splint and general area does have some heat. I did try to convince the vet to re-X-ray anyways but he said unless the horse is sore at the time what would appear on the X-rays wouldn’t mean much, and that if it was anything drastic (ex another chip etc) horse would be more consistently sore and he would be able to get a consistent reaction in the flexions and palpation. He was undecided whether he palpated sore on the splint because the gelding is a bit fidgety anyways, but he was pretty sure there was soreness on palpation. I am not a huge fan of this vet and don’t use him myself, my vet is farther away and therefore more expensive and harder to get an on farm appt with, usually have to wait about 2 weeks to get her out and we are worried about having the same thing happen, lame horse present sound and waste more money lol 
Have you or your vet considered freeze firing it? I’ve had such good results with doing this, on problems like this, whether or not surgery has already taken place. Sometimes cracks in the splint bone can be right next to the cannon bone, maybe not the whole way through, and don’t show up well on xray, but continue to be sore, on and off. Becomes “The splint that never heals”. Freeze firing heals it. Leaves a couple white hairs after all has healed, but not a painful procedure. Need to find a vet who has the equipment to do the job, liquid nitrogen and the blunt probe- common with Standardbred race vets. Not invasive, not expensive (in the overall scheme of things).
Ultra sound is called for. Obviously there was some strain on the legs if he popped a splint and something knocked that fragment off, possibly after the initial event and splint formation…did he get it caught in a fence or something?, he may have tweaked a suspensory in the process. Wonder what happened here…does boarder have any insight?
You could try gently suggesting your boarder get a second opinion from a vet with more updated equipment and skills. The repeated flexions trying to locate something when there’s obvious trauma is pointless, you can see where the injury is, just not it’s extent. And I don’t like him saying an x ray won’t show anything if taken when the horse is not limping???Say what? Although, IMO, an ultra sound is more likely to reveal the on again, off again soft tissue issues that might be percolating.
If boarder won’t bite, just rest the horse longer. That would be the protocol with most soft tissue complications anyway, just a question of exactly what is wrong and how long and how aggressively to rest it.
To explain the X-ray comment a little better he said he would expect to see “healing bone” anyways, so if he was sound that day there’s no way to say for sure what was on the X-ray was what was making him sore since we couldn’t block. He popped the splint initially when he was sent for 30days to be started, trainer said it just developed from regular starting/riding. I suspect trainer was trying to rush him along and worked him too hard too fast. He hasn’t been caught up in the fence or anything that I’m aware of but of course he doesn’t have eyes on him 24/7. Anything drastic I would have noticed for sure but could have tweaked something I suppose.
