Honestly, it was a pity buy. She had been there for so long and would just get dumped back to the rescue without even being given a chance. I’m not really interested in doing anything major with her. I don’t even know if I’d like to show her in the future. But I wanted to give her a chance and see if I could fix the problem, instead of dumping her somewhere for someone else to deal with (you know where chronically lame horses who aren’t really good at anything can end up). Besides her lameness issues, she’s the best horse. Sweet as can be, loves being groomed on and doted on. It makes me happy just giving her a bath and filling her with cookies.
But in all honesty, I have an issue with pity buying animals. I have 5 cats and all of them have problems. First cat I raised from a day old had multiple digestive and motor problems, but I worked through that. Second cat has IBS and chronic diarrhea (and asthma but it’s not so bad right now). Third cat gets weepy eyes for seemingly no reason. Fourth cat is ok right now. Fifth cat put me into debt after my friend’s pit bulls attacked him and she dumped him on me (other option was her leaving him in the woods or bringing him to the pound. I really didn’t want a fifth cat but I couldn’t let him just die) because she knew I wouldn’t say no. All my animals have issues 
Check your house & barn for this piece of Hobo Art 
:
https://glasstire.com/2020/03/19/paula-newton-a-kind-lady-lives-here/
I remember looking at her when I was shopping last year. Glad she landed with someone willing to figure her out 
OP, you picked up a really nice mare. I remember seeing her go through the listings and being surprised she wasn’t picked up by a few resellers I know who rave about her sire. Maybe because she is chestnut and a mare. She is sore in her video but no more sore than many others I see fly through the reseller pipe-line. I hope you can get some answers.
I don’t see glaring hocks from the video. I do see hind end/back soreness, could be from feet, could be from something up high like SI or even stifle. In my experience, horses with stifle issues have a harder time cantering and it looks like she is most comfortable in that gait. It’d be more useful to see small circles both directions, as well as close-ups of her feet. I agree with others you’ll want to go to a clinic; you’ll get many more answers and better diagnostic tools there.
I’m sorry about the hock injections not working out. I feel your pain - I had injections done on one of mine last month (vet said he really needed it) and he is now moving worse than before. I wish I had listened to my gut - always listen to your gut. 
Where in MD are you? You will save a lot of effort going to New Bolton or Morven Park. You don’t necessarily need to answer with your location, it’s just depending on where you are, one will be closer than the other. Neither are particularly far from any part of the state.
I probably shouldn’t say this out loud, but I’m always tickled how much cheaper New Bolton is than my local vet (who isn’t even that expensive).
She’s definitely not right behind in that video but apart from that, she’s really adorable.
My friend’s horse was kind of a neglect case at one point in his life and did a lot of these things including the rope walking and such, but he had many, many body parts with problems (neck, lumbar, feet, hocks, stifles, SI, fetlocks,… I think those were the big ones?). So not too helpful!
Maybe it’s an old injury in the pelvis that didn’t heal right or maybe the beginnings of a neuro condition like some have mentioned. I agree that taking her to a clinic for a full workup is likely to be the best bang for buck.
She was likely pulled from racing due to AV heart block in the 2nd degree which the vet noted on exam.
I would target the SI and right hind with your lameness exam. It is possible that there is arthritis that can be managed because her range of motion somewhat improved during the ridden video. She was very short in the RH initially. I’m surprised her canter looks that good but range of motion is limited in all 3 gaits with the RH and I suspect she has stifle weakness in the RH as well.
Her back also palpated sore in the PPE so that may be why your vet addressed the hocks. I think she could really benefit from chiro and massage therapy, particularly with the muscles related to the back and SI. PPE noted one side of her wither is sore (likely from compensating from the RH). I think that would be improved with massage and chiro as well.
The angles in her feet could be off as someone mentioned but I don’t think that is your root cause. Also, I’ve had horses have difficulty with shoeing as you mentioned that were not neurological - they had lameness in the front or hind end.
My fingers are crossed for you.
Sounds to me like her back is out of whack. Any good bodyworkers in your area? I love me a good acupuncture vet.
She is a really good looking mare and I’ll bet she’s fun to ride. I happen to like the red girls, so I’d probably have been a pity buyer, too.
The hind end issue is pretty obvious in that video. And since the hock injections didn’t help, I also guess that it’s higher up, like the stifle or SI. .But I also have known horses that have slipped and fallen, injuring their pelvis.
She’s certainly worth the trip to a clinic for a lameness workup. Good luck and hope you get some answers for your sweet, pretty mare.
If she looks like this currently, she is blockably lame. Find a vet who will block her, before doing any imaging or further treatment. It’s more work, but will save money in the long run.
If you can say what part of MD you are in, someone may be able to recommend a vet to you.
As a side note, I am shocked that New Vocations used this video as an advertisement for this mare. Is this normal for them?
Because of her being off? Sort of not really, but you have to understand where they are coming from.
They have horses donated to their program to place in homes. They do a rudimentary evaluation on the horses, but they place over 500 horses a year, most for $1000 or less— they can’t go crazy doing expensive diagnostics to pinpoint every problem. They get the horses, do their basic health maintenance, evaluate them, start retraining if they are sound enough, and advertise them honestly. This situation was a little different since she was returned with soundness problems, so I’m sure they wanted potential adopters to be 100% aware of what she was doing soundness-wise.
I don’t recall this horse’s ad, but I would bet they mentioned her way of going and presented it as honestly as they could. They usually try to give some guidelines for what limitations the horse may have due to past injuries, from companion only to no limitations in a career. I would imagine this horse would have been billed towards the light riding end of the spectrum by them.
Yes, because of how lame she is. Idk, it seems like bad business practice to me. Especially to make a video and then advertise her as riding sound.
I guess I also have no idea how long after her last race this video was made. They may have thought it was just post race soreness at that point.
Your point about their inability to investigate very single lameness make sense. Thanks
I adopted one from them this year. My situation was, uh, a little “unique”… so let’s just say I’m now on a first name basis with like everyone in the entire organization. 
But knowing how they roll, they were probably trying to show that this is a horse with a hind end unsoundness that isn’t so bad she’s crippled, but you’re going to need to deal with it. Maybe it’s manageable, maybe it’s not. They make you go through a pretty lengthy approval process, so it’s unlikely they would have sent her to a home of someone who wasn’t aware of the situation.
I’m gonna reply here instead of replying to each individual person (I hope all y’all can see this).
She started racing in 2016 and retired in 2018. She was retired because she hurt her knee (new vocations didn’t tell me this. Her race trainer did. NV didn’t mention it. Possible they didn’t know). They advertised her at first saying she wouldn’t have any limitations (rating her a 4/5 for physical capability). Then after she was sent back after the failed vet exam, they changed her to a 3/5 and said that their vet couldn’t find the same findings as the vet who did the PPE and said that the findings might’ve been worse because she was in heat and is really sensitive while in heat. The video on YouTube was in may of 2021. The video here is from tonight with my friend riding. This is 4 weeks after injections. No improvement
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The video OP shared isn’t the video that NV had for this mare originally. I remember she was not sound but she was not this degree of unsound. It sounds like she was returned to the program over it.
With NV and any TB or STB org, they have to have a certain realism and even tolerance for “NQR” when placing horses in their program. They can’t feasibly go down every soundness rabbit hole with every horse - that would exhaust the funds they do have to intake and save these horses. Their money is better spent housing and providing basic therapies and having the prospective buyers PPE. NV does have the caveat in their web ads that the buyer should do their own PPE and come to their own conclusion about soundness. No horse retires from racing completely sound. NV does have vets who perform a basic PPE, but like with a lot of placement agencies, they don’t always know the full story or even get the real reason why the horse has ended in their program.
The only other video they put up of her was this one. This was back in 2018, before she was thrown into a field for 3 years.
I forgot to add, I am in Poolesville MD.
This is my smurf opinion, and I am not a vet, but I think she is moving a little better in the video post hock injections – at least in the direction she is presented in the video (going left). The rope-walking is still there, but she is not offloading that RH as quickly as she is in other videos and there is better evenness over her back. I noticed some pelvis asymmetry as she goes over the poles (she is dropping her pelvis to the right). It may be you have a few bodily complaints going on at once; sometimes it’s like peeling layers of an onion to get to the bottom of what’s causing it all. A clinic can do a lot in one lameness evaluation to really peel back the layers, including blocks and better diagnostic tools than out in the field.
In a lot of circles, this horse would be considered sound – servicably or otherwise. I think you’re a great person to be looking into what is going on for this mare. I hope you guys can get some answers and please report back if you do. Give India (what is her barn name?) a peppermint for me, please. I had always wondered what happened to her, so it’s so nice to see her resurface on COTH a few years later even if it is not in the best of circumstances.
And P.S - thank you for saving the kitties. 
I contacted the hospital and sent them videos and her PPE and asked for a ballpark estimate for all that they’d want to do for her so I know roundabout how much I’d need to save. Waiting to see if they answer me.
Hopefully I get her sound enough to do some low jumping. Probably never higher than 2’6 because I’m a huge baby. If she’s able to do that of course.
I ordered some bute to see if that would help her at all. Waiting for the approval from my vet.
Also, yes, I did keep her name! We all call her India (though half the time I call her Pretty Horse lol)
In the old video, I don’t see a whole lot. She just looks “tracky.” I wonder if she fell sometime when she was in the field?
Not sure if you were riding on a long rein just for the video, but her muscling is pretty upside down, and going around inverted is not helping her situation. If this is something that can be rehabbed, you’ll have to work to build the topline muscles. I also see asymmetry in the pelvis which was noted on the PPE as well. Looks like it’s exacerbated in appearance by very different muscling one side to the other.
