OTTB was offered to me with what looked like a small bow. Had it ultrasounded and there is 50% tear of SDFT. Vet recommended stem cell treatment and year off. Can anyone give me the approximate cost of stem cell treatment? Is a year off a reasonable estimate? Any reservations about jumping a horse after this? I’ve had horses come to me with healed bows before and they did fine but never bought one at this point in injury.
A year of rest and then a very slow start back is pretty typical. Stem cell typically runs $2500+. It’s a nice thing to do and can be really helpful but it isn’t necessarily essential. Assuming that this is the first time bowing the tendon and the vet didn’t see any red flags I wouldn’t have reservations for a lower level horse. If you want to event at Intermediate or something similar I might not risk it. It really depends on how well equipped you are to do the rehab.
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A 50% tear is massive.
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If you like the horse, accept his ownership, see how it goes. I would NOT do the stem cell treatment, not necessary, not proven to help heal, just expensive for the owner, IMO. Just time, rest, and rehabilitative exercise. I’ve had several bad ones heal up well, gone show jumping without issue the following year. Exercise is the key, as soon as possible. Show the tendon how strong it has to be as it is healing. Don’t let it heal fully in a stall. There are never any guarantees. Read Tom Ivor’s “The Bowed Tendon Book”. It’s old now, but an eye opener on rehabbing tendons.
If it’s bad, the first month in a stall is adequate to initiate healing. Ice and cold hosing, cool casts alternating sweating and cooling for the first week or so. Painkiller/anti inflammatory drugs help too. Make sure he’s happy and relaxed in the stall, has friends for company. If he’s coming from a good stable, this may have already been done for him.
When you turn him out of the stall, released into a paddock for the first time after stall rest is complete, use a good belt of acepromazine, let it take effect, and open the stall door to the paddock and you walk away without looking back. Don’t shut the horse into a stall again, leave him with his freedom and friends over the fence for company in a “stall with attached paddock” situation. It’s that initial release where most of the shenanigans and celebrations take place. Avoid that happening daily by leaving him with his freedom. He’ll wake up slowly, and there will likely be some leaping around with glee that you don’t want to watch… it will only frighten you. If he’s got a brain, he will look after himself. If he hasn’t got a brain, then he’s not the horse for you. Harsh, I know. But there it is. You can’t baby them forever. He must start to use the leg, stress the healing tendon fibers so that they know how much pressure they are going to need to take as they heal. And that is not “hand walking”. If healing comes complete without stressing the tendon, he is more likely to rebow in the future, because it won’t be strong enough. It’s a delicate balancing act to know how much, and when, and there IS risk involved. You have to decide. And the horse has to have enough of a brain to look after himself too. The longer he is on stall rest, the more of a lunatic he can become when turned loose. And the more risk of other health and soundness issues due to inactivity. Don’t coddle him. Don’t make him feel better than he is by giving him pain killers at this stage, let him feel the injury so that he knows it’s there, and looks after it. Hopefully. A smart horse looks after himself, a stupid one may not.
Good luck! Don’t rule out a bowed tendon for a competition horse! It can come good.
I had one that was bad, could have been considered a fatal bow, brought him home, did the rehab. Started riding him the following year. Started jumping him. My vet of choice at the time was boarding her horse at our farm, she was in on it from the beginning. We never bothered scanning it… it was bad, and we already owned him. He was a lunatic when he got turned out of stall rest, I just walked away. My vet watched this whole performance, and when I started riding him, and jumping him the following year, that damaged tendon was still very evident, though he was sound. He jumped well, “Jumper” type of horse, lots of power, and would literally jump ANYTHING. Big stuff. Yikes. And that tendon just got tighter and tighter in the following months. Vet postulated that we should apply for funding to study “jumping” as a rehab for tendon injuries LOL. Went on to be a medal horse, actually.
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If you like the horse, and you have the time, talk to your vet and see what they say. It wouldn’t make me pause, but I keep my horses at home and can afford to put one on the backburner for a year or so. A boarding barn, not so much – although, there is plenty you can do during layup with a horse (clicker training) that keeps them occupied and fulfills that training need.
A year is fairly conservative for just a bow, but agree with Laurierace that a 50% tear is quite significant. I would make sure there is no other soft tissue involvement.
An old horseman’s adage: whatever time it took to heal the injury, multiply for bringing back to work. That means if it took 6 months to heal, take a year to recondition. And take it real slow - there is no reason to rush these things, and the more conservative you are, the better the baseline foundation for good tendon condition.
My first OTTB retired at 9 abruptly from the track after a double bow up front - and one was a complete tear, not just a 50% one. Back then stem cell therapy didn’t exist. He was wrapped daily and put on stall rest. As soon as the vet okayed it, he went out 24/7 in a herd. The bows never bothered him again and he was PTS in his mid-twenties after a long and wonderful eventing career. He taught so many people how to event, was the safest pony club horse ever… I’m so glad we took the risk with him. He never had a lame step from those bows and I never worried about them. They are usually because of bad trimming plus hard work - fix the trim, and you should be well on the way to recovery.
Talk to your vet about whether or not stem cell is the right modality of treatment. It can help by reducing pain and inflammation, but like NancyM said, it’s not always proven to work.
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Thanks everyone! My first eventing horse came to me with an old bow and it was never an issue. But I have no idea how bad of a tear it was. Thanks for the clues that 50% is bad…it sounded horrible when vet said that. It doesn’t look like much from the outside and he is jogging sound/palpates fine after a month. The bad part is that I board…cheaply, but still have to pay. Right now he is cleared for a couple of hours in small paddock. He is really good and has been quiet so far. I don’t do anything big anymore…my goal is BN or N eventing again tops. Prices are crazy right now for anything large and sound so something with an injury that can be rehabbed has to be considered. Thoughts on resale in the distant future if it heals okay and he performs well?
I’ve sold the ones I had over the years. Yup, it’s a consideration by the buyers. Perhaps some will run away. But people with some experience will buy an old bow. You have! I have too! Maybe not for six figures. But you never know. If he’s good, they either have to buy him, or compete against him. And after they’ve seen him place higher than other horses, jump better than other horses, and get beat by him in competition, they consider owning him might be OK after all.
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I did stem cells for a very small DDFT lesion in 2016…We started with PRP while the injury was fresh then did IRAP in the tendon sheath while stem cells were growing (takes a few weeks). And between 1 PRP, 3 IRAP, 2 rounds of stem cell injections (including harvesting to grow them) and all the ultrasounds, I exceeded my $10k major medical coverage. By the time the vet was prepping for the 2nd stem cell treatment, he couldn’t find the lesion anymore but since cells had already been taken out of the freezer, we injected them anyway. I then spent about $100/yr after that to bank remaining cells for potential future use. For my horse’s injury, my vets estimated 4 months to heal, and that is what happened. And it probably wasn’t sped up at all by stem cells, but the hope given the location near the fetlock was that we’d have a better chance of avoiding a repeat injury by having the tissue heal to be more elastic, with less scar. For a grade 1 tear.
For a 50% tear, at least a year seems reasonable. I am not opposed to taking a horse with an old SDFT bow, but this one seems risky to take on at the beginning of the healing stage.
