Breeding OCD Injured filly

[kcarter]

I have a lovely filly out of Waterford and a Prince Thatch mare. She jumped a 4 foot fence at 5 months old and injured her shoulder. She was diagnosed with OCD at 7 months of age after coming up a bit short. She is now 14 months old and her shoulder seems less sore. Given her diagnosis I cannot sell her as intended - as a jumping prospect. I am not sure about selling her as a broodmare either if she has OCD. She is absolutely stunning - see pics here https://www.facebook.com/durhamparkstable/photos/pcb.781883618591916/781882768592001/?type=1&theater
I know I cannot be the only person in this predicament. What have others done?

Thanks for any suggestions,
Kris

[yourcolorfuladdictio]

There are plenty of other careers out there for a horse not intended for “high performance”.

You will have to spend the money on the surgery to clean up the OCD lesions, if the filly is a candidate. Find the best surgeons, spend the money. You want the surgeons that could clean up OCDs in his sleep, not the one that sees them once in a blue moon and is getting out his manuals to read up on the surgery. I would look at the 3-5 closest equine hospitals and pick the one with the best orthopedic surgeons.

As an example, I live in NC and have NC State’s vet school within 30 minutes of my house. This is super exciting and great for emergencies but if my horse was in stable condition and could make the 8 hr drive to KY or PA to Hagyard, Rood and Riddle, or New Bolton; those might be better choices for performance orthopedic surgeries. They see more high performance horses and more orthopedic surgeries daily than NC State does. They are also more likely to be able to operate on a complicated OCD lesion.

Anyway, once you’ve become an expert in the equine clinics in your area, you then have the consult, the OCD surgery, and the rehab. If the filly doesn’t recover 110% you sell her as a lower level prospect. If you are determined that she should not be bred, as she has OCDs and those are genetic, you can always have an ovarectomy to keep her from breeding in the future. Just sell her with an open book, don’t try to hide anything, and make sure you have a right to first refusal in the future as a mare ineligible for breeding is more likely to wind up hard on their luck than a broodmare prospect.

If she truly is lame for life but pasture sound. You can always use her as a surrogate.

[Laurierace]

I have only known one foal with shoulder OCD and she was so painful that she was euthanized. I was there when they took the X-rays and they were so bad even I could see it. This foal got considerably worse over time despite stall rest so hopefully the fact that yours is improving bodes well. I would not breed her.

[jennywho]

A friend has a filly with a shoulder ocd, she is only 2 this year, but he is planning to breed her next year. She is a race bred tb.

I have a filly that had a stifle odd, we did surgery at 10 months and then she developed a cyst in the same stifle. She is sound enough for some things, but when we put her in race training her stride got choppy as we started speed work. She is stunning, black and 17.1h, but in good conscience, I can not breed her.

[jennywho]

Sorry to take this a bit off topic, but the shoulder ocd in my friends filly was super hard to diagnose. It made me wonder if some of the shoulder fractures that we see in racing weren’t due to undiagnosed shoulder ocds? Your thoughts Laurirace?

[Laurierace]

[QUOTE=jennywho;8222440]
Sorry to take this a bit off topic, but the shoulder ocd in my friends filly was super hard to diagnose. It made me wonder if some of the shoulder fractures that we see in racing weren’t due to undiagnosed shoulder ocds? Your thoughts Laurirace?[/QUOTE]
Thankfully I have never dealt with any shoulder fractures so I can’t help with that but it seems possible. The only horse I ever knew with a broken shoulder stepped on a polo that unraveled as he galloped and face planted.
I do remember my vet saying that often when a horse looks like their shoulder is hurting it is often the foot. The foot hurts so they don’t swing their shoulder back and forth fully which makes it look like they are protecting a sore shoulder.

[beowulf]

I agree - pursue surgery if you can, lots do fine for lower level homes… and young horses heal well. It’s not the end of her career if she can’t perform at the highest level of the sport… most horses can’t anyway.

I also am of the camp you should not breed her… there are studies that suggest OCD is heritable. In my experience, I have seen this to be demonstrated as true - especially with certain stallions.

Unfortunately in young horses OCD can be incredibly multi-factional, which makes diagnosing why it happened very difficult. Too much feed, too little room, an injury – these can contribute. My vet, who specializes in lameness/locomotion disturbances, is very convinced that OCD has a genetic component that predisposes them to OC. As such, if you asked him if you should breed that mare, he would say no.

OCD is usually bilateral, which can be very difficult to manage a horse’s comfort. Is it her left shoulder? She is very pretty, but her shoulder and lower leg would concern me.

[omare]

I would talk to your vet to confirm it is indeed only injury related and not inherited. An issue might be also whether pregnancy would aggravate the injury. (Getting to the end of a pregnancy with a getting lamer every day broodmare is stressful for all.)
(I always wondered if certain shoulder, stifle and pelvis injuries in racehorses were starting gate related?)

[bornfreenowexpensive]

I did surgery. It is a long long process. But his best option. We also did IRAP.

[beowulf]

P.P.S and take this with a grain of salt… I sat all morning trying to figure out what was bugging me about this post… there’s another poster on this board and I am trying to remember the thread but it was several years ago - anyway, she bred to the same stallion and the offspring also had OCD. But every foal also has a mother, so grain of salt.

also remember that the old man himself retired early (if you are talking about the AWR Consul one), very early, because of a shoulder injury. even more of an argument against breeding this filly of yours, no matter how lovely. I really dislike seeing horses bred who were lame or compromised before the real work ever began.

[beowulf]

P.P.S and take this with a grain of salt… I sat all morning trying to figure out what was bugging me about this post… there’s another poster on this board and I am trying to remember the thread but it was several years ago - anyway, she bred to the same stallion and the offspring also had OCD…

also remember that the old man himself retired early, very early, because of a shoulder injury. even more of an argument against breeding this filly of yours, no matter how lovely.

[NorCalDressage]

[QUOTE=kcarter;8105839]
I have a 6 year old Hanoverian/TB mare from Waterford that started to “sit” on her feed bin. She leans on the right side lifting her left leg off the ground. She does this daily, sometimes many times a day if she has been playing in the pasture hard. Her little sister, same sire different mare now has shoulder OCD (Diagnosed at 7 mos). This is the fourth child of this sire in this area with OCD. I am now wondering if my older mare has a hip OCD? Why I am mentioning all of this? I took her out of the stall with the feed bin and she is now leaning up against the wall and I have seen her lean up against the big tree in the pasture. From what I have been told, diagnosing hip OCD is very hard. Anyone have any experience with this?[/QUOTE]

Based on this - I would hesitate to breed either one of them. Or to that stallion again.

Shoulder OCD is frequently inoperable and very debilitating. OCDs in other areas are operated on all the time - different types have better success than others of course. Did your vet send the films to a surgeon for consult to see if the filly is even a surgical candidate?

[BeeHoney]

Where is the OCD located? If it is in the shoulder, that is generally a poor prognosis. In other joints, the prognosis varies but generally is excellent if the lesions are operated on early.

If the OCD is separate from the shoulder injury, I would be hopeful about the shoulder potentially continuing to heal and improve. Youngsters sometimes have incredible healing potential. At this point, at 14 months, the filly seems slightly young to operate on. At this age some OCD lesions may regress on their own. Generally we wait until 18 months to operate on any OCD lesions. There are some lesions that are obviously NOT going away, but a horse with one OCD could easily have a second or third, and you would want to get them all taken care of at the same time, and you wouldn’t want to operate on anything that was going to go away on its own.

My advice: get a full set of digital X-rays and consult with vets at a place that does a LOT of this stuff, not an ordinary equine vet hospital, but a place that deals with a ton of this stuff day in and day out. OCD surgery isn’t cheap, but it isn’t out of line with what you have invested in this youngster already. OCD surgery is not that big of a deal. Many young horses have it and go on and have excellent futures ahead of them. There is some layup involved, but nothing huge.

OCD can be genetic, but worse than that, just like beowulf, I hate to breed any horse that wasn’t sound enough to ever go to work at all. I wouldn’t consider 1 or two OCD lesions that didn’t interfere with a career under saddle to necessarily be a contraindication to using a horse as a broodmare, but at this point I don’t think it would be a good idea to sell the filly for breeding purposes.

The other option, of course, is to do nothing. In that instance I think you will end up stuck with a pasture ornament: a young horse that is permanently lame and can’t be ridden and shouldn’t be bred. If the OCD is already making her lame, I think it is unlikely to get better on its own. The cost of keeping a pasture ornament for a 25 year lifespan is considerably more expensive than OCD surgery. The last options would be euthanasia or giving the horse away to someone who was willing to invest in the OCD surgery and rehab.

[rodawn]

To answer the original question - if she truly has OCD - no breeding.