Health reasons for bucking?

[NoraAndTheHorse]

First off I am working with a vet! With that being said, I am posting this to get some advice that I might not think of or things that I might not think to ask/talk with the vet about! I have tried to include all the information I can think of but if I missed something or you have additional questions let me hear them

 I am interested in getting some ideas on what could cause a horse to buck at the lope (walk/trot is fine). She bucks at the lope when she is ridden [U]AND[/U] when she is lunged with/without saddle (I did not know she was bucking when being lunged until now or I would have looked into it sooner!). She will buck within the first to second stride.  I haven't gotten to see her ride but trainer thinks its pain related. So pretty much she will ask her to lope and she will lope but within the first couple strides she will start bucking; the trainer will get her settled down after a bit and lope a couple circles, bring her back down to a trot, do something else and then ask her to lope again and she will buck. [U]Every time [/U]she is asked to lope she will buck at the beginning no matter how long she has been ridden that day.

Brief History: She is a 5 year old mare that I sent to this trainer to be started under saddle. Long story short after about a month she was scoped for ulcers and found a pretty decent size ulcer. (We determined she probably already had an ulcer from before being moved due to the previous barns varying feeding schedule and several changes in hay, the grain stayed consistent but hay was bought from several suppliers. So with the varying feeding times, changes in hay then the added stress of moving to a new place and training added to make the ulcer worse.) 

We started her on the Omeprazole and gave her 2 weeks off per the vet. After being on the Omeprazole she did a lot better but was still bucking at the lope (walk trot was fine). We figured it was from expecting it to hurt(because of the previous ulcer) when she loped so the trainer tried to push her through it; however, I am thinking that is not the case now. After a several months she is still bucking at the lope (gradually getting worse) and bucking on the lunge, I don’t think it is a behavioral problem at this point.

We have stopped training at the moment and I am going to move her at the end of the month to try to figure out what is wrong. The trainer wants me to give up and move onto another horse but I don't want to give up this easy on her. We have only had her checked/ treated for gastric ulcers at this point, so there is a possibility something else is going on since we have only diagnosed and treated gastric ulcers.

Additional Information:

• Ridden 5 times a week by trainer (not being ridden right now)
• Saddle has been checked to make sure it fits
• She does have a slightly deviated esophagus (it is not completely straight like it should be) and has choked twice in the past due to this.(first time barn tried to feed un-soaked alfalfa pellets and second time the grain bucket was higher than it should have been)
• She was treated with Omeprazole for 2.5 months for the ulcer and has stayed on half a dose while in training
• Feet are done every 6 weeks
• Planning on having a chiropractor out once she is moved

Thanks in advance!!!

[asterix]

Since she does it without saddle as well as with I’ll set aside saddle fit.
Most obvious would be kissing spine, or hocks that can cause back pain.

[Marla_100]

Could be a myriad of various problems/injuries. Had one do violent bucking after not wanting to trot- walked just fine-
turned out to be a broken pelvis which BO had seen happen, running through barn through a narrow gate. Banged
edge of hip/ pelvis on gate. A pretty common injury I found out. But it took a good lameness vet to find.

[NoraAndTheHorse]

@asterix

Since she does it without saddle as well as with I’ll set aside saddle fit.
Most obvious would be kissing spine, or hocks that can cause back pain.

With kissing spine, will a horse be sensitive if you run your hand down the back while pressing down? Because I can do this and she doesn’t move away or act like it hurts. She was pretty sensitive along her sides with the ulcer but is not now. Also, I thought with kissing spine it would hurt at the trot as well. Is that wrong or just varies with horses?

[FatCatFarm]

Hocks, back or stifle, or just that she may not be strong from behind yet and lacks the musculature and coordination to carry herself well at the canter, particularly on a circle. Some youngsters just seem to take longer to gel from behind and it’s often a conformational issue. Not saying bad conformation necessarily, just different so it takes longer for them to carry themselves well and this usually results in bucking when first cantered. Does she swap at all behind at the canter? She’s only 5. I’ve been riding my big guy (17hds) since he was 4 and his canter is still a work in progress on a 20m circle and he’s 8.

ETA: I just sold my daughter’s stocky but athletic 14.3hd POA mare and at 5, she was still a work in progress at the canter. Because she was inconsistently ridden by my daughter and didn’t have the strength and coordination she needed to have a quality canter on a 20m circle, she needed to be longed prior to doing flat work in the ring and would zoom around in the round pen and buck like a fiend. Once she got her ya-yas out though, she was great. She would still occasionally buck with my daughter when asked for canter in the ring even after being longed but it was usually because my daughter was asking for canter but also grabbing her face, which she objected to. Usually angelic on trails, she would again occasionally buck when asked to canter, and again, it seemed to coincide with my daughter asking for it, but hanging onto her mouth. Not the mare’s fault.

[joiedevie99]

Schedule a lameness exam with a vet that has a good eye for these things.

Based on it happening only at the canter, I’d suspect SI joint first, hocks second, pelvis/hip/stifles third, back/kissing spines fourth. That’s not to say there aren’t hundreds of other things it could be, but those would be my guesses while waiting for the vet.

[IPEsq]

@joiedevie99

Schedule a lameness exam with a vet that has a good eye for these things.

Based on it happening only at the canter, I’d suspect SI joint first, hocks second, pelvis/hip/stifles third, back/kissing spines fourth. That’s not to say there aren’t hundreds of other things it could be, but those would be my guesses while waiting for the vet.

I agree.

Not all KS horses will palpate sore. For back pain issues (including SI and some pelvic things), the canter is often a problem because there is more movement to the spine than in the trot. The trot has the least motion of all gaits. The walk and canter have the most, but the walk is a low stress gait usually, although you may find the horse to also be reluctant to really march on at the walk. Hocks or stifles often go hand in hand with some back and pelvic issues…an issue in one place can put strain on the other. Given age and training history, I’d put limb issue lower than back/SI/pelvis because I’d think it might be a little less likely to have an equally bilateral limb issue at this stage.

[Marla_100]

Just thought of another situation where a horse we suspected got cast in his stall and ended up w/ a fractured pelvis.
With time off to heal and correct rehab, he went back to training and doing dressage work.

so sorry you’re going through this and hope you can get to the bottom of the problem.

[Showbizz]

Good info above, and good luck to you.

I will say I’ve had a few horses (three I can think of off the top of my head) over the 25 years I’ve been training that came to me with bucking issues. None of them were broncs, but would buck regularly. With all, I’m certain it was pain related. In all cases the owners got vets and chiros involved. None of them continued on with exploratory vetting to come to a sure conclusion. Bottom line: all owners invested quite a bit of money in training and vetting. I believe one is now a pasture pet and two were sold honestly to homes that had uses for them without asking for the trigger that would bring the buck.

[Horseman15]

@joiedevie99

Schedule a lameness exam with a vet that has a good eye for these things.

Based on it happening only at the canter, I’d suspect SI joint first, hocks second, pelvis/hip/stifles third, back/kissing spines fourth. That’s not to say there aren’t hundreds of other things it could be, but those would be my guesses while waiting for the vet.

I agree. I leased an upper level Eventer who would do the same thing at the canned. It was hock and stifle issues.

[joiedevie99]

One other thought… does it happen exactly the same way in both directions? If so, you are likely looking at something very high up (SI or pelvis), or something bilateral (like matching hock arthritis) rather than something lower down or unilateral.

If you think about the mechanics of the gaits…

Trot goes diagonal pair, suspension, diagonal pair, suspension.

Canter goes outside hind, diagonal pair, inside front, suspension.

In trot, there is never a leg that has to push/carry by itself. Also, unless we’re talking about collection in an upper level horse, you also don’t really see rotation in the pelvis at the trot. You see both in the canter.

[kiwichick]

My horse also does similar (he also bucks you off if he gets angry about dressage schooling)
I took him to the university after a therapist said she suspected SI on palpation.
Lameness workup was done, horse moves straight, no obvious pain, tracking up fine. Vet said he would need a sports specialist to identify, and this would involve under saddle assessment (so now we are getting pretty serious)
I got a highly regarded therapist to take a second look, had a sore spot under the saddle but had no concern about SI whatsoever.
Interestingly the horse will canter around a jumping course and not buck, but good luck when dressage schooling.

Vet said it could be pain
Therapist 1 - def pain
Therapist 2 - behavioural
Owner - behavioural (based on happily canter/jumping) but open to investigating pain too.

I wish you the best of luck, these things can be a nightmare.

[NancyM]

Good possibilities already discussed here. ALSO, gut pain, which may or may not be ulcer related. Not all gut pain is ulcers, though the symptoms can be very similar. Try reducing protein in the feed, down to closer to 10% . That will mean a switch off any alfalfa, onto a straight grass hay only, and either a very low protein grain, or no grain or bagged feed at all. Ration balancer or mineral source lick is OK, but nothing that has a protein source in it. Some horses are sensitive to the higher protein levels, and bucking at the canter because of the gut pain/discomfort is seen. Good luck.

[Angela_Freda]

Didn’t someone also recently mention the theory [or was it proven?] that at the canter/lope sometimes stomach acid can slosh moreso than at other paces causing pain?

[Janet]

Two other things to consider (or maybe two versions of the same thing).

Horse 1 - My young (now 6)horse started bucking on landing from a jump (not EVERY time, but enough). This progressed to violent bucking, which got me off several times . (“When she is good she is very very good, but when she is bad she bucks me off”).
The vet came and did a full physical, finding nothing relevant.
He drew blood for a Lyme test (even though she had none of the classic “Lyme symptoms”) and she came back with a very strong positive for chronic Lyme. He put her on Minocycline (I forget exactly how long, maybe a month).

Since then, the bucking has almost stopped - still an occasional “crow hop” or “porpoise”, but nothing that puts me in danger of coming off - and the Lyme titer has dropped a lot. Still not down to “normal” but way off what it was originally.

My older (now 31) horse, when she was about 7, was diagnosed and treated for Lyme. A couple of years later, her canter fell apart overnight, in mid October. One day she did a perfectly acceptable dressage test. The next day she was cantering on 3 legs (Inside hind never touched the ground, in either direction. It moved in the normal rhythm, but just didn’t touch the ground.). Over the course of the winter, her trot fell apart too- OK in a relaxed. strung out trot, but clearly uncomfortable when I tried to balance her. We tried all sorts of things, and in April she got better.

Until the next October when it started all over, tried different things, and got better in April.
repeat.
The next year, in August, I asked the vet if there were any proactive tests or treatments we could do. He did a complete allergy scan (which showed she was allergic to a couple of things in the spring). I pointed out that the one thing that seemed consistent was time of year, and asked if it might be related to day length. He said there was “nothing in the literature” relating day length to musculo-skeletal issues, but it couldn’t hurt to try putting her under lights to extend the day length.

Put a light in her stall on a timer, and she kept cantering all winter, and every winter since. The vet never figured out exactly WHY (one theory is a residual Lyme problem, and that the immune system is stronger with a longer day length, but it is just a theory. It could also be me hormonal side effect.). She is also on an immune stimulant.

Going back to basics, there are two things that are different about the canter.
The first is that the SI joint moves a LOT in the canter, and very little in the walk and trot.
The second is that there are points in the canter stride where one leg is doing all the work. At trot and canter there are at least two legs sharing the work.

If the problem is the same both directions, I would focus on the SI.

But definitely check for Lyme.

[danacat]

@Angela Freda

Didn’t someone also recently mention the theory [or was it proven?] that at the canter/lope sometimes stomach acid can slosh moreso than at other paces causing pain?

That was Csaper58 – mentioned it as a possibility in my Wild Ride (bucking at the canter) thread. My vet did confirm that this ‘sloshing’ can happen.

[Palm_Beach]

It’s behavior. She’s learned it.

“She will buck within the first to second stride. I haven’t gotten to see her ride but trainer thinks its pain related. So pretty much she will ask her to lope and she will lope but within the first couple strides she will start bucking; the trainer will get her settled down after a bit and lope a couple circles, bring her back down to a trot, do something else and then ask her to lope again and she will buck. Every time she is asked to lope she will buck at the beginning no matter how long she has been ridden that day.”

Whatever action the trainer is taking right after the buck is reinforcing the buck. Usually there is some kind of confusion in the horse about forward as well. When a rider asks a horse to go (canter) there is pressure put on the horse. When the horse bucks, the rider goes into survivial mode and stops putting “forward” pressure on the horse. So the horse concludes that bucking is what is being asked for. I’m not sure what is happening on the lunge, but it’s probably the same. The trainer is asking for forward, and stops asking when bucking ensues. Most people don’t know how to get rid of it, so they blame sloshing or pain or something phantom.

[danacat]

OP, here’s a pretty good article that explains the importance of forward when a horse bucks:

​​​​​​http://www.meredithmanor.edu/features/articles/drm/bucking.asp

But since the horse you’re talking about has (apparently??) not been successful at dumping it’s rider by bucking (no reward), and has (apparently??) been made to ‘keep going’ forward’ during and after the bucking, then the forward thing wouldn’t apply or matter to this particular horse. Makes sense that you’d be looking for a health issue.

But, Palm Beach might have a point because there is a grey area in your description of how the trainer works with her.

You say that after horse bucks “…the trainer will get her settled down after a bit and lope a couple circles.”

So what exactly is the trainer doing (over and over again?) in this settling down period right after the bucking?

I think that ^^^ is what Palm Beach is questioning.Does trainer consistently stop horse and reward with a walk, loose rein etc. Or does trainer ride horse through the buck and press on with even more pressure into a deliberate canter round and round? Point of that being: if you buck you will be made to work – on the lunge line too.

In more delicate words: 'Cantering without bucking isn’t going to ruin your life you frightened, pain expectant, confused horse." Depends on what kind of horse you’ve got, or have created. Same principle of forward in either case though.

There is mention in the above article, that some horses DO buck for fun – think it’s a game. This is true. And…some horses (if one wants to agree with the explanation as to ‘where’ rodeo stockmen find their bucking horses) are just innate, forever buckers that can’t be trained to stop bucking. But that’s a whole nother story.