[ATTACH=JSON]{“alt”:“Click image for larger version Name: 70B58561-F0CD-4B17-A297-BC20055BD476.jpeg Views: 1 Size: 19.1 KB ID: 10387939”,“data-align”:“none”,“data-attachmentid”:“10387939”,“data-size”:“small”}[/ATTACH][ATTACH=JSON]{“alt”:“Click image for larger version Name: FABBA85D-A7B2-4D27-849D-4684DFDDDAA6.jpeg Views: 1 Size: 18.9 KB ID: 10387940”,“data-align”:“none”,“data-attachmentid”:“10387940”,“data-size”:“small”}[/ATTACH] See Need Advice-Possible White line disease for the background information on my saga.
My farrier came out today and my horse has healthy hooves. He did however think that the lameness is due to the way my horse’s pastern looks. I got my horse a year and a half ago and his legs have looked the same from the day I bought him. I thought nothing of it-just thought he maybe didn’t have the best confirmation but as a pleasure horse I wasn’t too concerned as long as he was sound. Which he was and pretty well has been until last weekend. After looking today and doing some research I’m wondering if my horse has ringbone ðŸ˜.
I have included pictures of them foot in question. My horse is only going to be turning 7 on Thursday.
It’s possible your horse has ring bone but you definitely want to get a vet to look and take X-rays. Ringbone can often be managed with balanced shoeing and injections.
Looks just like my prior gelding that had High Ring Bone. I managed his for a short time, maybe like a year and a half, by keeping him on soft ground. As soon as he transitioned back home, to a harder surface, it got progressively worse and he was retired.
Ugh that’s not what I wanted to hear but I kind of suspected. My guy is basically just a pleasure horse. Did he have any symptoms? Right now my guy has bounding digital pulses that seem to be switching front legs and his hooves aren’t ice cold but not hot either and that also seems to be switching between the two front feet.
The last year or so of life he was on Previcox. That seemed to help. Over his retirement we gave him an array of different supplements, but our vet said that they were more for our sake and not his…haha. Injections may have helped, but we never tried it.
Symptoms: ummm…In the VERY beginning stages, I noticed a strange hitch in his step at the canter…I actually thought it was in his back end. Every now and then he would be slightly off at the trot. At that point, he was completely fine on soft ground, like a well maintained arena. After his last competition, he went back to the family property where the pasture is incredibly hard and that is when he had his fast progression. After that, he quickly become very lame…even at the walk. I took him in for XRays at some point(I don’t remember exactly when I did this in the grand time line) and High Ring Bone was confirmed in both front feet, and he also had a mystery fracture in one of the small bones somewhere in his pastern. He was happy though and had earned his retirement, even if it was much earlier than anticipated. He was top of the pecking order, so I wasn’t concerned about anyone in the herd pushing him around. He happily lived for another 10 years before I lost him this past October to West Nile, EPM, Cushings.
I blamed myself for years…jumping him on too hard of surfaces because that’s what we had. He was a competitive distance horse as well, with over 1000 competition miles. All of this was done before he was 8. He finished schooling training level in eventing, carried a ton of lesson kids for years, again all before the age of 11…
I just bought a new gelding and don’t want to make the same mistakes with him. Recently, both my farrier and my vet reassured me that his conformation was to blame for his ring bone, not his use. He had strange feet. No one had really said anything about it until then, just that his feet were strange, but not that it would end up causing him an early retirement.
He was my heart horse though. If I could do it all over again(maybe not including the last month…lol), I would. He was amazing and gave me everything he could until he couldn’t…and then still tried to do whatever I would ask him. He carried my nieces around like a champ. It was actually kind of nice knowing he wasn’t going to trot off with them, because we knew he couldn’t…sad, but he was happy to plod around with them.
Like someone mentioned above, a set of XRays will confirm. I would do that as a next step just to really know what you are dealing with. Pulse wise, we’ve had a couple of horses go through episodes of laminitis where the pulse was more evident. I don’t really remember what his was doing…I was still in school, so for about a year I didn’t get to watch his progression. I pretty much took him home ~90% sound, then came back a year later to a completely lame horse.
Make an appointment with your vet. It might be ringbone, but it might not. It’s also possible that your horse has ringbone, but that isn’t what is causing the problem. With bounding digital pulses, I’d be concerned about laminitis. A correct diagnosis is the first and most important step.
If your horse has ringbone, and the ringbone is causing the problem, there are many treatment options: shoeing changes, joint injection, Previcox, bute, shockwave, osphos, joint fusion, etc.
I’m working on horse with high ringbone had all the routine vet care x-rays, injections, and just finished up on previcox medicine, last resort would be surgery to fuse bone with little chance of working when I got him he was lame swollen and in pain on left front after one treatment he is pain free with slight gimp at a trot.
now on week three every other day treatment still sound my goal is to fuse the bone which will allow for soundness and pain free I’m using Electro Magnetic Field Therapy this repairs compromising cells by oxygenating, detoxing and allowing nutrients back into cells to allow quick healing removes inflammation immediately including bone cells to repair and most importantly circulation this was introduced to the USA in the early 1950’s to repair and fuse broken bones in race horses there are so many benefits to this therapy for horses and humans, if you would like to research look up PEMF practitioners in your area most may have not of attempted ringbone and I hope to be able to continue to have a good outcome with my documentation of this case it would differently reduce swelling and pain drug free, hope this will help
Ringbone is arthritis in the pastern joint. I don’t think it has anything to do with the pulses you are feeling.
There are not a lot of treatments for it. Keeping the hoof balanced through good and on-time shoeing, injecting steroids (or maybe Hyalauronic Acid) in there and pain-management are your options. The joint injections might work once or twice, but their effects won’t last forever or cure anything. Pain management will increase until the horse lives on a daily does of bute or previcox.
Osteorthritis anywhere is never cured; we can only slow it’s progression. And the pastern joint is an unforgiving one. It sucks; I’m sorry. But do start with x-rays. You should x-ray both front feet/pasterns, do a lameness exam and perhaps bock that part of the leg. If he travels short in front, you want to figure out if “that’s just him” or if you are seeing the effects of pain in both front legs.
I’ve heard about Electro Magnetic Field Therapy and I know of performance horses getting it as a preventative just to help to keep them performing at their best, but have not heard of it being used to help with ringbone. Please keep me updated on how it is working on the horse you are treating. I have given my guy the summer off in the pasture and am hoping his joint fuses. The vet didn’t think injecting the joint to fuse it would help in my geldings case because he has so much bony growth already that it would probably be near impossible to get a needle in the joint.
I’m now wondering if magnetic boots would help since EMFT is helping in your case.
Ringbone either high or low in the front end Susan is quite a different situation because a large portion of a horse’s weight is borne on the front legs. The poster’s horse has ringbone in the front.
You and the horse deserve a diagnosis so you know what you are dealing with and what the prognosis is. Get the vet out and take some x-rays and discuss potential treatment options and what to expect in the future.
He’s been to the vet and has been diagnosed with ringbone (high). The vet told me to give him Bute when I ride him (the day before, of and after) and to hope the joint fuses. At this point injections for fuse the joint likely won’t help because it may not be possible to get the needle into the joint due to the boney growth.
