Physically, my horse with a million problems seems to be doing pretty well. We have some emotional/mental baggage to work through, but he came through 30 days of boot camp sound and I’m getting another h/j rider to get on him 2-3 times a week. He has some reluctance to go forward with me. Due to many months of being told by the vets to ride but it not being ok to him to be ridden. But he’s forward and pretty willing with my other rider. We’ve worked through a lot of the mental stuff with me out of the saddle. But he’s not totally trusting of me in the saddle. My saddle also had to get refitted again.
Anyway, I pulled his shoes in November because he went and lived outside for all of December, and we still have some snowy months ahead. His left hind foot looks great. He does wear the toes a little short (giving the appearance of a bit of a bullnose, but he grows a ton of tall heel, so farrier says it’s not a true bullnose), but the wall is healthier than it used to be, he’s not foot sore, and so I think he’ll do fine till the end of snow season when I’ll put hind shoes back on to prevent extreme wear later on.
The right hind foot has the same toe wear, but he’s also getting a bit flared on the inside wall and a bit straight on the outside wall. He isn’t wearing the outside wall down (which he would have done in the past by chipping it off more)–farrier measured the wall height. It’s just the outside is more upright and inside more flared. There isn’t separation on the inside and the farrier is rolling it to prevent that from happening. He’s just clearly not loading it as evenly as the other hind.
Watching him from behind, there is no twist in the hocks, but he does tend to supinate–load the outside wall more. He’s got a bit of a swinging, slightly wide movement behind. Part of his conformation. Part of his genes. Part of his physical asymmetries and issues.
Why would he not be loading this foot evenly?
He used to toe drag some on the right. This is much better. This leg still is a bit harder for him to bring forward evenly from the pelvis, but that is also better and any stiffness he is warming up out of well because we have gotten his lumbar area much looser. He seems to like being in consistent work (even if light), and a low sugar, high protein and moderate fat diet is working for him. It’s now been a year since we injected his hocks (and that was the first time ever). I thought that his hocks had some inflammation secondary to the SI, but perhaps it was primary. We aren’t really sure. He flexes clean and always has, but he had some inflammation show up on bone scan, which is why we injected. He did have a little worse fluid quality in the right than the left at that time. He has some chronic fetlock effusion going on in left hind, and he will sometimes self-adjust with a loud POP there, but movement on the left hind is pretty normal. We are now 5 months from his last SI and neck injections. The only thing I notice under saddle is a slight feeling of lack of impulsion from left hind when traveling on the left rein partially due to him being a little stiff in the ribs on the left. Right hind actually feels pretty good. He’s still got a ways to go to get really strong back there–we’ve finally just unwound the pain cycle. Plus, he needs to learn a work ethic.
I think it’s time for a checkup, since I need to stay ahead of his maintenance before things spiral out of control again. Just looking for some possibilities for the change in this foot that I can bring up with the vets. His main vet is out on leave right now, and I’m going to start with the chiro vet anyway because his neck is also getting super stiff for his stretches. So, could be a while before he has a thorough exam.
