Have a friend looking at a Hano (Davignon)/Trakehner cross mare who has a very bad rear leg suspensory injury from second level dressage work she did until age 8. That is the story anyway. She is being sold as a broodmare. I dont want to say more at this time to dissparage this mare. But, question is…how likely is a well conformed horse to get a debilitating rear leg injury doing second level work? And more so, what may be the heritability for weakness there? What connection is there between early injury and DSLD in your experiences? I have seen broken down brood mares and it is really hard to look at. You can see the in their eyes. So, what is the connection between breaking down from the weight of the foal and early age signs of injury. Does anyone know of warmblood lines that are prone to this disease?
Do you have a pic? I’m thinking not, since you are trying to keep this “on the QT”…
DSLD is very often related to hindlimb conformation; post-legged horses (who are very straight through the hocks and stifles) are candidates for–and more prone to–both hock and stifle problems and suspensory injuries. DSLS will result in dropped pasterns; often the dropped pasterns accompany this type of hind leg conformation.
Cart/horse, IOW?
Slightly straighter hind legs are often associated with greater jumping ability (I know, this seems counterintuitive), but as a result, it is a conformational “feature” that winds up in the gene pool. When the straightness is to an excessive degree, the horse often winds up with a greater chance of the above issues. (My E2 filly has straightish hocks, as does her sire, but her stifle angle is beautiful and appropriately forward, her pasterns ideal, no DSLS in her future. She will be a great jumper, methinks. 
However, I plan to keep an eye on her workload and make sure she is carefully and thoughtfully brought along and worked in order to preserve her soundness. Her mom’s hock angles are fine, as is the rest of her. ;))
When I was looking at inspection videos on youtube, I saw one mare (being inspected with her foal) who had a SEVERE case of this, and was surprised that someone would have bred her–her foal’s legs seemed fine, fortunately.
If a performance mare is unable to hold up to work and “breaks down” at age 8 due to obvious conformation flaws, I think that is nature telling you NOT to breed her! Isn’t breeding enough of a crapshoot anyway?
(An acquaintance bred a mare just like this, Oy!, she was lame and unrideable at the age of 7, and has the same extreme hind leg conformation as mentioned above!) I just hope–for her sake–that the sire “fixes it.” Kind of a tall order for him 
[QUOTE=Dr. Doolittle;6754882]
Do you have a pic? I’m thinking not, since you are trying to keep this “on the QT”…
DSLD is very often related to hindlimb conformation; post-legged horses (who are very straight through the hocks and stifles) are candidates for–and more prone to–both hock and stifle problems and suspensory injuries. DSLS will result in dropped pasterns; often the dropped pasterns accompany this type of hind leg conformation.
Cart/horse, IOW?
Slightly straighter hind legs are often associated with greater jumping ability (I know, this seems counterintuitive), but as a result, it is a conformational “feature” that winds up in the gene pool. When the straightness is to an excessive degree, the horse often winds up with a greater chance of the above issues. (My E2 filly has straightish hocks, as does her sire, but her stifle angle is beautiful and appropriately forward, her pasterns ideal, no DSLS in her future. She will be a great jumper, methinks. However, I plan to keep an eye on her workload and make sure she is carefully and thoughtfully brought along and worked in order to preserve her soundness. Her mom’s hock angles are fine, as is the rest of her. ;))
When I was looking at inspection videos on youtube, I saw one mare (being inspected with her foal) who had a SEVERE case of this, and was surprised that someone would have bred her–her foal’s legs seemed fine, fortunately.
If a performance mare is unable to hold up to work and “breaks down” at age 8 due to obvious conformation flaws, I think that is nature telling you NOT to breed her! Isn’t breeding enough of a crapshoot anyway?
(An acquaintance bred a mare just like this, Oy!, she was lame and unrideable at the age of 7, and has the same extreme hind leg conformation as mentioned above!) I just hope–for her sake–that the sire “fixes it.” Kind of a tall order for him :/[/QUOTE]
I have the same thoughts…too young to break down, go lame whatever due to an obvious weakness, unless they can prove the mare caught her leg in a door or some other wierd accident…should not be in the gene pool. It is more acceptable in very old mares say 16-18ish or older who have had a lot of foals. Then it can be called reasonable wear and tear. From all I have read the DSL’S’ is progressive and no cure and its heritable. Why tempt fate with so many mares for sale…i say buy one that does not have complications. A friend on facebook says she sees this in Trakahners but wont say which bloodlines.
No way would I breed a warmblood mare that essentially broke down by the age of 8! Second level dressage isn’t that strenuous. If it happened because of an injury, then I would be very cautious about loading that hind end with additional weight.
Just because the horse incurred the initial “injury” and seems to be getting along just fine with its dropped fetlocks doesn’t mean that they can’t get hurt further due to the dropped pasterns. They will straighten out the entire leg and can cause extreme strain on other tendons and ligaments. This is how my previous horse ended up tearing his superficial digital flexor tendon above the hock. It all started with a suspensory tear, and not a very bad one at that.
