I have a 9 year old QH mare who was recently diagnosed as having significant arthritis in her hip from an old accident/fracture that he says is also affecting a tendon. Vet came to this decision without doing any xrays, only a lameness exam. He’s an older, old school type vet and is well liked in the community.
Recommended walk trot only trail riding as long as she seemed comfortable.
My question-would you get a second opinion? My plan before all this was to see if she liked jumping and do some low level stuff.
I absolutely would get a second opinion before basically retiring a young horse. If she can only handle W/T on trail, I would assume it would be easy trails (not long hikes through the woods, over uneven terrian). That’s a wildly different level of work from a horse you thought would hold up to low-level jumping.
I assume you had the vet out because the mare seemed off. What was going on with her?
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Thanks
She had intermittent lameness behind, wouldn’t pick up left lead canter and when she did it looked like pepe le pew. Sometimes tripping behind.
There’s also a significant amount of muscle atrophy over the left hip.
Oof, that sounds pretty bad. I’m not sure how long you’ve owned this mare, but has she always been this way or has this been a progressive issue?
Personally, I would want some diagnostic work done, even if I did believe the attending vet. It’s cheaper to haul somewhere to get Xrays to confirm “yep, she’s done” than it would be feed/shoe a actually-could-be-sound mare for the rest of her life. It would let you know the extent of the damage. From there you can determine whether the problem is potenitally treatable or what your next steps would be.
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I agree that you need a definitive diagnosis in this case. Could be an x-ray by the original vet or another one, but it needs to be more comprehensive than a lameness exam. Good luck!
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I’d ask a second opinion mainly to know if there is some medication to use, did your vet give her any med? My older horse (30/34 yo we are not sure about his birth year) has bad arthritis in his left hip, we are managing it with Previcox and some supplements but my vet said it is also possible to inject the hip if it gets worse.
Yes, he suggested bute or Previcox if I wanted it.
Thanks everyone for your input.
Whatever the injury she had was, it happened prior to me owning her, she showed no signs of problems when I tried her and I stupidly did not do a repurchase. Although I’m not sure anything would have shown up anyway. You need an X-ray machine that can power a small town to take hip rads.
I’m going to seek a second opinion with diagnostics.
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Appointment is made for 1/15.
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Please keep us updated as to how it goes! Fingers crossed that you get some good news.
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Any update? I’m curious!
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Sorry, just back from Japan.
Vet could not find anything significantly wrong with her. She has a bit of funky confirmation behind that puts her hips at a strange angle, so she suggested a 4 month fitness routine while on some Equiox. Then we’ll see what we’ve got. 
You might want to check out the SI joint if she doesn’t come good. Injections can make all the difference.
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Very interesting! Thanks for the update.
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