Hi all! You might know me as the lady with the problem child. This year, we’ve had 2 stone bruises, 2 abscesses, epm, and now navicular.
A little over 3 weeks ago, pony went lame while rehabbing from EPM in lf. Couldn’t find a painful spot on him, I checked with hoof testers, palpation, flexions, etc, so we xrayed and found moderate navicular changes and he was totally sound with a hoof block. So we did osphos and previcox, and he’ll get a straight bar wedge next week. He’s already sound and mostly back in work.
Now for the question: we were told to avoid hard surfaces, ie clay arenas or riding on the road. However, that’s 90% of what I do. I’m willing to quit the roads but I don’t have another arena option.
Would hoof boots possibly make it safer to ride on hard surfaces, or possibly even go back on the roads? My vet charges for “phone consults” so I’m asking here first. Recommendations are welcome.
Yes! Love the Equine Fusion Jogging Shoe from www.comforthoofs.com - Easy to fit individual hooves, can be padded and a decent price point. After a good, balanced trim: place the hoof down on a level surface with card stock underneath for an accurate tracing. Holler at Comfort Hoofs and share the measurements for the right boot.
I generally try really hard to be kind on this forum… but I think now is the time for some outside perspective, that may not be gentle. I will try my best to phrase this gently.
Assuming this the same horse you have had all of these unsoundness issues with over the last few years, where you’ve posted enough threads that I have started to see a pattern. The chestnut horse, with suspensory issues, collateral ligament injuries, and didn’t you already know about these navicular changes…? I recall he was a really nice mover, but bilaterally lame and never appeared sound to me behind… Including in some of your earliest posts on this forum, where he was jumping.
Why keep trying to draw blood from stone?
A caveat, about Osphos and working a horse being treated with it – if a horse needs Osphos to remain comfortable in work, I think it is time to consider whether they are really, truly, a riding candidate. Osphos is wonderful for managing pain, but it also will mask those same symptoms getting worse. And the chances are, whatever caused those injuries, changes in navicular, whatever, are still there - but now you’re treating the pain rather than addressing the root cause of the issue.
It may also be time to investigate why this horse has had all of these injuries in such a short period of time, including looking very critically at the following things: his conformation, his feet, his management, and his work-load. That is really abnormal.
I do remember that this horse was being ridden relatively soon into its collateral ligament injury, and I remember posting in your thread about the suspensory soreness + collateral ligament lesion, and warning you that these things take time, and often have very poor prognosis for return to sport.
It might be the writing is on the wall here, about whether or not you can keep trying to make this horse work for your riding goals… So my answer is, you’re asking the wrong questions here, and should be focused on getting to the bottom of his myriad unsoundness issues, rather than continue to keep pushing for a riding career…
I agree with Beowulf. Sometimes you just have to come to the realization that the horse will never be serviceably sound. I have one of those. She got white line disease in one of her front feet and in spite of three vets looking at the crack in her foot and coming to the conclusion it was not a big deal - it was a big deal. The White Line ate its way up to her coronet band in a month. When we found the damage it still was fixable but everything that could go wrong - went wrong. She foundered in the other foot and then the original foot rotated. I spent years - almost sound, almost sound. Finally I had to face the fact that although she was comfortable being a pet she was never going to be rideable. She is still here sixteen years later being a pampered pet. It sucks but that is how life with horses can be.
I did have one vet suggest I could nerve her and ride her. To me that is unethical and no I would never do it. If the horse is still having issues maybe it is time for retirement and examining his management to see if you can identify areas that can be improved on.
Beowulf, believe it or not, that’s been exactly my internal narrative since all this started. I’ll try to explain my thought processes as best I can.
This horse is a special case. He was surrendered to his past owner, who just wanted him gone and sold him to 13 year old me for way cheap considering how fancy he is, and we promptly moved across the country with him. I’ve never had a horse before, he’s my first, so I had minimal idea what I was doing. Recipe for disaster, of course.
The first injury was the collateral ligaments. IMO, it was an honest accident, it was a pasture accident witnessed by other people. The vet we chose first was 1 month out of school and had minimal experience with horses - he had us do 2 weeks stall rest and start riding after that. Turned out to be a much more significant injury than expected, and due to the lack of imaging before I got back on the first time, God only knows how much worse I made it. We ended up flying a lameness expert in from California (I’m in Arkansas) who made the diagnosis and oversaw everything. Once the diagnosis was made, I’m quite happy with how the rehab went. I think it was about 14 months total? but I don’t remember for certain. Imaging was obtained regularly and before each step healing progress was verified. The injury was healed on ultrasound before he started “real” work again.
Here’s where it all went downhill. At this point, I still had a crappy farrier. Pony’s heels were nonexistent and his toes were ridiculously long, and we put him back to work in a super deep arena. Hence the suspensory. Again, we used the california guy, who verified the suspensory injury and rechecked the collateral as still healed. And again, everything was healed on ultrasound before resuming full work.
At this point I think it was the bad feet angles that really screwed us. Those were the 2 big things, but there was other smaller things, one week lame, 2, here and there. Assumed to be minor bruises and stuff but he stayed in full work while he was sound.
Then some time later (a few months I think) he went lame again, but more than usual, so we had him checked again by the best guy in the area. He was the one who noted the bursitis and navicular changes last year (I forgot to add that in the main post, thanks for the reminder) as well as called out my sucky farrier. So we gave osphos and started fixing hoof angles. This was last year.
Since then, no major lamenesses. He’s sound on flexion in all 4, solid solid suspensory, no soreness in collateral even with angled pads to stress them. Which is why I’m still trying. The collateral had a very poor prognosis - hasn’t given him a problem since. Same with the suspensory. We were hoping to avoid further navicular changes with the new shoeing this past year, but he’s 13 now and it was a matter of time.
With the navicular, he was .5/5 lame on grass, 1/5 lame on concrete. So not too severe yet. I don’t mind using osphos to keep him sound, as long as that’s ALL it takes. I will not ride him if he needs previcox long term or bute.
Something else that’s been nagging me about him, and you mentioned he never truly looked sound, is the EPM. We don’t know when he got it, or where, so who knows how long I’ve been ignoring symptoms? I’ve never seen him look off behind like you mentioned, nor have any of my vets, but who knows? My saddle was also a dreadful fit, and ended up causing some significant back pain. Maybe what you saw in behind was from that - but we have a new custom saddle!
I do really struggle with where to draw the line. At this point, I think it’s very safe to say he’ll never each upper levels like we’d planned. I’d like to be able to ride low level jumping, but I’d be fine with dressage only or even only trail sound. And if all attempts fail, he will have a great retirement. But I’m not giving up yet, I don’t think.
Here’s 4 images for you - 2 are recent, 2 are old. I think you’ll be able to tell which are which lol, but it’s clear how much better his angles are recently (we’re not done yet though for sure) https://imgur.com/a/xSiMtbS
I’m sorry for writing a book lol but it’s definitely something I’ve been thinking a lot about. All these things have been both so individual and so connected I don’t know what to think. As for as this year’s issues though, I think the only one related to past issues have been the navicular lameness and possibly EPM. The abscesses are just bad luck I think. I do welcome your opinion on it though, you’re always very insightful.
Than you for your input too. It’s definitely a sucky place. I think I mentioned it in my other reply, but my biggest hangup is it’s never been the same thing twice until now, but since navicular doesn’t heal, it makes sense.
I’m not attacking the same injury again and again. The culprit was my complete ignorance of hoof angles, and now that it’s almost fixed, I want to believe it’s almost clear sailing from here.
Food for thought about boots, I read an article a few years back - sorry, I forgot where and I haven’t seen anything since. It referenced a study that showed that rubber hoof boots result in too much grip, and don’t allow enough slide. The end result was arthritis. At the time, my mare had been diagnosed with significant arthritis in her knees. She wore EB Edge’s. You may want to research that more and see if there is anything to it. I like Renegades and Scoot boots, as long as they fit, and your horse is comfortable making a heel first landing in them. Whatever boots you choose, if your horse won’t land heel first, the navicular will likely worsen.
I’ve never heard this, I’ll do some research. I’d only use them for the roads, I’d like to do about 6 miles per week (2ish hours), so even if that’s a risk I think it might work out okay.
Never more than a walk on the asphalt! It’s good to reset his brain and get some hill work in for his butt. We usually go once a week, but it’s not recommended with navicular so I was hoping boots would help.
I would look a little more into the showing treatment you’re using.
from what I’ve been told (not an expert by any means, but I have an unsound navicular case currently), wedge shoes can make the problem worse in the long run.
If horse could go barefoot in those easy boot cloud boots… We had a horse that when we pulled shoes and rehabbed, couldn’t walk. I mean hopped up and down in place. Like 5/5 lame at the walk on grass. Anyways he rehabbed in cloud boots and was semi sound barefoot. Worth it to try, they are 90 bucks for one.
I have personally had good luck with the EasyCare Cloud boots for my IR pony who got really sore (laminitis) this past winter. I would not put them over shoes though. I got lucky and found a brand new pair for her on eBay for $100.
I know this is from an old conversation, but my horse was just diagnosed with navicular syndrome in her left front hoof and I was considering getting her some Cloud boots while she rehabbed. I saw your comment about rehabbing one of your horses in Cloud boots and I was wondering two things: did you leave them on 24/7 and how long did your horse wear them?
