Horse Dragging Hind Toes / Sore Hamstrings

[TequilaMockingbird]

My 11yo mare started dragging her hind toes a month ago. My vet of choice for lameness issues (as opposed to standard things like vaccinations, first aid etc) is a 3 hour round trip. I try to avoid trailering to him until all other options have been exhausted as I have to take off a whole day of work, pay for someone to trailer both directions and it’s nearing triple digit temperatures right now (feels like temperature reached 107 yesterday).

We do 2nd level dressage. She feels great under saddle and has never had issues with dragging her toes. She does not drag at the walk, only trot and canter. I did slow motion videos and sent them to my vet and fully palpated her. Based on strong reactions in her hamstrings and the videos, my vet said it was likely hamstring soreness and to start a rehab program. I had cold laser treatments done on her daily for a week and I gave her 10 days. I started riding her again only at the walk just to keep her moving. She’s turned out about 7 hours a day and I don’t have any way of getting her more turnout.

Here is one of the videos.
https://youtu.be/DqWb_gacLCc

I started using Sore No More on her after my walk-only rides. I’m having her saddle adjusted on Friday (was the soonest available due to Covid). The flocking has become compressed in front and I’ve been using shims in the mean time.

If things don’t start making serious improvements I’m planning to give her a whole month off with a video once per week to check progress. Then trailer to my vet if there aren’t serious improvements after 4 weeks of rest.

Anyone have any suggestions or dealt with something similar?

[SCI]

I have a horse that started dragging his toes. He also had over developed hamstrings that were sore. Our vet thought hock/stifle soreness, but it ended up being higher up. It is his lower back that is sore. He wants to go inverted because his back hurts and the hamstrings became sore and over developed to compensate for his posture. A Back on Track sheet helps loosen up my guy’s back and our rehab program involved lots of long and low work, getting him to stretch his back muscles, and trot poles to encourage him to lift.

[IPEsq]

It would be good to see a normal video. My concern with the time off would be if it’s related to stifles (and lack of fitness in the quadriceps muscles and glutes with more compensation coming from the hamstrings), then time off could actually be worse. I might keep up the bodywork and start with more of a counterconditioning program, even if done largely at the walk or walk/trot. Raised poles, maybe Equicore system. Some tail pull exercises geared towards getting her to fire the quadriceps. Belly and sternal lifts and other core exercises. Maybe even the Sure Foot pads–you can use either softer ones behind and encourage her to stand a little toe down, or the wedges to provide a little less tension on the hamstrings.

And an easy thing to check too that you don’t need the far away vet for is her hoof angle behind.

[TequilaMockingbird]

When you say a “normal” video, do you mean the same thing but not in slow motion? I have some from the same day at normal speed that I can upload.

Unfortunately I don’t have any access to raised poles at the moment. The facility I’m at only has one usable pole, the rest are trashed and not safe to use.

She has always had some soreness in her hamstrings as it’s something that’s been noted by every bodyworker I’ve ever had work on her in 7 years. I’ve considered a chiropractor but I’m hesitant because I’ve never seen any results from chiro work even though I’ve used multiple chiropractors. I also want to see what the saddle fitter has to say. I want to adjust one thing at a time rather than change 3 things at once and not knowing what helped or hurt. But in the past if her saddle is bothered her she refused to come over her back without a fight.

I’ve been working her with a longer rein than usual. Our walk work has become great in the past month because that’s all we work on. I’ve gotten her more over her back at the walk and telescoping her neck than I ever have before. She doesn’t seem uncomfortable or feel lame in the saddle. But clearly she’s still got soreness because the toe dragging has continued.

[IPEsq]

Yes I mean normal speed video.

[BoyleHeightsKid]

Can we see some pictures of the hind feet or even all 4? Straight on from the side and from the back and sole shots. If the hind feet have a bull nosed appearance you might be looking at negative plantar angles and that can cause sore tight hamstrings.

[beowulf]

I did some snooping – sorry – I wanted something besides the slow-mo video, which doesn’t help much without a good normal speed video accompanying it. I looked at a few other videos on your YT feed and think whatever it is, it’s present in the 2014 videos marginally. Or, that is how she moves – but I did notice, in the one video of her working on leg yields and cantering, that she is not able to bring her RH under her - either because she is trying to deload that LH, or because she can’t bring it across her midline.

I agree with others about a different video and shots of the feet. I’d also keep working her, until you can get a pair of vet eyes on her. Just from what I saw, I’d suspect that feet are at play and that there is some soreness over her SI and suspensories. I thought her RH in earlier videos looked suspect, but the LH is doing a lot of hock wringing, the more I watched of the older videos the less sure I was of which leg it was. One thing I have noticed, in common with horses who have sore hocks (which means their hamstrings are often sore as well), is that their tail seems to bounce in between their hocks and underbelly, rather than stream out behind them.

[TequilaMockingbird]

@beowulf

I did some snooping – sorry – I wanted something besides the slow-mo video, which doesn’t help much without a good normal speed video accompanying it. I looked at a few other videos on your YT feed and think whatever it is, it’s present in the 2014 videos marginally. Or, that is how she moves – but I did notice, in the one video of her working on leg yields and cantering, that she is not able to bring her RH under her - either because she is trying to deload that LH, or because she can’t bring it across her midline.

I agree with others about a different video and shots of the feet. I’d also keep working her, until you can get a pair of vet eyes on her. Just from what I saw, I’d suspect that feet are at play and that there is some soreness over her SI and suspensories. I thought her RH in earlier videos looked suspect, but the LH is doing a lot of hock wringing, the more I watched of the older videos the less sure I was of which leg it was. One thing I have noticed, in common with horses who have sore hocks (which means their hamstrings are often sore as well), is that their tail seems to bounce in between their hocks and underbelly, rather than stream out behind them.

She had dual hind suspensory surgery in November 2017. She still shows a slight weakness in her right hind. She likes to step slightly wide to the outside. I had her hocks investigated extensively before the suspensory diagnosis. We had to eliminate them as possibility. Xrays and ultrasound of the hocks were normal in 2017. I had the PPE xrays to compare to and there were no visible changes in her hocks from when she was 3 years old.

Bull nosing on her hind toes was how I knew she was dragging her hind feet. I have her feet trimmed every 4 weeks like clock work. I’ll take pictures of her feet when I go out in a couple hours.

Here is a video from our last show, almost a year ago. Not our best as I forgot part of my test and we ran out of gas at the end from the heat. As I said before, she has never dragged either toe until the last month.
https://youtu.be/S8bB59MgVfA

[beowulf]

@TequilaMockingbird

She had dual hind suspensory surgery in November 2017. She still shows a slight weakness in her right hind. She likes to step slightly wide to the outside. I had her hocks investigated extensively before the suspensory diagnosis. We had to eliminate them as possibility. Xrays and ultrasound of the hocks were normal in 2017. I had the PPE xrays to compare to and there were no visible changes in her hocks from when she was 3 years old.

Bull nosing on her hind toes was how I knew she was dragging her hind feet. I have her feet trimmed every 4 weeks like clock work. I’ll take pictures of her feet when I go out in a couple hours.

Here is a video from our last show, almost a year ago. Not our best as I forgot part of my test and we ran out of gas at the end from the heat. As I said before, she has never dragged either toe until the last month.
https://youtu.be/S8bB59MgVfA

Nice mare. To my eye she looks much better in the recent show video then she did in the ones posted ~2014. The dual suspensory surgery explains what I saw in those earlier videos. I did see some toe drag there but it was very subtle.

Hock soreness is usually secondary, from compensation elsewhere. I hope you can get some answers. I like her most recent video much better. Much happier over her back and a much improved length of separation in the hinds at canter, especially to the right.

Toe drag is a symptom of suspensory soreness, sadly – what was it she had, PSD?

[IPEsq]

I saw a fair amount of RH toe drag in the show video. Would make sense from the history. Hard to tell on the left whether there was an occasional toe touch (considering your slow mo video does not show significant dragging), but the videographer wasn’t helping me out much keeping still!

As a first step, assuming she doesn’t currently look any worse going than in this video, I’d xray the hind feet to check the angles. Bullnosing usually means NPA, but not always. My last horse was an example of this–he dragged his toes at the walk out on the dry paddock, and during a time I had pulled his hind shoes, it looked not good. But Xrays showed his angles were good, so we put shoes on to stop the wear but made sure that as my farrier tried to grow out the curved appearance that we didn’t try to make his toes too long which would have lowered the angle.

Which brings me to… has there been any change in footing either where she lives or where she is worked that would contribute to abnormal wear?

[beowulf]

@IPEsq I was referring to the toe drag in her early videos, 2014-ish. The one she just posted is most recent. I had to do some snooping (sorry OP) to find the older videos. The mare definitely looks more comfortable in the recent videos.

I’m a big proponent of Occam’s Razor OP – if you know there’s previous history on the horse, start there and work your way down – or up – but in this case, I’d go with down – only because the hoof angle behind can really make or break a horse with past suspensory issues.

I know you mentioned she only gets 7 hours of turnout… That’s industry standard but is there any way you can push for more? Sometimes all it takes is a vet saying to the BO/BM – “look, this will help the horse be more comfortable”. 7 isn’t much for a sound of body horse; I wouldn’t want a horse with old suspensories on any sort of significant stall time, either. I’ve been in barns as a client where the vet has said the horse should go out and BO/BM has said “they can’t be alone” and then, boarders come out of the woodwork offering their horse to go out with the one that needs more turnout. Sometimes it just takes starting a discussion.

[IPEsq]

@beowulf

@IPEsq I was referring to the toe drag in her early videos, 2014-ish. The one she just posted is most recent. I had to do some snooping (sorry OP) to find the older videos. The mare definitely looks more comfortable in the recent videos.

I did not go looking for old videos. In the more recent one, I saw RH dragging quite a bit. More so than I would have assumed was happening currently from the slo-mo video. I thought I saw some LH occasionally, but I couldn’t be sure because the video was hard to watch and often obscured the feet. RH was apparent but not totally consistent (there were times it did not drag).

I pointed this out because of the OP’s statement, “As I said before, she has never dragged either toe until the last month.” But the video was from almost a year ago.

[BoyleHeightsKid]

@TequilaMockingbird

Bull nosing on her hind toes was how I knew she was dragging her hind feet. I have her feet trimmed every 4 weeks like clock work. I’ll take pictures of her feet when I go out in a couple hours.

You can also measure the collateral grooves at the back of the frog and at the apex. This will give you an idea if you have a flat to negative plantar angle… Ideally (unless the horse has thin soles) you want 3/4" at the apex and 1" at the back of the frog. When you see the vet I would definitely get hoof xrays that properly show P3 angles.

[carman_liz]

@TequilaMockingbird

When you say a “normal” video, do you mean the same thing but not in slow motion? I have some from the same day at normal speed that I can upload.

Unfortunately I don’t have any access to raised poles at the moment. The facility I’m at only has one usable pole, the rest are trashed and not safe to use.

She has always had some soreness in her hamstrings as it’s something that’s been noted by every bodyworker I’ve ever had work on her in 7 years. I’ve considered a chiropractor but I’m hesitant because I’ve never seen any results from chiro work even though I’ve used multiple chiropractors. I also want to see what the saddle fitter has to say. I want to adjust one thing at a time rather than change 3 things at once and not knowing what helped or hurt. But in the past if her saddle is bothered her she refused to come over her back without a fight.

I’ve been working her with a longer rein than usual. Our walk work has become great in the past month because that’s all we work on. I’ve gotten her more over her back at the walk and telescoping her neck than I ever have before. She doesn’t seem uncomfortable or feel lame in the saddle. But clearly she’s still got soreness because the toe dragging has continued.

By raised poles, do you mean cavalleti type poles? Can you go to Lowes or HD and get some landscaping timbers? They are not expensive at all, 3 to 4 bucks each and would give you a better than nothing option?

No advice on the dragging, my 30+yr old does it, but he is old and happy living out 24/7 so not much else we can do at this point. Jingles for your horse though!

[TequilaMockingbird]

The facility she’s at now is for sale. She gets excellent care and footing is decent. Not much I can do to change things for her turnout wise until I move, which I’m dreading because I’m very limited in my choices for a myriad of reasons that would take a novel to explain. I’m hoping my friend will be bringing out some ground poles she got recently.

The main reason I reached out to my vet and provided videos was to get his opinion of whether it’s suspensory related because that was what I immediately worried about. He doesn’t think so and I trust his opinion. He is the one who performed the surgery. Yes, it was PSD. I’m also on a PSD Facebook group and it doesn’t fit the symptoms most people had when the nerves cut during the neurectomy regenerated.

Prior to the surgery she was constantly behind the leg and became near impossible to get her on the bit. I spent tons of money on local equine sports medicine vets, chiropractors, massage, changing saddles, investigated ulcers, full neck and back xrays to check for kissing spine and cervical arthritis, you name it. The day she reared with me for no reason (totally out of character) during warm up I decided to take her to Texas A&M, which is where she was finally diagnosed with PSD. I’m not having any of those kinds of problems with her anymore. The only thing that has never gone away is stepping wide with the right hind.

I noticed a few weeks ago what I thought were drag marks but dismissed them, thinking maybe the arena was more deeply harrowed than normal. I had never seen any instance of this ever before (it’s really obvious in a freshly dragged dressage arena if a horse is dragging their feet). A week later I saw visible wear on both hind toes. This what I thought you guys were referring to you when you said “bull nose.”

This is what I mean by being sore in the hamstrings. I’m not sure how evident it is but I’m not using much pressure. This was yesterday. I checked again after the ride and it was basically unchanged. She is sore. I took it really easy on her yesterday, just hacking around the property.
https://youtu.be/IwGt3b4MsSQ

Here is a video at regular speed from the same day as the slow motion video.
https://youtu.be/-QbTcMzpasI

At this point my plan is to double down on lasering her every other day for 10 days 30-60 minutes each session. Then I will have a DVM who now primarily does chiro and acupuncture come out. If that doesn’t make a significant impact I’ll be spending the money to take her to my preferred lameness vet when it cools down some. I honestly think she’s too sore for a massage to be of much help right now. I don’t think she’d “let them in.”

[TequilaMockingbird]

If anyone is curious, I took her in to my preferred lameness vet. She was basically sound on hard ground, no toe dragging at all. She was positive on hock flexions. He wasn’t able to find anything higher up. She was still sore in her hamstrings but not as much. I’ve been massaging her myself at least 30 minutes per day for the past week. He said he thought it wasn’t likely to be bony changes. Radiographs confirmed that her hocks were clean.

I also had them xray her hind feet to ensure she didn’t have negative plantar angles as the left hind looked like a possible candidate. While confirming that she has super thin soles and wall, she has correct angles.

She’s now on a course of Equioxx. Vet and I both agreed that we should forgo joint injections at this point. Not worth the risk at this point when Equioxx may do the trick.