Horse Injured?

[WoofWhinny1]

Hi! There’s a horse at the barn who’s been injured recently, and I was wondering if anyone had seen anything similar. We are calling the vet out today, but I thought in the meantime I’d see if anyone here had any ideas.

Onto the injury - the horse in question is an older gelding. He’s always had problems with his right hind stifle (and arthritis in that leg) due to an injury when he was much younger. We injected his hocks & sacrum over a year ago, and had done the same once before that. That helped him, but he had recently been going very well (up until now), so we didn’t want to inject him again if it was unnecessary.

This past week, he has been having problems with his left hind stifle as well and is showing noticeable discomfort. We trotted him on both soft and hard ground, and he is going better on the hard than the soft. We did have a chiropractor come out to adjust his pelvis, and he seems to be feeling a little better after that, but not much. His tendons all seem fine. We are a bit stumped - that’s why we’re calling the vet out - but I hoped someone here might have had a similar experience. Thank you

[WildGooseChase]

Is there any noticeable gait disturbance (or a hitch) in the stifle itself? Like a locking stifle or stringhalt? Is it consistent or does it ebb and flow? A video of this horse being trotted in a straight line would be helpful. One taken from directly behind the horse, and another taken from the side.

[RaeHughes]

Check for back issues.
I had a mare that opened her back leg up between hock and fetlock - that healed.
She started going “off” periodically - and we put it down to the hard ground and how big a mare she was. Then she couldnt do a 15m circle to the right - prior to that she could - and our vet found that, when she hit the ground with one leg in the fence, she had also pulled/twisted/ruptured some of the tendons/muscles in her back. By giving her the time to heal from the leg injury, the back injury stabilised. However, as we started to do more higher level dressage, the back issues became more obvious. a “pelvis out of alignment” may not be only due to differential weight bearing on hind legs.

[Laurierace]

Sounder on hard surfaces than soft is generally indicative of a soft tissue injury. Where that soft tissue injury may be is anyone’s guess.

[WoofWhinny1]

There’s a little bit of a hitch in his left hind stifle, which stays consistent when he is trotted. I won’t be at the barn for another few days - I don’t own this horse - but I’ll try and get video soon. Thank you for your help!

[WoofWhinny1]

Thanks for sharing that story - this horse has been jumping more lately, so I’m wondering if back issues might be his problem as well. Thank you for your help!

[WoofWhinny1]

I’ll bring this up with the vet. Thank you!