Ever since I’ve had my 5 year old Andalusian I’ve noticed how he stumbles all the time. He does it during riding in the walk and trot about 1-3 times every day but never the canter, and he is a super naturally balanced horse so that shouldn’t be the issue. It feels as if all of a sudden he stepped in a huge hole when im on him. He also does it when I’m just leading him but I’ve never noticed him do it on the lunge (even though he hasn’t been lunged much). He can do a pretty good extended trot without ever having an issue so I don’t think it would be a flexing issue. Does anyone know what could be the issue?
Have you had a vet exam?
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His pre purchase exam was normal which was about 5 months ago but that’s all we’ve done.
The “stepping in a hole” feeling is often a symptom of slipping out in the stifle. Can you give more details? Tripping in front, slipping out behind? Stumbling badly enough to go down on a knee?
Tripping / stumbling is not normal and can be a sign of neurological problems - along with a host of other far less serious things. Definitely worth a call to the vet.
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He usually just trips in the front, he’s never gone down on a knee though. Walking back to the barn on him I halted and he tripped again, I looked and there was just one big indent that was deep in the dirt.
How long have you had him? Does he have regular quality farrier care? I agree with others to have a vet check, including bloodwork. It could be many things, some much more serious than others and even some of the serious ones can be helped if caught early.
I would start with the farrier. He may need his break-over point moved back, or his toes may be too long.
If that doesn’t solve it, check with your vet.
And another thought, does he do it with your instructor?
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I agree with merrygoround – start with his feet. Could be due to sore feet or issues with shoeing/trimming. If that all checks out have the vet move on to other potential issues
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I’d start with his feet. My PRE was stumbling and tripping a bit a few years ago and once I switched farriers, the problem went away. In my experience, not every farrier seems to be able to trim or shoe a Spanish horse horse properly.
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I’ve had horses which came like this, who had underrun heels and long toes. Get his feet in good condition, make sure he has shoes as well. I would only bring him back to barefoot after you have corrected his feet, and see if he can go barefoot. If he is shod and has a short toe and good heel, and still stumbles, have a vet look at him. Until you can be assured he has good feet, you won’t know what’s going on.
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I’d also take a look at how he is landing. Is he landing heel first or toe first? If it’s the latter, then he has heel pain( thrush, navicular, or just underrun heels).
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Start with having a vet skilled in diagnosing neuro issues look at him.
THAT is your biggest threat to a horse ‘constantly’ stumbling. If it’s not neuro then at least the vet can try to help point to what it is. But I have heard a mountain of stories of good people who tried shoeing, chiro, accupuncture, supplements, joint injections and so on and in the end the horse was neuro.
Good Luck.
Em
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X-ray his feet and work with a good farrier.
Tripping was a sign of early navicular in one of my horses. Catching it early meant he was able to get the correct maintenance and had a long ridden career. I
My 4yo had some incidents of tripping when I first purchased him but his feet were in mediocre shape, it only happened in the arena which had pretty deep footing with large cloth pieces that other young horses seemed to find challenging and it basically only happened when he wasn’t paying attention under saddle. Basically he’d start looking at something outside the arena and boom, trip. With good quality farrier care and learning to focus on his job the tripping resolved, and his movement is even better at our new barn so footing was certainly an issue, so there is a best case scenario for this sort of thing. That said he did trip and flip over once while I was on him, so even when the causes are benign and fixable the behavior can still be dangerous.
That said the tripping you describe while being walked in hand on what I assume is relatively even, firm ground sounds strange to me. If you can’t easily identify a unifying cause and fix that asap/test your hypothesis for confirmation, then I’d just get the vet out to do a neuro exam because a neuro horse is very unsafe to ride. I bought a lovely 3yo on a 1 month trial for some borderline neuro vs behavior/attention findings on the PPE and the horse was totally sound looking on the lunge and limited under saddle work during the trial, but the repeat PPE 3 weeks in left zero doubts there was a neuro issue and he went back to breeder. Even young, healthy looking and sound moving horses can have a major hidden issue and if they are sweet they will try to compensate and work through it which can delay recognition.
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This.
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I have to agree with several others. I think a neuro exam would be your best bet. Then, perhaps your vet can point towards feet or give you other ideas of what might be going on if thats not it. But I would want to know a horse wasn’t having neuro issues before continuing to ride. If they trip just the wrong way they can easily fall on you. Good luck OP.
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I’d personally start with feet and go from there. It’s the “easiest” answer. Unless the horse starts to trip so often or so big that it gets dangerous.
My guy isn’t the world’s most coordinated and will occasionally stare off at something else and forget to pay attention to his feet if we’re riding in a field or a trail. But he’s never done it while I was leading him in, so that is a red flag to me.
A couple of summers ago, I put hind shoes on him to address some flare issues and his hind feet started slipping occasionally. He was so used to being barefoot that the slight loss of traction caused issues. Switched to a different shoe and it went away.
I’d also personally lunge him and watch him in turnout for a while to see if you notice anything from the ground. It took me lunging to really see what was happening with my guy’s hind feet.
Does your guy have access to green, growing grass? My horse is IR and doesn’t get any grazing time as a result. Most people don’t realize, but the vitamin E in cut hay/alfalfa degrades super quick. Like 12 weeks and gone. As a result most horses without access to grazing time are E deficient - primary symptoms are horses getting super sore, and neuro type symptoms. My horse was going downhill pretty badly and starting to trip. We assumed it was the slow downhill to retirement from the IR/cushings, but I found some natural horse blah blah blog about vitamin E and gave it a try. I swear to god, he did a 180 and has been going better than he’s even gone at PSG/I1.
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I would just add - check saddle fit and placement.
