How to fix a horse with navicular disease

[RWR]

[QUOTE=TSWJB;7262502]
Try pulling the shoes and letting him have time off. A woman who I boarded with told me her neighbors show horse would not stay sound with expensive shoes so they retired him. Pulled the shoes and 6 months later horse was sound and stayed sound[/QUOTE]

I had a simlar experience with my 20 year old TB gelding. He was sound for about a year with corrective shoeing. When he came up lame again we retook radiographs and as expected his condition had worsened. Pulled his shoes and he spent a winter out on pasture. He came back sound last spring and has stayed that way. He has stayed barefoot and is only being worked lightly, but he’s definitely usable.

[asterix]

Stop everything. Get the horse. Take him directly to a high end lameness speciality clinic or major equine hospital like New Bolton. Get an MRI. As Ellouise said, it is the only way to get a complete picture of all the structures in the foot. “Navicular” is a term applied to all kinds of foot pain deriving from all kinds of things. Some of them respond to barefoot and turnout. Some require specific shoeing or stall rest. Some are degenerative and managed but not cured.

Take responsibility for this animal. Why didn’t you have your OWN trusted vet work up the horse after he failed the first, second, third, or, I don’t know, tenth vetting?

[fordtraktor]

[QUOTE=Lucassb;7263750]
Lots of good advice here. I will just add that I would have the horse seen by a good lameness vet before pulling the shoes and turning him out. Dr. Green is great for a lot of issues but many horses with these kind of issues really need/benefit from supportive shoeing and don’t do well barefoot.[/QUOTE]

This. My retired horse has navicular, and is also the only horse currently wearing shoes on the farm. Aluminum eggbar wedges. He can’t do barefoot. Now, if he is shod badly (BTDT) his heels will contract and he needs some barefoot time to spread them, but to be really sound he needs wedges and actual good shoeing.

You don’t fix navicular, you manage it. You also need to start managing your expectations for this horse’s future, because he may or may not have one in the show ring. And if he does, it will need to be carefully managed in the hands of a good horseperson, because he will wear out very fast in the wrong hands. Maybe even in the right hands, but you can extend his career as long as possible if he’s kept in the right management program. That means lots of slow, careful fitness work, very light jumping outside the ring, and regular vet maintenance. Time off in the off season and a light show schedule. Not too many shows, and not too many classes at any particular show. Very sparing warmup jumps. Very sparing jumping, if he can still jump at all. Mine was able to still jump for about 8 years after his initial diagnosis, with some breaks – but at a reduced level, and no pounding. No courses at home. Ever.

[englishcowgirl]

[QUOTE=TSWJB;7262502]
Try pulling the shoes and letting him have time off. A woman who I boarded with told me her neighbors show horse would not stay sound with expensive shoes so they retired him. Pulled the shoes and 6 months later horse was sound and stayed sound[/QUOTE]

Mine too, I was told that the horse would never jump again. A year off without shoes did the trick!

[vineyridge]

So you are going to skip the vet workup, put fancy shoes on him, and put him right back to work? You’re asking a lot of a horse who is clearly in rather severe and constant pain. Sound after injections? Sounds like what the person in the Canadian thread called “frozen” feet. Even if you inject the horse, you’re still not thinking about the horse first.

You’ve been badly used, but the horse has been even more badly used. If he’s sold to someone else in his condition, they will also have been badly used because you’ll have shifted your problem onto someone else.

[QUOTE=hunterjumperx12;7262660]
I appreciete everyones help, I bought this horse for 100,000 in wellington a few years back with some of the top trainers (also some of the shadiest) yes i know bad decision, anyways he passed the vet except he had some “wear and tear” everyone telling me its a great horse and I need to buy it and blah blah. I showed it for a while then I had some kids show it in the juniors and he did great. About two years ago I was at one of the winter series and he walked out of his stall dead lame, my trainer said he would have the vet out immediately, so the next day all I heard was the horse is fine and he just got injections and after that he was completly sound. So then just last year I decided it was time for me to move on to a diffrent horse so I sent him to a BNT in NY (not naming names) to get sold, so skipping forward there had to be 10 diffrent people vet this horse within 2 months and he failed the vet every time with this “navicular disease” I never saw the x rays or anything. So then with all these people trying my horse he goes dead lame again so then I get a call that this little girl really likes my horse so they leased him out for a year and injected him to keep him sound and now his lease is up and he will be coming back to my farm, (not knowing in what condition) maybe I should just get some good shoeing to make him comfortable and bring him back out this spring and see what i’ve got and go from there.[/QUOTE]

[pds]

This is going to sound harsh, but it sounds like you are the one that needs fixing and the horse needs some serious TLC and time off.

[FineAlready]

I do agree with the others that, although it sounds like you were taken for a ride here (no pun intended), it is up to YOU to do right by this horse. I’m a firm believer that if you own a horse when the music stops, the only ethical thing to do is take care of him and retire him if necessary.

And I do agree that you should have brought the horse home the first time he failed a prepurchase, instead of continuing to market him and ultimately leasing him out. But what is done is done, and hopefully you will do the right thing now that you’ve become more educated on this topic.

By the way, injecting for navicular absolutely isn’t the same as injecting things like hocks. Often, you can inject hocks to help a horse through the fusing process, which ultimately results in long term soundness for the horse. With injections for something like navicular, you are only masking the pain which simply guarantees that the horse will further degenerate and injure the area.

A decision to keep injecting and working this horse, particularly in a jumping discipline, is, simply put, a decision to use him up completely and leave him a painful cripple. I won’t fault you for not knowing that from the outset, but you know it now, and what you decide to do with him and for him is a big decision that will say a lot about your character. Please choose wisely, for his sake and for yours. I can’t believe anyone wants to live with using a horse up in this way.

[Canaqua]

Way back in the 1970s, my Children’s Hunter was a nice QH that we’d been mislead a bit on. He had navicular changes. He was sound for quite a while, with pads and fancy shoeing, but when he started to become a bit uncomfortable with jumping, we sold him to a trail home. A nice older woman who just wanted to fart around on trails with him. Yep, we took a financial bath, though nothing like a $100K bath! Horse was happy.

[faraway46]

[QUOTE=Mardi;7262656]
Inject him with what ?[/QUOTE]
With Hylartin.