Flexed front legs pasterns and knees, and hocks if I recall correctly? No discernible change on flexion.
I’d get a second opinion with another vet. Get a fresh set of eyes on him.
Also, if he is tight behind, and hocks/stifles have never been xrayed or ultrasounded, that would be first thing on my list. I’ve had horses that flexed just fine, but their rads looked horrendous. It’s possible for horses to still have pain but cover it up on flexions.
Could be worthwhile to xray the neck. When I hear STIFF, that’s one of the first places I look. He looks real stiff in the neck in the loping video.
If this were my horse, more diagnostics are in order to figure out where the problem is.
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Also recommend to ultrasound his neck.
My internist was out a few weeks ago and asked my boy to do a neck stretch - asked him to turn to each side, without tilting his head. Now, I’ve never thought my horse had a neck problem because he can practically lay his head on his SI. But, when she did the stretch, he turned and kept his head vertical in one direction, but not the other. So, we immediately did ultrasound and it showed arthritis at C5 which I was not expecting.
So, maybe carefully try to encourage him to stretch - first one side and then the other - and see if he will keep his head vertical turning to each side.
Does that make sense?
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This is very interesting to me. I have one in my barn who I swear has neck problems. He holds himself so stiffly…even in his stall at night. His neck was radiographed and his owner was told it’s fine. Why did your vet elect to ultrasound instead of radiograph? When I cracked my ribs, the ER ultrasounded…
We’ve had a series of xrays over the years, and nothing has ever shown up. Can’t say why, but the ultrasound definitely caught the edge that showed arthritis.
The more I look at the videos the more I see a sweet boy who isn’t comfortable lifting his withers. I think it’s neck.
And I did have C5 injected and he’s moving completely differently - very light up front and reaching out in a way he has not historically done.
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Update if anyone is interested. Unfortunately with gently stretching and very light work he has not shown any improvement, looks slightly worse if anything. Had vet look at him again, vet scoped him and did xray of head, nothing came up. I asked vet to xray neck but his recommendation was a bone scan is the best next step so we are waiting for the clinic to let us know their next available spot.
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If anyone is interested, we are heading to a top notch university clinic next week for a stomach scope and bone scan, and go from there.
I’ve been riding fairly lightly the past few weeks, with no improvement or change. Then yesterday I got on and thought he was feeling like he was moving better than he has in weeks if not months - still wanting to keep his head low but moving much more freely. We haven’t been doing much cantering (it had been taking a lot of effort to get him going) but I decided to try it. I asked to the right, generally his better side, from the walk and he picked it up easily and felt quite good a few laps around! Then we trotted and changed directions. When I asked going left he picked up the correct lead but almost immediately went into a series of small crow hops - very unusual for him! I almost wiped put, but asked again (on a 20m circle just in case!) And he cantered left no issue. It was quite cold and windy, I can’t say definitely if he was just a bit fresh or hurting.
So today I decided to put him in the round pen so I could watch him. He was a bit tense, which is somewhat unusual at home, but when he relaxed he did look a bit better. Then when I asked him to canter right he was bucking pretty hard. But then no bucking or hopping left. 
here’s videos both directions.
Wish us luck next week!
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20230413_151047
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I would recommend that you ask the clinic to pull stomach fluids to check for pH and to send a sample out for testing for bacteria. As long as the scope is down there, it’s very, very worthwhile.
It isn’t exactly a common thing for vets to do during a scope, but more and more often I’m hearing from others that pH/bacteria are major contributors to gut ailments.
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Interesting, I’ve never heard of this!
