Oh yeah, BTDT have the T-shirt. Spent thousands on a PPE, got a good report, and within a couple of months, things started going sideways. Including revealing some issues that must have been there for a couple years already, at least. That’s horses. Don’t feel too badly.
How long has she been out of race training? That comment about the starting gate is interesting…
I am not 100% sure how long she hasn’t been in training. But I believe only a couple months, maybe? She said that the past few weeks before I bought her, she pretty much had only been to the hot walker and back to a stall.
Don’t give up on her. I’ve known two FEI level dressage horses who moved like that…and seen dozens of others do it as well. Often it was stifle issues which could just be because she is a big girl and it takes time to get strong. She is young and growing. Give her some time.
Definitely looks NQR in the sales videos. Quite possibly fixable.
My horse that stepped across/under like that had a stifle issue. I’ve seen horses with an assortment of issues, minor and major, that twisted like that, including one that had an annular ligament issue.
I bought a horse with a bad PPE, spent thousands and several years fixing the original issue and then dealing with other stuff that popped up, and ultimately ended up euthanizing him, if that makes anyone feel any better.
I’ll see if I can pull up any records.
Last workout was May 21, 2017. Sorry if they’re sideways.
Workout.pdf (93.8 KB)
Auction.pdf (177 KB)
My horse has a weaker hind end at the moment, and he is also younger (5 yrs). When his stifle is sore, usually from overdoing it on the pasture or if I accidentally did too much pole work, he will sort of step under himself like your mare. He does not quite twist much, though. A day or two of backing off a bit and he’s fine to continue with his “physical therapy” program.
However, your mare may have more damage/weakness. Perhaps there are loose or torn ligaments. I’d definitely have a vet examine further, and get guidance on what kind of program and treatment she should receive. She’s young, and this may not always be a problem once you pinpoint and can deal with it accordingly. If it is a stifle issue, a lot of the time, proper conditioning and maintaining fitness helps drastically (slowly over time).
A hot walker goes in small circles, so that was not ideal for a horse with a possible stifle issue. Being in a trailer and bracing/being confined for a bit may have exacerbated it.
It seems high up to me as well and bilateral, just worse in the left hind. I would definitely start with the chiro and making sure her feet are in balance. I’ve seen a pretty good twist in a hind leg be resolved with a good farrier. The imbalance can make them sore. She does seem weak behind. Lovely lovely mare. Good luck. I hope you figure it out.
i remember commenting on this mare before you got her. i still really like her. don’t beat yourself up about not getting a PPE - i have only PPE’d a handful of horses from the track and when you are buying a race horse, you are taking a gamble… a PPE is not a crystal ball and you could have a perfectly sound horse end up useless, even after dropping $2k in a PPE…
in the original race-track video she does have a slight asymmetry behind, to me, it looks like a stifle weakness. that twisting while walking is something that like BFNE, I have seen in tons of event horses. usually it’s a sign of weakness in the hock that is secondary to weakness in the stifle. the weakness might be because of some sort of desmitis, tendon injury, ligament weakness, etc - you don’t know unless you put it under film.
if i were you, i might throw her out on 24/7 pasture to keep her always moving; correct any unbalanced trim issues she might have (it especially worsens as they get long in the toe and bullnosed behind), chat with your vet about a possible course of estrone and a possible look at the stifle, and start on a month regime of hill-work and walk-poles. i would avoid circles, and see where you are in a month.
in my experience, stall time makes them worse - with stifles after they are healed you want to always keep them moving.
I have a horse who “rope walks” behind. Believe it or not, the vet recommended bar shoes behind. Worked like magic! Both the farrier and I were amazed. Don’t know if that would help her but if might.
I can’t watch the videos right now, but my mare has a twist in one leg, courtesy of an OCD cyst in her ankle.
Since this is not new, I really think the vet is the best place to start, Chiro without an actual diagnosis can cause further harm and not all chiros have the training to tell the difference and none can see inside. Vet should see her anyway to get a record started and baseline for future reference.
But plan on following that with Dr, Green. Most things that could be wrong will be helped by lots of low impact mileage i.e walking around a pasture for at least a few months. I wouldn’t throw a bunch into fancy treatments to get her back in full work quicker at this point. She needs rest and low impact movement.
Young racers go to work early in life and work hard, physically a break is a good thing for most. Oh, gates are metal, narrow and despite all precautions and educated handling, more then a few take it in the hips and upper stifle if they bounce around. Necessary evil of a track career I suppose but most suffer no lasting effects.
Yep. Right hind is wonky. Scary after she got off the trailer, but she was lame in the earlier videos. I feel bad for both of you. Will they take her back? She’s got 25 more years to live; that s a very long time to own a lame horse. 
Any updates on this? Pretty mare–hope the news is good.
My mare does this a lot. She is a bit base narrow and a bit cow-hocked. It comes and goes, but it is there almost all the time. I have a chiropractor and I try to work on stifle strength for her. Others don’t think it’s stifle issue. But we all think it’s conformational and just a part of her. We have not tried to correct it with shoes as I am concerned messing with it could make other things worse. It doesn’t seem to bother her at all. But today I was following behind her while my daughter was leading her at walk and those twists just look terrible. I noticed Tiffani B. (I think) posted this:
“Both of my horses do this periodically at the beginning of show season on soft ground and it’s usually only at the walk. Trotting and cantering they don’t do it. So we do a ton of stifle strengthening work and by mid season it’s all but gone. They aren’t in pain or injured.”
Could you please give some examples of “stifle strengthening work”? I mostly trail ride and do some arena work, an am not that familiar with English riding exercises. But I would love any additional information.
Also, how is the horse of the original poster doing?? Thank you so much.
It is called tight rope walking. Chiro, massage, and magna wave will help greatly. Also may need blistering to tighten up her tendons.
Dr. Deb Bennett, though a controversial personality, is a wealth of knowledge on equine biomechanics. Here is a link to a thread on her forum addressing this issue:
My elder horse (30) presented that motion and I was blaming the farrier. Alas, it was the announcement of a nerve problem, probably somewhere in the cervical spine. I haven’t managed to find s vet with a portable Xray, and am leery of trailering him any distance lest he go down in the trailer. Could be that your girl would profit from chiro or some other form of body work.
My 20 year old ISH gelding twists slightly on his left hind at the walk, barely noticeable at trot and none at the canter. He’s a retired prelim eventer but any injuries or trauma is unknown as he only came to me about two years ago. He also has problems lifting that foot more than 3 inches off the ground for picking it out or for the farrier. If he’s working he can pick it up normally, even when jumping. I haven’t done chiro yet but he’s been barefoot for the past year and his feet are balanced.
When I first mentioned it to my vet she wasn’t overly concerned. Until April when he was sedated for his teeth and he lost complete control of his hind end. And I mean he went limp as a noodle, it took two of us and the barn wall to stabilize him. Never experienced that before. Vet thinks he had some sort of trauma to the hind end. Being 20 and semi-retired, I haven’t explored it fully. But I plan on chiro and we’ll see where it takes us.
Thank you for the feedback. I have seen Dr. Deb’s website and there is some good information there. My mare is only 7, and vet and chiro both seem to think it’s conformational rather than injury. She works and plays fine. Though she does bonk the ground poles with at least one foot when she goes over them. Not sure how much is lazy and how much is that it is hard for her. I just wish I could figure out why it comes and goes as far as severity. She is twisting a lot right now. I just want to fix it! : )
In the link I posted, Dr. Deb gives information on how to fix it:
"‘Wringing the hocks’ is another term for it. The cause is rooted in the fact that the horse is not using his lower back properly. He does not know how, when moving under a rider, to ‘round up’ into a posture that will allow him to carry the weight and still be able to use his hind limbs normally.
"The cure for it is to learn how to use the same exercises I speak of here all the time. The horse must learn how to back one step at a time, how to rate before a grid of ground poles and then how to negotiate the poles with rhythm and bounce. He must learn to untrack, to leg-yield, and then he must become proficient at shoulder-in.
"None of this has even one iota to do with any form of competition. None of it is ‘advanced’ work. Rather, all of it is fundamental, the basic stuff that every horse must know in order to do his most basic job, which is, to carry a rider on his back.
“It will also be beneficial in the short term for you to learn how to perform a groin release. Horses that wring their hocks have excess muscle tonus or ‘tension’ in two areas: the superficial gluteal muscle on the front-top area of the croup, and in the adductor musculature that is on the medial side of the hind limb, i.e. the muscles that are between the hind legs. Use the Google advanced search function to look up Pauline Moore’s thread that explains in detail how to correctly perform limb stretching, and then also find the explanation I gave somewhere in another thread on how to do the groin release.”
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