Please share your experiences with mineralization occurring after a suspensory injury. I have a young horse who came back sound after a high hind suspensory injury but 4 months after being cleared by the vet he was lame again. I had him re-ultra-sounded and mineralization was discovered. I treated with shockwave and rest but there was no change so now he is spending time with Dr. green grass. I’m just looking to see if anyone has gone through a similar experience and what the ultimate outcome was.
I’m not going to be much help, but the real Buck’s DDFT calcified after a traumatic fall many years ago. He was already mostly retired at the time, save the odd trail ride. The lost of mobility of his DDFT caused him to develop a club foot and an ongoing lameness. I learned that a hyper attention to hoof care helped to keep him pasture sound – he would be ouchy if his heels were too high, or suddenly too low. He was my motivation to learn how to trim so I could keep him at his “perfect” height.
That was 11 years ago, and he’s 40 now, still bounding around.
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I had one. A lovely horse, whose owner/breeder/race trainer gave him to me after his extensive racing career as a jumper prospect. I was thrilled. He had had a lot of veterinary work done on his ankles, and did have soundness issues throughout his racing career, but he was everyone’s pet and favourate at the track, including that of his owner/breeder/race trainer, who was my mentor and my boss as a groom as a kid. This horse “floated” over the ground, and he was massive (and heavy). He was raced for too long, as it turned out. He did not stay sound for me, and I was only riding him in a soft riding ring, and low level green jumping training. I had him xrayed, and this issue was diagnosed, calcification of the suspensory ligament. And there is no way to turn bone back into ligament, and give it back it’s elasticity. The vet who xrayed him was the best friend of the fellow who had given him to me. The horse found a home with a low level dressage/recreational rider, on medication, for a while, until it could not be “held” as servicably sound any more. Then a pasture pet for a while. Then was put down when he could not be kept comfortable any more. It was a long time ago now, perhaps new drugs may help kill the pain better, for a while. It was a tragedy. The fellow who gave him to me never really accepted what had happened to the horse, and I was blamed at the time- which was hard, but I understood that he could not face the fact that it was the racing career that had done the damage. I learned more about it in as I studied Biology at University, and we started talking about ligaments, and calcification of ligaments due to injury, and I realized I had first hand experience with this.
What I learned from this experience so many decades ago was to not race a horse for too long, to put the horse’s best interest above what a human wanted. When I continued in my equine career, including training race horses, I tried to keep this in mind. I’ve seen this issue a few other times throughout the decades, and not on race horses. It can happen to all sorts of horses, show horses, even recreational horses who you would not think have been asked to work that hard. Conformational issues can be involved with putting more stain on ligaments, as well as work load.
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Not a good thing unfortunately. So sorry
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Thank you for sharing your experiences.
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I found this article helpful: https://thehorse.com/161199/horse-te…e-for-concern/
Essentially, it seems to say that mineralization is not proven to be directly linked to lameness. It may just be an incidental finding. It’s possible the lameness is from something else. It also suggests that the mineralization can decrease in amount over time. My horse is currently rehabbing from high suspensory desmitis and we are prescribing to a year of Dr. Green. Maybe it would help your guy too. I wouldn’t totally give up hope yet.
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Thank you HJdaydream! I definitely will be re-accessing after a year of Dr. Green. Good luck with your guy!
I had a long reply that got deleted!
My mare had suspensory desmitis in both hind legs. Rehabbed her over the course of a year. Came back to work, was off again after 3 months. Recheck showed mineralization.I did shockwave then I turned her out 18 months and brought her back to work slowly with a real focus on getting/keeping her whole body comfortable/strong. She is sound in what I would call moderate work. WTC, some lateral work, light collection, jumping small courses and slowly increasing her work load. A lot of feedback I got was not positive for a return to work but I am pretty happy with how she is coming along so far. Good luck!
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That is awesome! I hope my boy can one day do moderate work!
Update: After a year of turn out I had him re-evaluated by a surgeon who recommended rehabbing again. After 6 months of stall rest and another 6 months of really slow return to work he is comfortable to go on trail rides and do lower level work in the ring. Maybe he can do more but I’m happy with what I have for now.
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Do you mind sharing why they put him back on stall rest for 6 months after he’d been turned out for a year?
He was placed back on stall rest after the surgeon diagnosed him as having another suspensory injury. Sorry for the late reply but I’m happy to report he is still comfortable with his lower level dressage career.
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