I got an OTTB a few months ago, fresh off the track (he arrived two weeks after his last race). When he arrived, he HATED being groomed/touched but was covered in rain rot, so I assumed that was the contributing cause. Getting the rain rot cleaned up and a course of ulcer meds seemed to improve his ability to tolerate grooming and he now acts like he enjoys it (yawns, drops, etc.). Initially, he had no problem kicking if he felt uncomfortable during grooming but has slowly overcome that, though he will still pick up a leg (but not kick with it) to let me know if I groom somewhere that is tight/sensitive/etc. Usually when he does that, my hand/brush/whatever was touching him stays there until he puts his leg down, and then I try to figure out what is sensitive and work through it.
I feel like he needs some chiro work done (you can visibly see that one side of his pelvis is slightly higher than the other). Only one chiro services my barn and I had her try to work on him about a month ago. However, I wasn’t crazy happy with her (horse picked a leg up when she started working on his hind end and she kicked him in the belly; needless to say, he didn’t get much out of the rest of the adjustment). However, I recognize it is my responsibility to provide a well-behaved horse when asking someone to do body work (though I was up front with previous chiro that he was an OTTB that had never had body work done before). I would like to work with him to get him more comfortable with his hind end being manipulated, for lack of a better word, before trying to have chiro done on him again. Any suggestions on how to do that? Any exercises I can do with him? I have tried to do pelvic tilts with him and he kicks out (quickly!). He just strikes me as the type that his go-to mechanism if anything feels uncomfortable is kicking. If the answer is just patience and more time, that’s OK too. I’ve had him for about 5 months now, for reference.
Kicking out at a human is never okay - while I don’t love your chiro’s response, I’m glad you understand why she might have responded that way – one kick can be the end of a horse-person’s career and livelihood.
How much turnout is this horse seeing? Does he have hind shoes? Are you working him?
TBs on the track can and do get chiro work - some quite often. Don’t discount he has not had a body worker - these horses typically can have better bodyworking care than the average riding home provides.
Some uneveness behind is not abnormal in a freshly retired race horse, but is indicative of an injury somewhere. You may hear it referred to as “knocked down hips”, but the injury itself can be for any number of things - a tuber coxae (wing tip) fracture, a start/gate accident, SI injury, general soreness from compensation somewhere, etc. Once you see a physical change in the horse’s musculature, you are dealing with something that happened likely well before you got the horse.
For wing tip fractures, they heal well with no limit to performance, but can be painful initially. A quiet 4-5 weeks with time off (in a stall if required) followed by return to full turnout is best.
Body work can be painful. If the horse is sound, I would work him before the chiro comes again. That should help loosen up his tight muscles and take some of the defensive edge off once the chiro begins to work.
If you have not already, try grooming him with a Tiger Tongue instead of the traditional curry/brush combo. I’ve found this really helps the TBs that come off the track with ulcers from disassociating grooming with discomfort.
Yes, I understand why she reacted the way she did (and I don’t blame her!). I was more annoyed because I told her at the beginning if there were things she didn’t feel like she could do with him, then that was OK – I would just rather have the first experience be positive, even if it wasn’t as “complete.”
He’s out 24/7, barefoot all the way around (actually has terrific feet) and came to me sound (and has been sound). He’s being “worked” 3-4 days/week. Work consists of 10 minute hack beforehand, 15-20 minutes of “work” (currently w/t/occasional canter), and then a 10 minute hack to cool down. So physically, it’s not very demanding at all (horse turned 4 two months ago). He is expected to come in and stand on the crossties to be groomed every day, at a minimum, and sometimes I’ll do some in-hand work with him on the non-riding days as well. He was let down for 6 weeks when I got him, with his only job being some in-hand work/slight lunging (5-10 minutes, just enough to learn w/t verbal commands) and to stand in the crossties to be groomed every day.
Good point. He certainly could have had some done at some point, though he came to me covered in so much rain rot there was no way he had been done recently.
I’ll try both of these! He was not ridden before his chiro appointment last time but I’ll make sure to coordinate to do that next time. And I will get a Tiger Tongue! We started off with a rub rag, then progressed to a soft brush, and can now curry, stiff brush, and soft brush. But I am always looking for things to help my horses enjoy grooming more!
Given his reaction, I’d give it more time and try less manipulative therapies first, even fairly hands off approaches like Masterson Method and cranial-sacral therapy. The soft tissue structures will need to relax more before chiro will be effective/hold anyway. It will help to have him a bit warmed up before any therapy. You could try the Sure Foot pads. PEMF. Massage. Heating pad or BOT or something like that.
And maybe at first you won’t get all of the adjustments done. But a good practitioner will take their time and figure out other places to work on to support the area and get things to release. Might take some trial and error but he seems to be very clear in giving feedback. Sure, he shouldn’t kick anyone, but at the same time, if he’s giving a warning, perhaps the chiro should receive that information and change their approach!
It can take quite some time for body soreness to resolve from the track. They go through a huge transition… I would keep up the body work especially if you’re also correcting hoof angles as many of them come off the track with some wicked long toes and underrun heels, thin soles, sore feet etc. Sometimes tossing them out to pasture for a few months helps as well… sometimes some benign neglect does them a lot of good. It also sounds like maybe there is an SI injury being that one hip sits higher (or lower ) than the other. Definitely something a good lameness vet needs to take a look at.
An anti inflammatory mighr not be a bad idea, but stay away from bute with a horse with a history of ulcers. Equiox would most likely be better tolerated.
I think I’d go with soft tissue work first, over bony manipulation which can sometimes be “rough”, especially of muscles are screaming. He may need several sessions for his muscles to be receptive to having structure manipulated even a little.
For this reason, the ideal is massage, then chiro, then massage again.
How did this chiro approach working on his hind end? Did she go right at it? Did she start elsewhere and work her way back?
I think the chiro’s response was weird and not helpful. A horse with apparent back end pain who mildly reacts when body worker touches back end is not at all unusual, I would not appreciate her kneeing a horse in the belly for communicating that something is painful. If she was uncomfortable working on him, she should have just said so and stopped. Otherwise, she’s just encouraging him to get defensive and tighten, which makes any adjustments all the more painful.
My horse used to buck when the acupuncture vet worked on his SI. Buck, chew, sigh, chew, buck buck chew, kick chew buck sigh. Nobody got alarmed, it was just what he did. He loved the acupuncture vet, he’d start chewing before he even started working on him.
Also, I know lots of people don’t get this, and I’m not saying it’s good or bad, just is: horses in the track often kick out when you brush or tack them. Mostly it’s because they’re excited and feel so stinking good. They’re not trying to kick you—they don’t kick at you, they just kick out when you are on the side. They also sometimes chew the wall or fling their heads up and down. As they get relaxed after track life they generally stop doing it, but it’s not what a lot of non-race trackers expect and can be off putting to some.
Yes, he is very clear in giving feedback! I have a BOT quarter sheet I can try throwing on him and I think there is a PEMF person somewhat close to me. Thank you!
He definitely came with the long toe/underrun heel syndrome. I pulled his racing plates and he walked off sound so my farrier and I decided we would leave him barefoot and gradually adjust his angles over a few cycles. I would say his hoof angles finally have been completely corrected with his last trim (~1 week ago).
I’ve tried 3 different magnesium supplements and the princess didn’t like any of them. Even mixed into his feed, he would refuse to eat any of his feed. Pull the supplement out and he happily gobbled down his feed. Horses eye roll
I have not tried bute or an NSAID prior to body work but I think I will try Equioxx and riding beforehand next time!
I did have him done by a myofascial massage person a few weeks ago, which he loved (once he figured out how good it felt). However, she didn’t even try to touch his hind end (she did his lumbar area and stopped there) as it took him awhile to figure out it felt good and we wanted the first experience to be positive.
The chiro started at the ribs, then did neck and lumbar area, then went to the hind end. She did something where she picked his hind leg up and rotated it laterally and I could see him tense up with that. Then when she tried to touch his hind end after that is when he picked his leg up. I would say all was going well/he was fairly relaxed until she rotated the hind leg. If I remember correctly, she said she was laterally rotating the tibia? Which I can’t remember any chiro I’ve ever used before doing but I can’t say that for certain either.
That being said, he has definitely tried to swiftly kick me when I tried to do some pelvic tilts with him, so his response isn’t limited to just one incident.
Although the chiro commented he felt like a lot of OTTBs she had done, I don’t think she had a ton of experience with OTTBs. She asked me a lot of questions as she was working on him about how to retrain them, don’t they go faster when you pull back, etc. So I do think there is a possibility she might not have been prepared for him either.
Your comment about kicking out makes sense. Sometimes when I’m grooming him and I get to his hind end, he will pick his leg up but not in a “I’m trying to kick you” kind of way – more of a “that feels really good, I want to get closer and lean into you” kind of way. He definitely flings his head up and down a lot during grooming (so much that I usually unclip the leadline from his halter so it’s not flying around everywhere!) but he acts like he’s doing that because it feels good, certainly not in a nasty way.
That’s a fairly common exercise. Where the horse is most resistant in the rotation correlates to what part of their body may be struggling; my chiro had me do this for a horse with UFP which was the result of an SI strain. It’s a good exercise to do daily as a baseline to pick up on any soreness in the hock, stifle or SI.
I believe E/Se Mag is in pellet form only now, he might be more agreeable to that… and when you introduce something start slowly and gradually work your way up to the full dose. Sometimes you have to ease them into it so they don’t reject it.
Yes there is definitely Mag available in pellet form (Quiessence, Mag5000 etc.) but I am not sure about Mag/Se… My mare thinks Quiessence is yummy, but she’s not super fussy.
That movement involves the stifle and SI. If his SI is painful (likely), it might not have adjusted and could very well have hit the anxiety button! I do this almost daily for my horse with SI issues but it’s been a process.
I think that’s more likely if the horse is in a high selenium area… if your area is deficient it’s hard to feed them levels that are toxic. IMO you would have to seriously screw something up. Selenium is important for proper brain, nerve, muscle function. It’s dangerous if they don’t get enough and dangerous if they get too much. It’s something to keep an eye on. I’ve always supplemented selenium but I don’t do it willy nilly.
) than the other. Definitely something a good lameness vet needs to take a look at.