Congrats on the purchase, I hope it all works out for you! A very lucky horse to have found a forever home. However I am confused why you came here asking for advice to completely ignore it…Ahh…the Coth way :lol:
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I genuinely hope it works out for you. I do feel a like like “why ask if you don’t care” but hey, it’s all good
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I would make sure you keep him out 24/7. I would not own a KS horse if I could not turn them out all the time. It makes them much stronger and happier over their back. Would also suggest keeping him on a shorter trim cycle, the feet make or break a KS horse. I would also train your eye to be really critical of how his hind legs move at the trot; an early sign (symptomatic) of pain for KS horses is they start to drag their hind feet.
I have one with mild KS, in the same spot. It’s a fairly common area for KS to appear. I love him to pieces, but he would not be sound or happy if he could not be out 24/7. He will get sore if stalled, so I never go to shows that are more than one day. It’s a fair trade-off for me, and I’ll keep him in work as long as he is happy to do it, but I tell myself every day is not a given, and someday – sooner than I will want, too – he will tell me he’s ready to step down.
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@Jealoushe and @vxf111 thank you for the well wishes and super valid questions! I did take all responses into careful consideration (more so those that had reasons and details). To be fair, I did a lot more research between posting on COTH and making the decision and I didn’t know which vertebrae were involved and hadn’t consulted with the PPE vet at the time I made my original post. I was hoping for responses from folks who had found KS incidentally/not in association with back pain/issues. Unfortunately, most folks that find it on a “routine” PPE (the most likely reason for incidentally finding KS), don’t buy the horse so there is no follow up. The people who responded with the most detail were actually the least negative and I put more weight on those responses (and yes, I am self aware enough to recognized that there is a fairly strong element of confirmation bias involved there!). Ultimately, I just decided to place more weight on scientific research and vets and that (happily?!) supported my gut feeling about buying the horse.
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I genuinely hope it works out for you and that you have great luck. Kissing spines can go either way. I hope you have no issues. At least you understand the risks and that’s what is important. Good luck with your new guy!!
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I totally understand asking for opinions, then going with your gut anyway, Sometimes it’s Just good to hear all sorts of views, gives you more things to weigh up.
I guess my question is why spend all that money on X-rays, only to go with your gut? What could you have found that would of caused you to pass? This is me, the confirmed go with your gut person, who has never had X-rays done, mainly because I am a bottom feeder, and it wouldn’t take long for the cost of X-rays to be more than the cost of a horse:lol::lol:
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I have a good friend and she imported a Warmblood From England, and he was a baby when she got him, he is only 6, and has recently been diagnosed with this. He was in horrible pain until it was diagnosed. she is trying to keep him comfortable and working lightly, but she does not know if he can. Dressage is no longer going to work for him. She has been looking into it, and many warmbloods get this from their breeding. IDK if you have a warmblood, but it tens to be common in them.
@KBC another great question! Cervical issues/arthritis is the answer to what would have for sure caused me to pass as it is my understanding that it is not treatable in the long term and nearly always negatively progresses.
@Nezzy research seems to support it being most prevalent in TBs and warmbloods, however it has not been able to determine a genetic link or confirm if it is hereditary (current evidence suggests it isn’t). That said, the most common breeds being used as sport horses who are thus perhaps most likely to have back xrays to diagnose performance back-related problems are TBs and warmbloods, so it’s hard to tell if it is a true breed correlation or a result of non-random sampling. Either way, my new horses is primarily a rare, European breed with a little bit of TB and warmblood blood in his pedigree, so not squarely in the potentially higher risk breeds, but not completely out of them either! Sadly for your friend and her horse, horses with KS that are symptomatic before age 5 have a statistically significantly lower chance of having positive responses to the various treatments/therapies available.
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The good thing is there are a lot of people here who have experience with KS. Good and bad, so any advice you need in the future will come from those with plenty of experience!
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I think in the end we all need to go with what we are comfortable with and asking other opinions is fine as far as I am concerned. I hope you never have to come back and say you are having issues with it; best of luck with your new guy!
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With the more forward location of in your case, I would be beyond meticulous about saddle fit. Also known a horse to become completely unrideable due to a problem at the withers. Anyway, my new horse had a very minor finding on PPE that was one crooked spinous process at the withers, towards the back of the withers. No KS, does not appear to have been fractured. Just a bit crooked. And saddle fitting has been a nightmare. Compounded by the fact he’s got kind of a shark fin as it is on top of a broad shoulder. He’s a well behaved higher mileage horse who doesn’t complain much, but the wrong saddle makes him rein lame (saddle lame?) up front, and while it was at the bottom of the list of findings on his PPE, it has been a struggle… we’ve tried probably dozens of saddles at this point. Just an added headache to the balance of accommodating his shoulder and not pinching his back or making his lumbar sore or all the other things the wrong saddle can do. And then of course the normal changing shape stuff with fluctuations in weight and muscle…
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I’m late to the party…but I have a horse who showed mild kissing spines that were an incidental finding on a work up for overall body pain that was ultimately tracked down to a different cause. A year and a half later the same horse required a bone scan for yet another unrelated reason and there was no active remodeling in his back.
Radiographs only tell a small part of the story. Good luck with your new purchase.
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@knic13 thanks for responding - I am hoping my experience is more similar to yours with regards to the KS finding.
