Horse came up two days ago with more palpable veins on inside of both front legs, running from right below knee to about 1/3 of the way down, between the suspensory and SDFT. The pulses were not bounding, but present and could be felt if you searched a bit. No history of prior tendon or ligament problems, and no lameness or heat present. Seemed to go down with poultice, and then come back upon removal of poultice. He did get worked twice this weekend, harder than normal, on somewhat slick, angled ground—I was not happy when I found out, since he is fairly out of shape and I had given permission for light w/t ONLY. Additionally, he was ridden barefoot without his boots and he went back out into his fairly hard pasture—so is a bit footsore as well.
I cold hosed and applied Surpass last night, and am having a bit of a meltdown thinking my horse has managed to do bilateral suspensories/tendons/take your pick. I won’t be able to check on his legs until I get back from work around 5PM.
Is there a possibility/likelihood this is just some swelling/inflammation from the work, and he’ll be ok with rest, ice, and some supportive medication? It’s worth noting that he is not a high level performance horse anymore—he’s retired from that we just go on trail rides and dink around w/t/c occasionally. My usual veterinarian is out of the country right now, and while I do like my backup vet, I can’t really afford to spend the $150 call fee plus the $350 ultrasound if I’m just being paranoid. I’m currently rehabbing a bow on my other horse and have gotten pretty good at convincing myself everything is an imminent wrecked tendon—I haven’t had many experiences with tendon issues before this, so most of my knowledge is theoretical and not practical.
