Rehabbing the bowed tendon.

[Twigster]

I need some COTH wisdom while rehabbing my first bowed tendon. I bought a 4 yo off the track with a very small bow in the middle of the leg. You can’t see externally it unless you know where to look. He is not lame at all, and my vet gave him a good prognosis that he would be sound for lower level eventing.

We are about 1 month out. He was stall rested a week, then turned out at his race owners farm. Since I brought him home, he’s been stalled at night, with ~8 hours of small paddock turnout (alone) with the vets ok. (Paddock is gravel/small rock - no grass).

He’s not crazy out there, but he will trot around. Is that too much movement? All his “friends” are out on medium sized pastures. If I ask to put him out with another horse to graze would that be ridiculously stupid? Is the vet going to laugh at my optimism? He gets hand walked/grazed when I come out and is very calm. Other option is to keep him as he is until after his next ultrasound, which is scheduled for the end of July.

Talk some sense into me, reassure me, share your stories of rehabbing bowed tendons?

[Watermark_Farm]

I have (unfortunately) rehabbed two horses with life-threatening severe bows and so I know more than I’d like to about this…

It sounds like he has a mild bow in a good part of the tendon (the middle) and that you have a sensible rehab plan. The main thing with bows is kind of slow and steady controlled exercise. If you think of the tendon as a packet of rubber bands all aligned in one direction (up and down the leg), you can visualize the “bow” or tear as disruption of some of those rubber bands, or fibers. As the area heals it fills in with a different type of tissue, a less organized scar tissue. Gentle exercise helps the new scar tissue get a bit more organized in its alignment. Your goal is to get the tendon to heal with the most organized scar tissue possible and preserve the elasticity of the structure.

Eventually you wind up with an “old, cold and set” tendon. Keep checking the leg daily for heal or squishiness. This is an indicator he’s flared things up a bit. A little trotting in a small paddock with secure footing is probably OK. Talk to you vet and make sure you are in synch!

I would NOT put him in with another horse. Keep him on his own where he will be less inspired to get silly. Follow your vet’s instructions!

[Twigster]

Thanks WF! I’m trying to balance my eagerness for him to start under saddle and be out on real pasture with his needs for healing properly.

I’ll wait until his next ultrasound to se if any changes to our management need to happen. He’s fresh off the track too, so a little while longer in small paddock turnout would not hurt him at all. Even without the bow he could be a little bananas in the larger space. So far he’s not had any heat or swelling return, and I want to keep it that way.

[ybiaw]

Also be prepared for the rehab to take MUCH longer than you expect. My dude had a bad low bow, so not really the same as yours, but it was a solid year of rehab for him.

[ottbbabe]

Don’t know much about the rehab process as I’ve never done it myself, but I know. A few horses with bows that are still successful.

First one is a middle aged Thoroughbred Mare. Her and her previous owner were drafted for the Olympics (cool, right?) until she bowed a tendon. Owner then didn’t want anything to do with her so she sold her to a lady who runs a lesson program at the barn I board at. Rehabbed the horse, and still has her today (that was almost 7 years ago.) The horse will never be able to compete at Olympic height again, but is now full leased by a boy who does the eq and hunters with her. She mainly does 2’-2’6 jumps, but will go over a 3’6 one every once in a while.

The other horse is an OTTB who bowed a tendon a few years ago on the track. His current owner rehabbed him and they do premil eventing now, no problem.

[NancyM]

Tom Ivers (or Ivors) book, called “The Bowed Tendon Book”. It’s an older book now but interesting reading. The key is exercise WHILE healing, after the first few weeks of enforced rest. The theory is that the exercise while healing shows the tendon how much healing and strength it will need at completion. Your horse’s problem sounds slight, should heal fully. I would probably start light riding fairly soon, (as long as you are a light weight), start at walk, and work up to lots of trotting. Riding is better than lunging, avoid the tight turns.

Personally, I would not be adverse to turning the horse out with other, calm horses that he has bee acclimatized to, I’d atravet him first. But the key to not having a lot of running around and celebration about the turn out is to turn him out, and LEAVE him out. Don’t bring him in, and turn out again every day. That makes for celebration each and every time, rather than just the once. It’s always a bit tense, that first turn out on a fresh bow, but you have to do it eventually. Let your vet have input on when that should be! But know that others have turned out horses with worse sounding bows than yours, and they have been fine, in time. Your horse should be fine. I had a bunch of them over the years, big ones and small ones. My vet ended up remarking that “we should write a paper on the results of jumping training as a treatment for rehabbing bows”. Pretty funny. She felt that the slight jar of landing seemed to really help re align tendon fibers, after proper preparatory rest and work.

[horsepoor]

Tom Iver’s book is a good one to read. He’s opinionated and it is a bit dated, so I also make sure to listen to my vet and balance all the information by listening to the horse as well. And you have to be patient. If you rush at all, it can set you back a great deal, and the thing with tendons is that they can be more damaged than the lameness shown might make you think. My guy was barely lame when he did his, and it was BAD – $$$ in treatments and months of rehab and we got him back to riding, but if you’d seen him trot when we first called the vet out, you’d have thought, huh, little funny, maybe a stone bruise, no big deal. I’m a lot more cautious after that experience, that’s for sure!

Good luck with your horse. Take it slow and listen to the vet and the horse and you’ll be fine.

[BrookdaleBay]

I’ve never had to rehab a bow, but I still sympathize. My boy sprained/strained his suspensory back in April. We were currently at a barn where he was the low man in the herd, but luckily a week later we returned to the barn I work at. Nerve blocking revealed that the injury was to the lowest part of the ligament, where it goes over the sesimoyd bone. The vet noticed the foot of the injured leg rocked, which she said would aggravate things more, and so corrective shoeing was done to correct things.

My boy is a 20 year old TB (who doesn’t look or act his age) who luckily is very chill in turnout, so he was able to keep his regular turnout routine with his old buddy. After two months of rest, at the end of June we started under saddle walking, followed by trotting only straight lines. In the last week, with the vets blessing, we are now trotting the whole arena. I am taking things very slow and letting him dictate when we move to the next step. He is very happy to be working again, that’s for sure.

Good luck with your rehab journey! Matt and I are sending jingles!

[Sport]

Sport had a bad bow 3 years ago. The vet thought we would be lucky to come through rehad pasture sound.
He was off for a full year, about 9 months being stall rest and then very limited turnout.
He has come back sound and completed in flat classes last summer and is back jumping small fences this year.
In our case, the best medicine was time, we took everything very slowly and followed the vets directions to the letter.
Sport was 17 at the time and is an OTTB.