My horse is currently ending month 2 of stall rest and walking for 2 small suspensory tears . Hx is he started going off in January we did hocks, still off the. Did his stifle and fetlock. Still off at the middle/end of March finally ultrasounded and found to small tears at the bottom of the branches both on the inside and outside the leg. We did 2 shockwave treatments and since day one the vet has said he can be walked daily as long as I want either in hand or mounted, wrapped daily and retrasound in 3 months so the end of June.
Because of COVID we have mostly been hand walking until this week bc the barn had restrictions on riding. Heās on resirpine but still has had some āmomentsāĀ hand walking.
so hereās my question should I expect to be able to start trotting rehab after the recheck or will it be another 3 months of walking?
I have a feeling he got the tear bc of poor arena and turnout footing. So I in theory would like to move him to a nicer barn that has great footing in and out of the arena but itās probably not worth the extra cost of heās still on stall rest. But I have to give the barn 30 days notice so if I want to move him for July I have to basically give notice now.
It will depend on whether he is sound on recheck, probably. Also different vets have different schedules for this sort of thingā¦
when you do start trotting, it will be short and straight for starters. You wonāt have to do it in an arena - any flat grassy area will do, if that gives you more options.
Echoing what asterix said. My horse tore a hind suspensory and I kept him at the rehab barn until we were up to five minutes of trotting. The rehab barn did not have an arena and I did all my tack walking and initial trot sets up and down the driveway. Then moved him to a farm with an arena after it became difficult to continue trotting on the driveway (I was concerned about the hard ground and wanted actual arena footing for more sustained trots).
I would also like to add that as soon as he got cleared for walking 20-30 minutes we started hacking outside (on even ground). I was lucky enough to find a farm that has ample hacking paths with good footing. I strongly believe that his recovery can be partially attributed to the amount of walking we did - once cleared by a vet I was taking him out for an hour - just walking, on good ground. The fitness he built up from this just canāt be replicated easily in an arena.
My fella is recovering from a RH suspensory branch strain. Before trotting, he worked up to about 30 minutes of tack walking daily. So, I doubt you would go directly from hand walking to trotting. Itās most likely the vet will have you incrementally add tack walking first. That said, I doubt youād be a full three months from trotting if all goes well. Probably more like 30 days.
You could ask the vet for his/her best guess or decision tree.
Sorry youāre in this situation. Dealing with injuries sucks. I echo others that slow rehab with tack walking is usual. Best of luck and commiserate with others as needed.
If you havenāt been tack walking, itās unlikely the vet is going to want you to get on and start trotting right away - even if the recheck goes very well. I would expect at least 30 days of increasing tack walking before you start trotting.
This whole time he has actually said we can tack walk and this week we did start the tack walks 20+ minutes which is why Iām wondering if he will let us start trot sets after the recheck.
i asked and he basically said we just have to wait and see. And he doesnāt recommend checking before 3 months.
the barn has an indoor arena but the footing is pretty bad and they donāt really maintain it, and then it has an outside track that is limestone but we have been getting a ton of rain and there are chickens next door and heās pretty sure even when we hand walk outside that they are being murdered and itās coming for him next Ć°Åøā¢ā
I also just got ice vibe boots today and I hoping just the vibration setting on them will help things heal a bit.
So the recheck showed improvement but not enough to start trotting. We are still doing tack walks. So I made the move and Iām really glad I did because they are now completely full.
The new barn has amazing footing and his stall has really deep bedding which he is loving to lay down in.
we are rechecking again Aug 14th and hoping for trotting then.
Good choice. There is no such thing as going too slow with this kind of recovery and rehab ā far better to be conservative than to move to trotting too soon, and good for your peace of mind not to have to worry about the footing being an issue anymore. Good luck!
Plan to walk for longer, its absolute torture, went through it this past winter. Try to add walking up and down some gentle slopes. Talk to your farrier about using āsuspensoryā shoes behind for more support, that your horse may need to wear for a long time after you start to work again. Being in a hurry only sets you back further, even risking a chronic situation that they continue to re-injure. Give it a full year, you wont regret the wait, you will regret rushing back to work.
Just had his recheck and it is healed! We are going to start some trot work this week. Vet is thinking about 2 months of trotting and then recheck again in Oct if everything is going well and re ultrasound again before canter work.
indoor of the arena has the sand/cloth footing so itās not deep and they drag it and water daily so itās definitely the most ideal footing to be rehabbing on and then we have been doing some walks on the property in the cross country field when his brain can handle it lol.
Take your time. There is no hurrying tendon repair.
