Stall rest: hand walking the tough customer. Metal noseband halter?

[J-Lu]

SportingSun,

If you read through my posts, you will see that I’m an advocate of drugs WHEN NEEDED for handwalking after an injury. The OP posted about halters, I offered some suggestions besides drugs. My next post was in response to alibi’s peach of a post.

Who here wants to argue with the fact that it depends on the horse and handler? Unless you know the OP and the horse, you can’t say for sure what her horse needs. Pretty much, her vet and she have the final say because they are dealing with the horse in front of them. It sounds to me that the OP is collecting opinions for options here and will determine what works for her and her horse.

Not everybody goes straight to drugs, sometimes the handler and the environment is key. The horse I mentioned previously was professionally handled during rehab. I couldn’t have handled the horse well but the pro handler could. Every day. Under top vet supervision. Hence my suggestion to look into pro rehab facilities (or barns with staff who can handle these horses). Maybe it’s not an option, maybe it is. But the suggestion is a whole lot more useful than “I fifteenth, use drugs”. The OP can decide.

Obviously, safety is important, people.

[ToTheNines]

The Be Nice halters, referred to in post 36, are great. Highly recommend. They run very small.

[theresak]

FYI - I think with some horses you need to “load” the reserpine with several doses within a shorter period of time, and then maintain with less frequent doses.

I helped rehab a 6-month stall rested horse that was on reserpine every 4 weeks and daily IM Ace 30 min before heading out of the stall to hand walk and eventually ride.

We walked in a rope halter with a long lead rope and holding a dressage whip.

[DMK]

you may also want to look into sedivet. But I would be lining up drugs/lip chain/stallion shank as my first line of approach

[retrofit]

Haven’t had time to read the other replies, just want to give you the benefit of my many mistakes.

1. Get an eventer vest. I had ribs broken trying to hand-walk my stall-rested beast - and he was aced. Those ribs wouldn’t be broken if I had had a vest on. Since I’m a dressage rider, it wasn’t even a thought in my mind until I ended up in the ER.

2. Wear the eventer vest. Sounds obvious? Well I then had a disk or 2 smushed when I went flying off my rehabbing beast and landed hard flat on my back… Another “if only I’d had that damn vest on” moment.

3. DRUGS! Ace didn’t work at all for my guy. He could be doped up in his stall and just explode out of it when I took him out of his stall. I ended up using Sedivet and it was a total godsend. Don’t feel bad sticking him every day. Feed him treats while you do it and just be glad you’re not in the ER with broken bones. Funny how a few injuries makes you not feel quite so bad about a daily needle for Dobbin!

4. You will have to wean him off drugs (aka the lunge line is your friend). Again, sounds obvious. In my case, the rehab dragged on & on due to other complications. By the time I was ready to trot 20 minutes/day, I had backed the Sedivet down by 75% of the original dosage. I assumed that my horse was accustomed to the indoor arena and all the sights & sounds by then. NOT. It’s true what they say, horses do not fully assimilate their experiences when they are drugged - even just mildly. I should have waited until he was ready for whatever explosions were going to occur on the lunge line - because instead, the explosion occurred with me on his back. (See #2, “wear the vest”.) Same goes for turnout. You can turn him out while drugged but stick around and watch closely because it took 3 - 4 WEEKS for my horse to settle in. He would just explode out of nowhere and get himself totally worked up. Then I’d have to attempt to lead a raging idiot back to his stall. If I watched closely enough (and I mean, I’d park a chair outside his paddock & freeze my buns off if that’s what it took) - I could usually catch “that look” in his eye or the first little head toss.

Good luck! Layup & rehab is so hard, especially with an exuberant youngster. Please keep yourself safe.

[LittleLegsBigStride]

Ace has been wonderful for my horse that is on month 11 of stall rest. He’s permitted 30 minutes of walk/trot in hand with a saddle on, per day. Typically he’s good without it, but for those days he’s a little squirrely in his stall (maybe once every other week) it’s a blessing.

We’ve slowly weaned him to down to about 1/3 of his original dose, but he’ll probably get the full dose for our first under saddle ride. I hadn’t thought about the vest, thank you retrofit. :lol: