Backstory- This last weekend I went to a family members house to look at a horse they were going to give us. She is a 4 year old registered paint. She doesn’t have any spots except a couple of places it looks like that were scars. One happens to be over the pelvic bone. The normal weather she has been in most her life is wet, and damp. They do not get too much heat and dryness in the summer. She has said she does not think there is any really big injury where that small white patch is. She thinks it was just a horse bite or scratched it on something. They did not see what happened. I rode her all 3 days I was there, brushed her and did some ground work as well. We had no issues. She did have a large injury that happened over a year ago that needs some flexing and stretching, which they showed me how to do. Not that big of a deal. The area seemed to not have any issues with touch or movement. She was kept in the dirt arena and had complete cover.
So now today we have an issue. I trailered her 3.5 hours to her new boarding facility. The area she is in has some small terrain and some rocks sticking out of the ground. She has no shelter so unfortunately she is in the sun all day and out at night (and we are just starting to get into the summer weather. it was warm both the last couple day this has been going on.) . The first day after we brought her home I took it easy on her. I lunged her in the round pin (it just got some new sand so it was a little deeper that she is used to working in) I brushed her out and picked her feet. I did her sketches and flexing and put her away. The next day i took her out and did some more lunging then took her in to brush her out. She acted normally except when I touched the white spot over her pelvic bone. Her reaction was to switch her tail at me and bring her hips downward away from my touch. When I did it again she tried to side step. I asked the property owner to come look at it. He said it was hot to the touch and she did the same with him as she did with me. He asked me to call the previous owner to find out if there was any major injury to the pelvic bone she said there was none that warranted a trip to the vet. He stretched her back feet and she seemed to show no sign of pain. We put her back in her area. The next day remembering her telling me I may need to get some fly spray with sunblock, I went looking for some before I went out to the horse. I found some and bought it. When I took her out this time she seemed way more sensitive that the day before. again I lunged her with no change to her gate, stretched her out and flexed her, brushed her except for the sore spot and sprayed her with fly spray. they think it may be anything from her being in heat, abscess in the previous injury spot, but do not think it could be sunburn because she has black skin. But i know that I have to be really careful with my scars because they get sunburn very easily. We have not contacted a vet yet, we were waiting to see if she is in heat and if it goes away with it. Or she could have slipped on one of the rocks and pulled something, but then we thought we would have seen her compensate in her gate when lunged. We also thought about putting her in the arena for the next couple days.
I am frustrated that this happened but really hope it is something with a simple fix. I plan on treating it like a possible sunburn for now and hope she will let me put on the sunblock and healing ointment.
Any suggestions or comments are welcome. we are all thinking different things. I would like to avoid going to the vet if I have to. If her gate changes then I may call him out.
