If she is actually working and engaged, she does not do this. This is more of a problem walking away from barn or when we are on a loose rein.
My goal is not to have keep her together 100% or the time and to be able to give her breaks during a ride.
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There are quite a few threads/posts on COTH about negative experiences at NBC. It’s a big hospital with a lot of different departments. Taking a horse to NBC for lameness issues is not the end-all/be-all, though it’s better than some local vets and certainly has a lot more in terms of diagnostic array. Vets are human too. Saying you took a horse to NBC is irrelevant if you didn’t pursue all diagnostic avenues or procedures, for whatever reason. For example, a bone scan is just a preliminary diagnostic tool. There’s still other diagnostics you need to pursue after a bone scan to find an answer. And frustratingly, bone scans don’t always give us a clue either. I’ve seen people on this forum say a bone scan missed a significant finding like KS or pelvic issues before.
Plenty of times on social media (including COTH) people say “vets have seen this horse and haven’t found anything” but we find out later that the extent of the vet’s interaction with the horse was a basic soundness exam / flexions with little other diagnostic procedures pursued. The vets can’t really make a diagnosis if they aren’t doing diagnostics. In the case of NB, there’s a lot of high dollar procedures available that not all owners can pursue for financial or even insurance reasons.
Sorry to keep coming back to this thread. I don’t want to give you the impression you’re being hounded, your posts (and OP’s) come across as defensive when people are just trying to give you some of their own hard earned experience.
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I get it. I’ve reads those threads. I just don’t know of anyone better nearby for neuro stuff than Dr. Johnson. If I could fly this horse to Equitom to have them look, I would. It’s just not feasible. Bone scans don’t do much except give you a place to start looking with other diagnostics.
Trust me, if I could MRI this entire horse to rule out everything, I would.
I’m actually hoping a repeat hormone test gives me some answers. Anything medical coming up would be welcome as it would explain the issues and give me an easier fix. (Or retirement. Either way, she has a field to retire to, whatever the outcome).
I definitely don’t think she is bad enough to just euthanasia to get rid of the problem, especially if I’m willing to work through it.
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Yeah, but Dr. Johnson at New Bolton is known to be one of the best equine neurologists, at least regionally, if not nationally. THAT department at NBC is tip top. So I do think OP has done her neurology due diligence here. (That being said, you’re right that vets are human and can make mistakes, even the best vet in the world probably doesn’t have a 100% record.)
Good luck OP, this is tough, and you sound like an excellent, caring owner doing his/her best. Your horse is lucky to have you.
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Oh, definitely. There isn’t enough information provided for me to make any statement about the horse being neurological, which is why I never suggested a neurological workup. That was another poster. 
I was responding specifically to OP’s post about the horse already being seen by a vet therefore everything must be fine. Horses who are fine are not dragged to NB, typically.
Even being seen by the best equine neurologist doesn’t mean much if the horse isn’t neurologic, but presents some other physical issue. What if it’s hormones or reproductive? That’s not a top neurologist’s specialty. What if it’s something crazy like an adhesion causing occasional abdominal discomfort? Bone scans aren’t crystal balls - there’s a million reasons something wouldn’t show up on a bone scan but is actively causing a horse discomfort. Even on COTH we’ve seen posters point out that imaging doesn’t mean anything if not enough isotope was used or the area lighting up isn’t the area actively causing issues.
The only thing we know definitively from what OP and owner has posted is that the mare is miserable. Most of us think there is a physical component at play, which is again, why I suggested looking at videos since many on COTH have lots of unfortunate experience with difficult-to-pin-diagnosis and might have some insight to help.
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Vet just left. Bloodwork has been pulled. (I wasn’t there as I am at work) The vet did call asking if she could ultrasound ovaries again based on increasing symptoms etc. on ultrasound she said she couldn’t see anything but something in gut made her think her right ovary didn’t “look right”. She admitted she isn’t the greatest at repro and has referred me to Equine Reproductive Concepts Or Dr. Noll at Woodside Equine Clinic for further evaluation.
When compared with the ultrasound from last March, she said it was definitely different, but not abnormal and would prefer it be further investigated by someone with more experience.
Hormone level bloods should be back next week.
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Funny story about someone who was considered “the best neurologist in the country”
I had a big 5 year old OTTB. He was a gorgeous horse, the kind that people stopped in the aisle to admire. Stood 17.1 and very well built. I had high hopes for him. I knew his breeder and entire history. He had a slight LF lameness. We blocked him up to the shoulder and could not find it, so we took neck rads. He had a huge chunk sitting in the c5-c6 location that was likely impinging on nerves. On neuro eval, he had very mild (0.5) neuro deficits. I remembered his racing history and we watched a tape of him running. The jockeys thought he was scary to ride because he carried his head abnormally low for a race horse. I also knew he had a traumatic gate incident (fall) and I remember thinking he wasn’t quite right afterwards, however he seemed at the time to recover. So history of trauma, radiographic changes and ongoing clinical signs. I brought him to the local vet school because they wanted to use him as a demo case when the leading neuro guy in the country came for a seminar. After the seminar was over, I was talking to the neuro guy about what I got him for and what I was going to do with him. He looked at me and said “he’s fine, I’d jump him”. I was a little shocked as he clearly was NOT fine and the idea of jumping a neuro horse didn’t really sit well with me. So yes, even experts can have interesting opinions sometimes.
Now all that said, I’m not saying this horse IS neuro. In fact, from additional info from the owner, I’m not sure it is a medical issue at this point. Could be, and videos would be interesting. But it sounds like the owner has a plan for going forward and I wish her the best!
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I haven’t read through all the replies, so take this with a grain of salt.
Have you tried making her miserable in the barn and happy in the arena? The fact that she wants to get back to the barn indicates to me that she’s just sour. How you make her miserable, is up to you. I’ve seen various things work, depending on the horse. It could be as simple as tying her up in her stall if she dumps a rider and run back to the barn. I’ve seen the horse bitted in the stall, under supervision, then taken back to the arena, rode for 10 minutes, and if the horse is good, pat and take back to the barn. The goal is to get off when the horse does what you want it to. Use your imagination. It take time and persistence. The goal is to make the horse WANT to work and not use the stall as an escape from work.
If none of the veterinary stuff comes up with answers you could try something else.
Every once in a while (NOT every time) could you feed your horse a meal of her most favored food in the riding ring after your work there? It has to be intermittent, not an every ride type of thing.
I read a blog by a guy that used to work with circus horses in Central Europe and that was how they kept their always stalled horses from becoming ring sour.
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I was in a somewhat similar situation with my last mare - increasingly irrational behavior under saddle and abnormal repro findings that were never conclusive. Her behavior was definitively tied to her repro cycle though, which it doesn’t sound like your mare’s is. Like one of the above posters, I elected to spay, and while it didn’t give her back a riding career, she is happily retired as a tease mare.
I will also say that I am incredibly empathetic for all you have done for your mare. I completely understand that feeling of just wanting to find something wrong. There is a tendency on these types of threads to assume the worst from the poster - that their vets aren’t competent, that the owner hasn’t tried to find a cause of pain, that anything not mentioned means it wasn’t done or was ignored - and then act shocked when that person starts to get a bit defensive.
It is easy to criticize a response based on a summary posted on COTH, but often I think the responses forget to take into account that the poster has been knee-deep in dealing with the issue for long enough that not all the information is going to get captured in the immediate post. Some always ask for video, repeatedly, but seem to lose sight of the fact that they are asking a stranger on the internet to post video of their horse in its worst moments, generally after a few posts insinuating they have ignored that their horse is in pain.
Good luck with your mare!
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And the OP’s head can be so deep into all of that, that they don’t bother to give a tiny bit of thought to the fact that not everyone is going to read and memorize their every last word, that the OP themselves may have missed giant chunks of information (or chosen not to share or whatever). It’s a two way street and being a tool to people who are giving ideas as requested and based on the information given/digested says a lot about a person.
WTF did I even check back in on this thread? 
Oh yeah, having a bad day at work, needing a brief escape and hoping to find that the OP actually found a solution whether behavioural or physical. Oh well!
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Or the OP can’t see a lameness, or the OP’s vet didn’t do recent diagnostics, or the OP is hamstrung by their budget, or the OP doesn’t realize the horse is neuro, or the saddle doesn’t fit, or the horse’s toes are so long they might as well function as stilettos. There are hundreds of reasons a video is better than words sometimes.
@Rel6 I got the impression your reply was directed at me. The reason people ask for videos in this thread is because sometimes a video can summarize everything words in a post can’t. Sometimes when you are standing in the cyclone, you don’t see how it appears from the outside looking in. You have heard of “barn-blind”, but there is also “time-blind” too, where you have become so accustomed to how a horse looks, moves, or behaves that it may have lost its strangeness to you. A video is simply another tool for outside perspectives to look in… and there a wealth of institutional knowledge over hundreds of lifetimes available on this forum. Asking for a video is not meant to castigate or insult you. It’s simply another piece that might help solve the puzzle.
I was sorry to read that the outcome was not better for your horse. I had hoped for a happy ending.
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I will ask the owner to check in with you. She moved the mare to a rehab facility run by vets up in northern Virginia to see if they could solve it. As far as I know, they haven’t found a lameness.
Sorry I didn’t update. I decided to move her to a rehab barn so they could keep her in work and have eyes on her everyday. (Especially since I work and can’t keep her going 6 days per week with the weather/daylight)
The first she was excellent. Easy to ride, working nicely and trail riding around the farm . They did numerous evaluations on her (including that lameness locator device) and nothing came up for them. The bloodwork came back negative for cushings and hormones were within normal levels. Fast forward to this weekend, and the behaviors are back including getting all of the horses near her ridiculously attached to her (the mares are winking and squirting at her). She doesn’t seem overly attached to them, but she is certainly getting to everyone else. We pulled repeat hormone testing yesterday and did a uterine culture. (It’s very handy having vets on site). They will be shipping her to the clinic for a full reproductive exam later this week.
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Sounds like you have your mare in a wonderful situation where if there is anything wrong it can be seen and addressed immediately!
I’m really hoping your mare and you find a favorable outcome. Please keep us updated.
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I have heard of a farm having an intersex teaser mare. Who knows, maybe you find some internal testicles floating around.
There is a thread in another section where a poster is having issues with their horse suddenly refusing to do something under saddle that they previously did willingly.
They posted 3 short videos covering several months and to me the decline was shocking. I wouldn’t even recognize it as the same horse. Not only is it objecting, the whole attitude and way the horse now moves is affected.
A video shows us what the person(s) involved may fail to see.
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Forgive me, I haven’t read any further. This (quoted above) is your problem. The rider is 1) underprepared equipment-wise, and 2) underprepared ability-wise. Get someone on her (with proper equipment) who is NOT going to come off. They don’t need to beat her up, they just need to stay on. If it’s a “cowboy” or some local pro’s WS, whatever, just someone who WILL NOT come off. She’ll learn her party trick isn’t that fun after all, and she seems smart, so she’ll learn it quickly.
