While I’m sure you love and trust your vet it would be very beneficial to go to a lameness vet just for an exam. I find that their exam fee is not much higher than my reg vet charges but they have years of hours and hours of diagnosing lameness issues. They’ve quite literally seen it all day in and day out. They can do more with their eyes than maybe your vet can do with more imaging. You can explain to them budget and have them just do a full top to bottom assessment. They’ll check muscle evenness, moving on a straight line, on the lunge, do full flexions, palpations etc. Blocks are also pretty darn cheap if you think it might be feet to just block feet and see what happens. Even if you don’t do any imaging or further diagnostics a good set of eyes can be better to give you an idea of what part of the body hurts. I think once you have an idea on what part of the body hurts you can make a more informed decision for retirement or trying to treat.
I also think it sounds like front feet and possibly neck. Sounds like the beginning stages of my client’s horse. Difficult feet prone to soreness, but not navicular. Also had some minor hock stuff. Always a little clumsy and heavy in front especially if the rider didn’t help him. But then it escalated. Lameness worsened and moved around and didn’t block out conclusively. Tripping was worse. And then the nice beginner friendly demeanor of the horse started to unwind violently. The biggest problem was the neck, and it was time to retire. The owner had some questionable vet advice at first and chased some arthritic joints that were not really the problem. I also would just get a lameness specialist to take a look. It really won’t be any more expensive than mucking around with several visits with your farm vet. You can decide when to pull the plug on the exam. They will look all over, watch on straight line and circle. Watch on different footing. Maybe watch the horse ridden. Do flexions. And then when the recommendations come for more imaging, blocking, other diagnostics, you can decide where your limit is. Before you can decide whether or not you’d try treating the problem, you have to diagnose the problem. Or see just how many problems you might be dealing with.
Are you giving bute before rides even though he is on Previcoxx? that is what it reads like and from my understanding giving other anti-inflammatories on top of Previcoxx is BAD for the kidneys. If you are fortunate enough to be able to retire him and he is healthy and happy simply hanging out just do that.
My new horse was stumbling from the time he arrived and it got worse over 6 months – I mean he would stumble every 100 feet. Trainer said “lazy” and that I didn’t hold him together. (I didn’t, she is right!) It only seemed to happen at the walk, lending further support to the idea that I was the cause.
At the 6 month mark, he was NQR and lameness exam blocked to RF. He was negative to hoof testers, pre-purchase xrays didn’t show anything, farrier said he couldn’t back him up or shoe differently, vet said “some horses are like that.” So we assumed soft tissue injury and I opted for time off and “wait and see” instead of MRI.
I finally changed farriers “just to see” and she chose Natural Balance shoes and shortened his toe. Stumbling stopped immediately and he was sound after 2nd shoeing.
…but, he was unsound again in RF a couple months later. I changed vets within same practice, for another set of eyes and did full navicular xrays. Xrays didn’t show anything, no changes since the PPE, and negative to hoof testers, so farrier shod in aluminum shoe to see how he wore his hoof. He regained soundness in a week, and aside from wind, fires and rain, has been going well.
He might be navicular with clean xrays, he might have tweaked something soft tissue, I dunno. But I can say that shoeing made a huge difference and I would go that route. If it hadn’t happened to me, I would have never guessed this horse had a shoeing issue – he has big, excellent feet, and nothing looked odd to me. His prior farrier was well-respected and used by competitive riders.
If he was my horse, I’d spend a moderate amount of money to figure it out, since he is very useful to you to ferry beginners around. I probably would draw the line somewhere, though, and when shoes and a little support stopped working, I’d just retire him.
I do have a horse who progressed just like that, but she was in no way a beginner horse. She was not easy at all, and I had others who needed to be worked more than her, so at about 21-22, I just retired her. She’s ouchy on gravel but otherwise fine barefoot in the pasture. She gets bute before farrier visits or if she looks particularly stiff, but most days she looks fine. I don’t exactly know where all her problems are, but it doesn’t really matter, since I can keep her comfortable and she doesn’t have a job. She’s 24 now.
What do his feet look like? Makes me think long toes and under run heals when I hear stumbling.
Gee these are the toughest ones – where you’re almost guaranteed to find something but not at all guaranteed to find the thing without spending a small fortune.
Given the symptoms (ouchy on hard footing when ridden, stumbling when ridden and especially with less experienced riders up) I’d definitely be wondering about those front feet, and maybe c-spine.
Might be worth trying the hoof testers again before his winter vacation begins – sounds like the way a lot of caudal heel pain/navicular horses present, but also makes me think of an acquaintance’s horse who was diagnosed with PPID/cushings after the owner and vet realized that soreness on gravel roads and increasingly short strides and difficulty getting forwardness/relaxation in the arena were expressions of chronic subclinical laminitis.
It might also be worth taking a look at the elements of a standard neurological exam and considering whether you’ve noted any abnormalities in your horse’s strength/balance/stance/locomotion that might suggest it’s worth having a vet do a full neuro workup. Davis protocol is here and the Equine Wobblers group has an article on it here. Mild neuro deficits can be hard to see, so you probably can’t rule anything out without a vet, but if you have noted some deficit (e.g. standing funny or backing funny or moving strangely on tight turns) it might rule in neuro stuff as a logical direction to pursue.
In your position I’d probably be really frank with my vet about the dollar amount I was willing to spend in the search for the problem, try to identify a small number of things that could be done on that budget to rule the one or two strongest hypotheses in or out, and hope that one of those things turned out to be the magic bullet. Meanwhile I’d be preparing myself for the likelihood that the lawn ornament job is his next calling.
Good luck. He sounds like one of the good ones and I hope you’re able to keep him happy and sound to take kids/husband/guests down the trail.
I’d keep the shoes on, and pull him off the bute and previcox. A horse that needs both NSAIDS to go for a trail ride is probably in some pain. After he’s been off both for a week or two, schedule him a lameness exam. I’d be really curious to see if he responds differently to heel testers without the drugs - because I’d be betting on navicular pain. If you find it, Osphos or coffin or bursa injections might get him another good year or two before you retire him.
If you want to try to pinpoint the issue, I’d have a lameness exam, and based on his flexion results start blocks until you find the problematic area(s).
I agree with the others that it sounds like navicular, though.
A 20-year old with these issues, I’d personally retire after a lameness exam.
I would also agree with Simkie. I also think it’s worthwhile to assess how the hooves look–what kind of trim the horse has.
You might also investigate having some bodywork-chiro done on him, and possibly see what acupuncture might do for him. Both of those therapies can provide a lot of relief for a horse, and I think a good bodywork professional who is really hands-on can tell you a lot about the horse that a vet won’t necessarily notice.
Good luck.
Have you and the vet considered sub-clinical laminitis due to Cushings / IR? Have you tested for Cushings / IR?
My 22 year old QH trail mare has many of the same symptoms / behaviors due to sub-clinical laminitis issues. She is on Premax and Previcox and I control grazing and monitor digital pulses like a hawk. She also has pour-in pads on her front feet. On her good days, she marches out on the trails with a happy, swinging gait; on bad days, she is a cranky witch with a short stride, stumbling, etc, etc, etc.
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McGurk {Quote]“But I want to be realistic about not spending money to diagnose something I’m not willing to treat.”
But you’ll come on here and ask for our thoughts.
So, my thoughts. Twenty is not old. The shameful thing is that you have gone this long w/o a diagnosis.
Get a diagnosis! f you aren’t willing to treat him, retire him but leave shoes on. or put him down.
I would pull the shoes, because my experience has been that horses who stay shod all the time are much more likely to end up with weak hooves, which then lead to lameness problems as the horse has to compensate. In fact, if the horse goes as well in boots as shoes, I go with boots so that the horse can continue to develop a stronger, more functional bare hoof.
20 is not old for a horse. I seldom start to think about retiring my horses until they’re in their late 20’s, but just reduce their workload to a reasonable level based upon the feedback I get from them.
Thanks to everybody who responded. Some great observations and thoughts here, and will definitely inform my decision making going forward.
Today I ran into the owner of the horse I mentioned who’d been having similar symptoms before a rather out-of-the-blue PPID diagnosis. She happened to comment that she’s feeling more confident riding her guy out on the trail now that his metabolic condition is under control, because he had been stumbling a lot with her riding and no longer is – this came up completely independently of my comments earlier on this thread, but it’s another commonality that I hadn’t known about when I first mentioned it. Anyway, @McGurk, metabolic testing might be on my list of not-crazy-expensive things to rule out if I were in your shoes.
Best of luck.
We owed a horse with a subtle issue. Vet took a look recommended injecting hocks which helped tremendously.
Thanks, x-halt, that is certainly a consideration. I think it does need to be investigated. He is a likely sub-clinical metabolic horse. He is an easy keeping airfern that lives in a grazing muzzle, and sometimes wears one in the winter to keep him from inhaling his round bale.
Also, after reading the comments in this thread re: pulling shoes, I spent some time observing him in the pasture and jogging him. Sound and happy in the soft footing of the pasture and that’s with no bute or Previcoxx (been off of the Previcoxx for 10 days.) So feeling less guilty about that decision.
“Old” is dependent on the horse. Twenty CAN be old, depending on the horse’s mileage, conformation, breed, etc. A horse that has had a lot of pounding (a lot of jumping or other really active sport that is hard on their joints) can need to step down/retire long before the horse that was lightly trail ridden their entire lives. Horses like my mare, who has conformational issues, are going to run into problems that require them to stop working earlier than a horse who is well-built.
Depending on this individual horse’s conformational challenges and workload throughout his life, there is nothing wrong with considering retirement at age 20. I know horses a lot younger that simply could not stay sound in any type of work due to various issues. The real question is whether the OP wants to spend any money diagnosing, or if she is just wanting to fully retire at this point (since those seem to be the two options).
I known COTH sometimes likes to toll the euthanasia bell, but in this case, really? OP has said multiple times that she is happy to give the horse a full retirement. He is pasture sound (WITHOUT shoes, if you would just keep reading her updates). Not sure why you felt you had to go after her this way, since it is you that is painting all horses with a generic brush by saying “20 is not old”.
stifles? flat pasture, stumbling and dislike of arena work. That’s my guess, fwiw. My old stifle-y TB needed his hind shoes and then was a LOT happier all over.
