AliRed13
New User
My 6 year old cob has gone lame again. I have owned him since he was 4 and he's never been right. I feel I've taken things slow with him but during the first 6 months I kept hitting a block in his flatwork training. I'd get him starting to go nicely in a shape in walk and trot and then the next session he'd start to regress until I'd give him some time off, restart again with long lining, get schooling again and hit the same sort of issues again. He never trotted up lame, just seemed to be finding schooling difficult (not wanting to bend, not wanting to stay along the school fence etc).
In late Jan '20 he got notable worse so I got the physio in. She noted he had a wide gate behind and thought he might have slipped in the field and gave him some treatment and a follow-on exercise plan. I worked the plan and eventually got riding him again. I restarted lessons in May, only to have him go lame with a swollen stifle. I got the vet. The horse did box rest, when that failed, went to the vet practice for a lameness workup. They couldn't find the source of the problem using nerve blocks, so he went to the vet hospital for a week. They did more nerve blocks plus x-rays, scintigraphy bone scans, blood tests for PSSM 1, ultrasound of the lumbrosacral joint and a rectal exam and were still unable to diagnose the problem. My horse was sent home with a probable high up soft tissue injury and field rest.
After 6 months of fields rest I started him on the slowest, most careful recovery plan. Very gradually building up in walk. It was months before we trotted and months more before I took him in the school. He still wasn't right. This time it was sore front feet. He ended back at the vets for x-rays and remedial shoeing. He's on to his second set of shoes and I really felt like we'd turned a corner. I hacked him out the other week and he was like the horse I rode when I first bought him. I even dared to ask more of him in the school. My last schooling session with him was 20/25 mins (in the rain) mainly in walk, asking him to bend and stretch over his back stretching his neck down and forward into the bridle, building on a similar session with my coach earlier in the week. The next day the physio came and he trotted up lame with the wide gate in his hind right returning. Basically, it looks like the problem he had last year (and possibly since I bought him) has come back again.
As for the insurance, the time on the original claim has now run out and the list of exclusions they wanted to apply made him uninsurable, so he is currently without insurance cover.
I'll be calling the vet on Monday to come out to him again, but I am really loosing all hope of a resolution. Is he really a lost cause? I feel like I'm going to have to make some expensive financial decisions about further investigation, putting my poor horse through even more stress and I don't want to do this if there is no hope of achieving my ambitions for us. A healthy, pain free horse who can do hacks, fun rides and low level dressage.
In late Jan '20 he got notable worse so I got the physio in. She noted he had a wide gate behind and thought he might have slipped in the field and gave him some treatment and a follow-on exercise plan. I worked the plan and eventually got riding him again. I restarted lessons in May, only to have him go lame with a swollen stifle. I got the vet. The horse did box rest, when that failed, went to the vet practice for a lameness workup. They couldn't find the source of the problem using nerve blocks, so he went to the vet hospital for a week. They did more nerve blocks plus x-rays, scintigraphy bone scans, blood tests for PSSM 1, ultrasound of the lumbrosacral joint and a rectal exam and were still unable to diagnose the problem. My horse was sent home with a probable high up soft tissue injury and field rest.
After 6 months of fields rest I started him on the slowest, most careful recovery plan. Very gradually building up in walk. It was months before we trotted and months more before I took him in the school. He still wasn't right. This time it was sore front feet. He ended back at the vets for x-rays and remedial shoeing. He's on to his second set of shoes and I really felt like we'd turned a corner. I hacked him out the other week and he was like the horse I rode when I first bought him. I even dared to ask more of him in the school. My last schooling session with him was 20/25 mins (in the rain) mainly in walk, asking him to bend and stretch over his back stretching his neck down and forward into the bridle, building on a similar session with my coach earlier in the week. The next day the physio came and he trotted up lame with the wide gate in his hind right returning. Basically, it looks like the problem he had last year (and possibly since I bought him) has come back again.
As for the insurance, the time on the original claim has now run out and the list of exclusions they wanted to apply made him uninsurable, so he is currently without insurance cover.
I'll be calling the vet on Monday to come out to him again, but I am really loosing all hope of a resolution. Is he really a lost cause? I feel like I'm going to have to make some expensive financial decisions about further investigation, putting my poor horse through even more stress and I don't want to do this if there is no hope of achieving my ambitions for us. A healthy, pain free horse who can do hacks, fun rides and low level dressage.
