Any thoughts? Struggling to keep horse sound

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Arniebear

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Brief history:

Horse tore SDFT in near fore 2013, had PRP and annular ligament surgery, recovered well and evented again 2015.
The tore tendon sheath in the off hind 2015 require yet more surgery to clean up the tendon sheath, was sound and cleared to start work early 2016. Lame on the hind by march so turned him away for a year in a big field.
Came home Feb 2017 requiring another set of surgery (unrelated to legs) recovered from that and cleared sound from the hind leg issue and ready to start work. In very light hacking on an extensive rehab programme, goes lame in june in the near fore with swelling to tendon sheath, seen by vet deemed to have tweaked himself, sound 3 weeks later so picked back up with rehab programme knocking it back a few weeks just in case! 3 months later (End of sept) Lame again in the near fore, presenting exactly the same way as last time so vet phoned straight away, scanned him, found nothing. Que 3 weeks later and now pretty much sound.

My guess is hind injury was compensation to the SDFT and now the near fore lameness is compensation for the hind??

He was unshod when he got turned away, and had fronts put on May time due to being foot sore when hacking (was always shod when in full competing work) He has always worn the outside of his hinds down massively, he also has a boxed foot on the off fore so im guessing foot balance could be an issue thats not helping matters?

Farrier reckons he isnt quite putting full weight down on the heel in the near fore, in walk and now wants to discuss with vet about seeing what he can do to help.

Any thoughts? I'm at a loss as vet just thinks hes tweaking himself and cant find anything on a scan so basically not much they can do, i just want my pony back sound and happy
 
The foot balance could be a bigger issue than it seems. I have an eventer who had on and off lameness and it was only fixed by going into vet hospital and them discovering he needed pads on his front and the be show in a certain way so he was balanced right. He is 100 times happier in the pads and touch wood has been sound since.
 
I don't doubt the foot balance is probably the main cause for the injuries tbh, wish i had been using this farrier when he first injured in 2013 he's the only one to mention it to me! Will give the vet a call and see if he's free to meet with my farrier and go from there i guess. Thanks for the reply, i've given up hope of ever eventing him again but if he could just hack about a bit and do the odd dressage to keep him happy that's fine by me, he's only 9 and I don't think he will take to retirement very well at all!
 
My only experience of something similar was my little show horse. She did herself an injury in the field, (she was none weight baring and we feared the worst) however on scan and x-ray no injury to be seen. We then, box-rested and rehabbed, and she'd go sound then seem to 're-do' the injury and go lame, it was always just as we got her back in the field the lameness would come back. We then ended up with heart bar wedges on her, to see if they would help.

She has terrible mediolateral (sp?) imbalance on her front feet (this was a front leg injury), and wore the inside down much more than the outside.

After 6 months of the lame to sound to lame cycle, after the wedges went on, she blew a massive abscess under the wedge and I lost my patience with vet and farrier (both now replaced!) and removed her shoes. 2 years later no more lameness on that leg, I enlisted a trimmer to get her hoof balance right and haven't looked back.

The farrier had done an excellent job at balancing her feet prior to the injury, but I think the wedges put so much strain on her wonky feet that she couldn't cope (she was 20+ when she did the injury so had 20 years of being used to her hoof balance being a certain way). It was definitely getting the hoof balance back to what Doodle was happy with that got her sound again, even if it was against the professional recommendations.

Sorry a lot of waffle there to say I agree that hoof balance is really important I've found!
 
FW is right, you need to x-ray all the feet see wha the P1/2/3 are all doing and see if they are all aligned. As a starting point.

There must also be a lot going on above that too that is misaligned so a bodyworker might need to get involved as tight muscles compensating for absent tendons cause all sort of twists and tensions on the spine and there may be pain where you don't expect there to be. Especially if it's making the horse move in a way that predisposes them to injury e.g. hollow. (assuming the conformation is not at fault in itself)
 
If the horse isn't landing heel first, then you've got a compromised foot. The only way to give this horse a chance is to get it landing heel first and the only way you'll achieve that is by transitioning to barefoot. Remedial shoeing, farriers, X-rays etc will just prolong it all for you I'm afraid.
 
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