Bench knees, advice

[Spyda]

ALSO in Breeding

Does anyone have any advice or previous experience of this problem and how did they treat it?

My 14 month old yearling shows this conformation but I'm getting no where convincing my farrier or vet that there is actually anything wrong with her. "Looks straight to me". Hmmmm, they must be going blind.

Took her to the Futurity yesterday and low and behold, vet picked it up straight away. I am almost thankful to be proved right, and not overly paranoid. She's a cracking little filly and as several people kindly pointed out yesterday, it would be a shame to leave her to get worse if there is anything that can/could be done to help improve the situation. I would not want it to get worse.

 

[Spyda]

I thought I'd better explain the term bench or offset knees. It's where the canon does not run centrally down from the knee, but is offset towards the outside of the knee (in my filly's case). Puts undue pressure on the insides of the canon and hoof and makes the horse prone to splints and fetlock problems.

I was not really hoping to correct the problem visually, rather to limit the damage potential to the inner canon and fetlock joints before she gets too big and starts work. She's been trimmed by my regular farrier every 5 weeks since birth but I am starting to think that something less orthodox may be necessary to aleviate the uneven pressure caused by her conformation. Remedial trimming or shoeing perhaps? Just not sure where to gain the information around here as neither my farrier or equine vet can offer any advice.

 

[Orangehorse]

I am no expert at all, but I have a horse with pigeon toes, and far from straight front legs! When he was shod by a farrier to do showing his feet looked great, but he developed a swelling on the side of his knee, which was looked at by the vet, but I decided that there must be some strain somewhere, although he was sound. I decided to have his shoes taken off, and left them off for a considerable time, riding in hoof boots and showing occasionally barefoot. His feet went through all sorts of strange growth patterns, looking very pigeon toed at one stage, but now pretty good. The swelling by the knee disappeared. The foot angle altered, the heels deepened.

The moral of this story is that the horse grew the foot that HE needed to support his strange conformation, he didn't need the "looks nice" foot. He is back in shoes for now,a lthough the farrier says that he should have his shoes off in the winter to let his feet do what they want to do, while still being trimmed regularly to keep them balanced.

You might consider getting an opinion from an experienced barefoot trimmer, as well as a vet/remedial farrier.

 

[Dressagebabe]

Hi,
If you want to PM me I can give you the name of my farrier for your Vet to contact. He is a family friend and has done my horses feet for years, he will only do referal work from a Vet or another farrier. He is absolutely superb and I am very lucky he does my horses feet on a regular basis as I have only ever had 5 lost shoes in 18yrs!!! My OH is a Vet and uses him for remedial work with our equine clients.