bone spavins or something else?

SophieLouBee

SophieLouBee

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We have a horse with us at the moment, that has a rather odd movement.

Her breeding is unknown, but I would guess she is standardbred, over from ireland originally.

She isn't the best put together beast in the world, but is sweet as a nut and very easy for a 5yo. From what I gather she has been worked quite hard, although still green, when she arrived to us she was very fit. I haven't worked her for a few weeks, and it seems to have progressively become more noticeable. Great.

She has had her back shoes taken off, as there was a lot of extra flared growth on the outside of one back hoof that the farrier has now corrected (possible sign, I have no idea?), but I think she is worse without her back shoes on.

She also had windgalls when she came, they have gone down now, and only occur when she stands for a long while.

Movement wise, I would not describe her as lame, but sort of stiff (maybe not even that, and today I witnessed her almost stamping her one leg down in walk after a period of standing still. She also understeps quite badly, so her feet are underneath and her hocks bow outwards? If that makes sense?

She hoons around the field in this ridiculous trot and seems really happy in herself, so I'm not sure if she is in pain or not...

Now, I know the owner cannot afford the vets bills right now if it turns out to be quite serious, so I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me further?


I'm unsure as to whether it is likely to be bone spavins, or something else...It's awful too because she really is the nicest horse and so gentle and quiet.

I'm not having much luck with any horses at the moment, mine or other peoples. Sigh.
 
Not sure if this is any help to you but our warmblood suddenly developed an odd way of walking at the start of the year, similar to yours in that he was lifting & then stamping one hind foot down much harder than the other, almost stringhalt type movement but not that extreme. We had the vet out to him & he was passed as not being lame (just walking funny) & even passed flexion tests on that leg so that confused us all even more. The only thing the vet could suggest was possible shivers or wobble but said that to suddently start in a 10yo that was almost as odd as his movement. She was thinking of x-raying his neck but as he dipped when she touched one point on his back agreed to letting a physio see him first.

We got a physio out who joined us in being confused until she got her hands on him when she found that the left side of his back was in spasm from just before the end of the saddle right over his bum & down through his hamstring. She said to give him a month in hand walking only, came & treated him about 3 times and said to do as much as we could to stop him getting stressed as she found him quite a tense horse in general. We also bought him a back on track rug to help keep the muscles warm to help stop the spasm reoccuring.

Two months later the odd gait had completely vanished & he's back to normal. The physio said she'd never seen anything like that & all she could think was that the muscle spasms made him walk funny & walking funny kept his muscle in spasm because once she'd sorted one problem the other one has gone away.

Hope that might give you a clue!
 
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