Broken youngsters?

Luci07

Luci07

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Rebels thread got me thinking. I personally now know of 4 young horses and 1 older (10) who have had real lameness issues and been well down an expensive trail of vets, scans, time off to try work out what the issue is and none have been successful. The older one had windgalls removed on vet advice, worst thing as the time off meant other things started to go wrong. £6500 later, huge amount of time off and this horse can now only hack. Still not 100% but can hack though owner lets him dictate how he is feeling. 4 other young (4 and 5 year old), just not right. One has been PTS as they did find chronic arthritis from an old and ignored injury. None will ever do what they be bought for, 1 mare has had nearly 2 years off now and is only 7.

These are all good horses, experienced owners, under vet care etc. Is this becoming more prevalent? Is it because we know more? Or is it horses being rushed at too young an age? Thoughts? And the irony is that all of these horses had different owners who were more than happy to take their time, the damage looks to have a been done in pre production so to speak. I certainly would not be buying a 4 year Irish horse with a years hunting under its belt now.
 
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Plus sa change. . .

I don't really think there are more broken horses now, per capita, I just think we are more able to investigate and far more inclined to want them 'fixed'. People keep telling me kissing spines is 'new' but I have a book from the early 1900s detailing it complete with case histories and autopsy reports.

In my personal experience, I was amazed when I moved here how many very young horses are diagnosed with career ending conditions, relative to where I'm from. There are no doubt a number of factors - insurance coverage and access to well equipped hospitals being the most obvious - but it has given me a rather different perspective on the subject.
 
Sometimes these things just happen... I know of a mare who did nothing until a 4yo but she was the most accident prone mare and got as far as walk and trot under saddle (which was done slowly as she kept getting minor injuries) when she got cast one night and went lame. Investigations showed horrific degeneration that you'd be shocked to see in a much older horse and she was PTS. It was just luck of the draw :(

However, saying that, if I was buying a youngster to keep long term then I would want something that hadn't done anything bar the basic manners or something as a 4yo that had been backed and gently ridden away. At least then I'd know I'd done everything possible to prevent something like that.

Although if I was buying something to sell on in the future and wanted to crack on then I probably wouldn't mind a bit more mileage as a 4/5 yo.
 
I will say one thing re management, is that I do think horses did used to compete less and have more breaks, mostly driven by weather and logistics. Now people can and do expect to compete year round and do so because that's what they want to do. Using your judgement about when a horse needs a break is much trickier than being forced to do it.

I also think even quite inexperienced riders now want their horses to 'conform'. They want the horse 'on the bit' and 'improving' which is not wrong in theory but we used to be a bit more tolerant of horses that did one job well, even if they were idiosyncratic with it. This meant that horses with physical limitations could find a way to get the job done (or simply refuse to do it) and were less subject to people's leaning curves. I remember riding some horses that even at the time I thought felt awful but they did job so hey ho, we accommodated them. These days they'd be straight off to the MRI machine!

I'm not saying this was a preferable state of affairs, just to the original question.
 
I don't know - could it be that our refined breeding programmes are having an impact? Choosing stallions with fantastic careers to breed with mares by stallions with fantastic careers? Or are we doing more? My re-entry into the horse world has been fraught with lame horses.

I had an extremely well-bred KWPN mare who came to me at 9 yo with the most prolific sidebone growth in all four hooves. She had done very little. In the two years I had her, she was lame for more months than she wasn't. She cracked a side bone, she had obviously chipped a knee. She was always straining fetlocks. She tore both hind suspensory ligaments but on x-ray we found that the whole suspensory apparatus in both legs had arthritic growth. She was a November baby, the poor connective tissue issues could be put down to the fact that she spent 6 months of her life in a barn (Dutch born). Sometimes I wonder, though.

My 7 yo TB had kissing spines - mild ones - but after he tried to kill me a few times and his back end never improved despite 6 months of lunging he was PTS. PM revealed a fractured ilial shaft :eek: Old injury, obviously just never healed

I am on vet check number four currently:

#1 - 5 yo KWPN x ISH - suspected KS, nevertheless a very sore back despite having done nothing over winter
#2 - 7 yo KWPN from the Netherlands - bowed hock and a very boxed front hoof- not lame but obviously wasn't going to last the distance
#3 - 6 yo slowly produced ID x TB - atrial fibrillation - shortest vet check in history
#4 - 6 yo ISH x KWPN - vet suspended as possible lameness caused by a toe crack.
 
Oh, I also blame internet forums. ;)

Until very recently we only knew the intimate details of the horses around us and next to nothing about what other people were up to. For instance, I knew 2 horses that jumped Internationally in the 80s who were nerved - I'm pretty sure no one outside their inner circle knew but there must have been others in similar situations. (I think this is still somewhat the case, judging by the number of people on here surprised by things like hock injections. ;))

Also, there is a known phenomena that when we here about events repeatedly, even the same events, we perceive them as being more common. We *think* there are more damaged horses because the information is more readily available. This is why, when polled, many people believe child abuse is on the rise when almost all the numbers say otherwise.
 
I agree in that horses (especially by the dealer types in Ireland) are just shoved out hunting to get them going and then by the time they are nearly 5 are crippled because they did a full winters hunting on awful ground before their bones were fully formed!

However these things can happen. Years ago my mother bought a purebred Arab who was out of a world champion stallion so should have had no issues. He was 4, had done nothing and had literally just been broken and gelded, no mileage on the clock. By the time he was 6 he was written off with degenerative arthritis in his fetlock.

Genuinely think it's just luck of the draw.
 
I think it's partly down to diagnostics. Before MRI's and bone scans if a horse was lame it had done a tendon and was chucked out for a year or it had navicular and was put in heart bars.
Anything that bucked or was cold backed was quirky, rarely heard of kissing spines.
If a horse wasn't comfortable people adapted it's job to one it could cope with or it was turned away or PTS. There was always horses that 'didn't like dressage', ie couldn't work in an outline without going unlevel but were fine hunting with their heads in the air or crooked showjumpers or whatever. As long as they could do a job people didn't worry.
Also you hear of these horses that are broken more often because of facebook, the internet, mobiles. Before you only really knew what was going on at your own yard, you didn't hear about a friend of a friends horse down the road unless it came up in conversation.
That's what I suspect anyway :).
 
Could some of be that people are too careful? So that the horses themselves are not 'hardening' up to the job? If that makes sense? when I was younger (and sometimes now to be honest) I never put boots on my horses, didn't worry so much about ground or fancy feeding etc and they've all stayed sound into old age! *touching wood frantically*. One is 27 and is only now showing signs of stiffness, and I don't put boots on my youngster and she is yet to chop her leg off :p lol
 
I completely agree with Tarrsteps and Firewell.. I also think that you have to look at the whole picture and compare how we manage horses now too. Twenty to thirty years ago horses didn't have access to the latest ground breaking supplements and forage that horses of today are now subjected to. They were allowed to get lean in the winter & fatter in the summer, they weren't all kept on fertilised lush pasture. I suppose the roads were quieter and more horses spent hours getting fit out hacking as opposed to hours of drilling away on an arena..

I am also of the thought that whilst the advances in veterinary medicine/science have progressed significantly in the last twenty years or so and the diagnostic tools used now are so impressive in finding out all sorts of problems and anomalies, the cynical side of me wonders whether this in the long run is of detriment to horses... Everything these days is assessed and critically analysed and from my own experience I have owned horses which have become unlevel, I've called the vet out and within half an hour into a lameness work up, have been given a very grim picture of my horses future with the option of spending thousands of mine/insurance companies money in diagnostics or despatching with the animal... Now I appreciate that in a lot of cases that time doesn't heal everything but we live in a very disposable world where it is deemed now 'acceptable' for a horse to be PTS rather than give it a year/few months off to see what happens.. I believe we put a lot of pressure on ourselves/on our horses for them to come right within a matter of days/weeks whereas years ago, a horse would have been turned away for a period of time to see what happened... That coupled with social media these days and this exacerbates the whole situation... So in answer to the OP, I'm not sure there are more broken horses/youngsters out there, but that information regarding other horses is more readily available nowadays and that the way in which we manage horses and deal with problems has completely changed too!
 
In the specific instances I know of, all the horses were lame. Only one had its condition ever bottomed out. The others have or are still under vet care. All were turned away in the hope they would come good, none were rushed at all. I think the previous comment of horses being worked up properly when young, so hacking etc to properly fitten up is very interesting. TS - you actually saw the older horse and sadly were right...

Another friend has a cracking 6 year old. Now 2 years ago, he was feral and had done nothing. I do wonder if the reason why he is is making such progress now eventing is because he had clearly done nothing till rising 5...
 
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Luci - sorry to hear about the older horse. :(

Re the feral one, this brings me to another pet subject. . .the way young horses are kept now. It's become fashionable to blame Continental yarding systems but my personal view is that the relatively recent fashion for meeting keeping young athletic, highly bred horses in small flat paddocks with only older horses for company is suspect. Before the advent of AI many broodmares lived at stud and spent their lives there, with the foals growing up in herds. Having a competition bred weanling growing up alone was unusual. Having worked on studs and seen first hand how much young horses play (in different ways depending on age and gender), how active they are given room to roam, I can't help thinking that denying that is not only unwise from a developmental perspective, but a bit sad. It's a bit like the fears over children now - if you lock them away in an attempt to keep them safe, you actually deny them the development they need to become strong.
 
I don't know what the obsession is with putting horses put in postage stamp sized square, flat, paddocks. And only for very short periods of time. Horses need a variety of terrain, and plenty of turnout in big fields with hills and slopes will gently work all the muscles, tendons & ligaments etc.

All our horses hack out round farms, roads and fields, this again is invaluable for strengthening and fattening, and as others have said if it went lame it was chucked in a field for a few months to let Dr Grass work it's magic.
 
Could it be that more horses are being diagnosed and extensively/expensively treated because most people insure their horses?
 
That was my point earlier. In Northb America where insurance works differently (although that's changing) you generally see less very aggressive diagnosis and initial treatment, and more conservative attitudes and acceptance of long term maintenance.
 
I had a lovely TB mare. She was diagnosed with KS as a 6yr old. She also had bone spavin.

I gave her a chance and we tried a few things but nothing worked. I had her PTS last year (7yrs old) as she just deteriorated. It was very sad to see.
:(


A few years ago (about 12) we had a TB x - she was diagnosed with navicular aged 6 and early retirement. She was PTS as a 10 yr old due to her condition.


Such a waste.
 
Benjis_girl2 said:
Now I appreciate that in a lot of cases that time doesn't heal everything but we live in a very disposable world where it is deemed now 'acceptable' for a horse to be PTS rather than give it a year/few months off to see what happens.. I believe we put a lot of pressure on ourselves/on our horses for them to come right within a matter of days/weeks whereas years ago, a horse would have been turned away for a period of time to see what happened...
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well, insurance companies put pressure on owners 'to do something' within a year which is nonsense really, especially when it comes to sprains and strains. Also, horse ownership has changed-we keep them at livery, many people can't afford to run paddock ornaments and at least want some sort of prognosis to know what time frame they might be dealing with.There is less land to stick them out and see what happens. And yes, look too closely and you'll find all sorts of problems that might not actually be problems..

Harvey Smith said in one of his books that Boomerang was denerved 3 times.

I also don't think many pleasure/amateur horses are fit. People think its fine to bump around in a deep arena without doing the fitness work required- ie weeks of walking and trotting out and about in straight lines.
 
TarrSteps said:
Luci - sorry to hear about the older horse. :(

Re the feral one, this brings me to another pet subject. . .the way young horses are kept now. It's become fashionable to blame Continental yarding systems but my personal view is that the relatively recent fashion for meeting keeping young athletic, highly bred horses in small flat paddocks with only older horses for company is suspect. Before the advent of AI many broodmares lived at stud and spent their lives there, with the foals growing up in herds. Having a competition bred weanling growing up alone was unusual. Having worked on studs and seen first hand how much young horses play (in different ways depending on age and gender), how active they are given room to roam, I can't help thinking that denying that is not only unwise from a developmental perspective, but a bit sad. It's a bit like the fears over children now - if you lock them away in an attempt to keep them safe, you actually deny them the development they need to become strong.
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I think this has a lot to do with it, so many young horses living in such restricted environments, some years ago I had a 4year old come in at livery he had been bought from his breeder where he had lived all his life, with mum, in a tiny postage stamp paddock on a steep slope. He did not know how to be a horse, it was almost a year before he rolled in the field, sold on as a 5 year old he was lame within 2 years and LOU, I blamed his upbringing for his failure to cope with work.

Young horses need movement to strengthen and develop physically, company and a varied environment to develop mentally, keeping them in a tiny patch may be safe but in the long term it probably causes more problems than it prevents. Older horses benefit from room to move around properly as well, I think it helps with overall fitness and consequently the soundness if they have company and room to have a decent blast at times.
 
MotherOfChickens said:
well, insurance companies put pressure on owners 'to do something' within a year which is nonsense really, especially when it comes to sprains and strains. Also, horse ownership has changed-we keep them at livery, many people can't afford to run paddock ornaments and at least want some sort of prognosis to know what time frame they might be dealing with.There is less land to stick them out and see what happens. And yes, look too closely and you'll find all sorts of problems that might not actually be problems..

Harvey Smith said in one of his books that Boomerang was denerved 3 times.

I also don't think many pleasure/amateur horses are fit. People think its fine to bump around in a deep arena without doing the fitness work required- ie weeks of walking and trotting out and about in straight lines.
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Completely agree with you, which is why I no longer insure my yard for vets fees following a very expensive and emotional time with one of my horses a few years ago... I think too much pressure is placed on owners these days to get a quick diagnosis and also treat them within a very short space of time... Gone are the days of 'turn it out in the field for 6 months and see what happens'..
 
TarrSteps said:
That was my point earlier. In Northb America where insurance works differently (although that's changing) you generally see less very aggressive diagnosis and initial treatment, and more conservative attitudes and acceptance of long term maintenance.
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Agree with everyone else os far and this hits the nail on the head for me.

Just where are the owners that are patient enough to consider turning their precious horse away for a year or more? Everyone is so impatient now whether that be in breaking in far too early or wanted a broken horse fixed, if the horse can't do the job it's diagnosed up to the hilt and insurance companies put the pressure on too with their timescales.

Bring back patience into the equation and we might not have so many broken horses at such young ages.
 
It's a bit unfair to aportion blame, though.

Owners insure specifically so they can afford all the latest diagnostic and treatment procedures. Insurance companies want answers quickly so they don't spend good money after bad. (They are businesses, after all, which people seem to forget.) Vets are pressured by both sides to find answers and find them fast.
 
I think the devil is in the detail.

Mine do no serious work until they have had 6 months walking & hardening work, They have lots of rest days and I rarely do more than 2 sessions of serious work a week, (ie a competition & a lesson or 2 competitions) with at least a day off after hard work. I think if they get a wrench or are sore they can walk it off in the field rather than being made to work and compensate and setting up problems in future.

I am constantly amazed at the young horses I see who are not 'right' & in hard work. People don't seem to notice. Our young horse was walking on 3 tracks at walk, & twisting his fetlock on breakover. He started getting windgalls behind, which to me is just wrong, so we had him remedially shod and it's stopped. It's that kind of detail which I think people can ignore after all horse was completely sound & just looked to be plaiting a bit behind.
 
think some of it is the advance in vet science - My giraffe probably would have just been put as a navicular sufferer but due to MRI it has been discovered that its actually bone bruising that seems to be causing the majority of his problems. I would never have known this without this scan and equally I could have chucked him out for 6 months to see what happened but I would have probably ended up back at the start as its a concussion issue through having incredibly thin soles.

My other issue with insurance is that I feel (I am currently in this position) people are put in the position of jumping through hoops rather than actually being able to do the right thing for the horse - My mare has horrendous kissing spines - she needs an op but I know she will not do the rehab - far too bouncy and lively - she doesn't stable well but I am in the position of I want to put her down as I feel its the kindest thing but my insurance are insisting I give the operation a chance even though I have explained the situation.
 
I don't do any serious competitive work with mine before they are 6. I honestly believe that every year you back off before 6 gains you two at the other end. But that doesn't mean they do nothing. They probably aren't backed until 3 1/2 (apologies to those who increment annually with no gradation in between), and then they're turned away. The last one I backed was 4 1/2 and went for 6 months hacking around the Cornish bogs to learn to handle himself and strengthen up gradually before doing very much at all in the school.

They do road work. In walk and in controlled trot. They are turned out. On fields that are "rough" with bits over which they have to be careful whether they are walking or galloping. They live in groups, mixed sex, mixed age. They are horses. I have access to a rider who has the skill to "ride a horse sound". What is schooling if not a type of physiotherapy?

I don't have a clean record for lack of injuries in my youngsters - one in particular has an impressive back-catalogue of near death field and stable experiences mostly before the age of 3. I doubt he will ever achieve the potential of which I once thought him capable because of it. However, I manage him within his capabilities and he is everything *I* want in my riding horse. I was never going to achieve that potential with him ;)

I am careful where I go with vets and insurance, I am lucky to have enough knowledge in the field to make an informed judgement on where I want to go. But they did save the life of the above youngster with surgical intervention. Three times.

Injuries are injuries, the one thing that would really disappoint me for any of my youngsters is if they were found to have degenerative changes before they were into their teens. Selection of bloodlines, management, starting - its all part of my responsibility.
 
At the risk of being hugely controversial things have changed massively over the last few decades. In years gone by the majority of people didn't have arenas to ride in, so horses were worked in straight lines on roads or in fields so much more space and therefore fewer tight turns etc leading to less stresses on joints and the like. Those who did have arenas were probably professionals who rode "correctly" and weren't addidng stress to horses by working them unbalanced in tight spaces.

"Normal" people didn't own their own horses and bring on youngsters, there wasn't the whole livery yard scene like there is now, most horse owners were professionals or farmers/land owners and the like and not the average person. Those who did have their own probably just hacked around/hunted and didn't school/compete like a lot do now. Huge generalisation and not saying it's a bad thing, but how many people these days buy youngsters because it's cheaper or they want the satisfaction of bringing a horse on but don't really have the experience/knowledge to do so, and unintentionally don't prepare the horse properly through it's formative years?

As has been said above, a lot of young horses these days are kept in more restricted conditions or on flat, perfectly manicurted fields so their joints don't get the necessary development as youngsters by going up and down hills and over rough ground.
 
MegaBeast said:
At the risk of being hugely controversial things have changed massively over the last few decades. In years gone by the majority of people didn't have arenas to ride in, so horses were worked in straight lines on roads or in fields so much more space and therefore fewer tight turns etc leading to less stresses on joints and the like. Those who did have arenas were probably professionals who rode "correctly" and weren't addidng stress to horses by working them unbalanced in tight spaces.

"Normal" people didn't own their own horses and bring on youngsters, there wasn't the whole livery yard scene like there is now, most horse owners were professionals or farmers/land owners and the like and not the average person. Those who did have their own probably just hacked around/hunted and didn't school/compete like a lot do now. Huge generalisation and not saying it's a bad thing, but how many people these days buy youngsters because it's cheaper or they want the satisfaction of bringing a horse on but don't really have the experience/knowledge to do so, and unintentionally don't prepare the horse properly through it's formative years?

As has been said above, a lot of young horses these days are kept in more restricted conditions or on flat, perfectly manicurted fields so their joints don't get the necessary development as youngsters by going up and down hills and over rough ground.
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I am in total agreement with you and other posters. I have put up several posts on this subject and one person accused me of having a 'hidden agenda'.

In France the championships for SF and for western reining horses are for 3 year olds. My Shagya stallion approved for the Shagya stud book in France will not stay in STud Book A because his owner ME will not ask him to do 3 x90kms endurance at 6 years of age (in the UK he would not be allowed to do one x90km) or jump 1.40m.

This means he will drop into Stud book B next year along with stallions who do not meet the breed standard.

Do I care? NO. I am going to continue to breed and train my young horses to my own standards. Which means the most they will do is light backing at the end of their third year.

I have had a few students riding for me and the first thing they want to do is get a young horse working in tight circles, on the bridle. I have to tell them to stop, this young horse cannot do both and you will give him back problems and possibly lame him.

Just a small addition. I pointed out to my student yesterday, that I went all the way to Hungary to buy a mare from the National Stud, the following year I sent her to stud, cared for her during her pregnancy, raised a foal to an adult. He now represents 7 years of my 'old' life....why spoil that investment?
 
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The seeming prevalence of kissing spines and other things is something I had been thinking about recently. I agree with all that had been said that it is better diagnostics etc whereas years ago horse would have been turned away, found a different job or retired/put down.

Interesting re the young horse. Mine who had kissing spine is a tb so broken early raced as a two year old and has done 15 years hard competing in different spheres before breaking for want of a better phrase.
 
The more horses I see, the more I would put my money onto a young horse where I knew how he had been started. Mine is a bit backwards, was backed just rising 5, has grown 3" in a year. Original plans for last year went up in smoke as he just wasn't mature enough mentally, let alone physically. Time will tell if I have gone the right way..
 
I think 'too much, too young' is too easy, frankly. It absolves the current owner (and the person who made the horse in the first place) from responsibility and from blame if things do go wrong, and puts it on some nameless 'pro' or producer who rushed the horse initially. I'm not saying it isn't a factor - and I'm certainly not letting off professionals! - but clearly there are many horses that are backed at 3 and have long and happy lives.

I see a lot of 'broken' horses of varying degrees and it's almost never a simple situation. For instance, I would almost guarantee poor school footing is implicated in some cases (when people blame working on 'surface' what they really mean is poor surface) but if the owner can't move, what do you do? My personal preference would be to buy a horse from a breeder who raises horses in groups but many people have no clue what their horse's history is.

The trick is to look forward not back. Here is the horse today. Here is how he is living. Here is how he is being managed. Here is how he is being ridden. Here are his weaknesses and his strengths. Here are his problems. How can we go forward from here most successfully and how can we try to prevent ending up here again.
 
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