Does she look lame or sound? *vid*

charleysummer

charleysummer

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she had her shoes off a week ago and its 7 1/2 months since she was diagnosed ddft to the right forelimb.

no heat in feet or signs of lameness trotting up in my opinion- but i am not so experienced so would love to hear other opinions!

*will put video up later as one wasnt very good :) *
thankyou.
 
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Using a training aide whilst checking for lameness is not going to work. The horse needs to be trotted on a fairly loose rein so you can see whats going on and anything the horse does is not influenced by what you are doing.
 
I *think* she's probably sound but it's hard to tell as she's not tracking up with either hind and she has gadgets on. It would be far easier to lunge her in just a headcollar to see.

edited to add posted at the same time!
 
I'm puzzled as to why you are even asking, and I have not watched the video. She's had her shoes off a week and you lunge her in trot on hard ground. ANY horse is likely to look unsound in that situation. But on top of that, she has a DDFT injury - where? Inside the foot?? If so, and the shoes have come off for a barefoot rehab it is far, far too early to be considering whether she is sound. If it's in the leg not the foot, you are asking for trouble lunging a newly barefoot horse on hard ground with a recently healed DDFT injury - one misstep due to a sore foot, and she could damage that DDFT again.

Sorry that sounds hard, but it really does sound as if you need to rethink your approach to your mare's lameness.
 
If you are getting more video, I would also lunge her on the right rein as this will more likely highlight a RF lameness. She does look mildly, intermittently lame, but not reliable with a gadget on.
 
tell me more about your horse's condition and rehab as I think my mare is about to be diagnosed with the same problem only maybe worse as lameness is in foot.

Considering she only had her shoes off a week ago then I think she looks pretty good, especially with the current ground conditions.
 
cptrayes said:
I'm puzzled as to why you are even asking, and I have not watched the video. She's had her shoes off a week and you lunge her in trot on hard ground. ANY horse is likely to look unsound in that situation. But on top of that, she has a DDFT injury - where? Inside the foot?? If so, and the shoes have come off for a barefoot rehab it is far, far too early to be considering whether she is sound. If it's in the leg not the foot, you are asking for trouble lunging a newly barefoot horse on hard ground with a recently healed DDFT injury - one misstep due to a sore foot, and she could damage that DDFT again.

Sorry that sounds hard, but it really does sound as if you need to rethink your approach to your mare's lameness.
Click to expand...

Im only following the advice of the farrier and he says she should be fine to continue without shoes on as normal as she has very good feet, shes had a good rest until the feet cooled down completely when i took her for a gentle hack on grass and put her on the lunge for what was no more than ten minutes, and the trot in the video is the only trot i did. plus she does gallop around the field jumping 3ft in the air twisting and turning every day and she hasnt gone lame yet so i doubted couple of minutes trotting would do that much damage tbh...
 
TicTac said:
tell me more about your horse's condition and rehab as I think my mare is about to be diagnosed with the same problem only maybe worse as lameness is in foot.

Considering she only had her shoes off a week ago then I think she looks pretty good, especially with the current ground conditions.
Click to expand...

my mare was diagnosed in october with ddft tear, she had an operation to 'shave the fibres' but due to the placement of the adhesions the tendon couldnt be reached. (lot of stress for nothing bless her). she went on box rest for 7 weeks and had in hand walking from 5mins, gradually increasing to an hour and turnout in a small paddock whilst i mucked out- but she became dangerous and i honestly feel the box rest was only to my benefit as there was snow and it stopped snowshoes and slipping on ice etc, if it was summertime i would have turned her out in a small fenced of area as she got very dangerous and galloped off bucking rearing and spinning numerous times with me on the end of the rope, which i can safely say was NOT good for the tendon!

she seemed to get a little worse to start off with and was on bute for a while in wedge shoes for 6 weeks, they were gradually reduced to a normal shoe and now she is barefoot. i fed her msm twice daily and she had a mobility lick with various supplements in.

i started riding end of january for 5 minutes in walk and just did 5 mins in walk for a long time until i increased the walk up to half an hour walking until i introduced a stride of trot, then cut the length to ten minutes with a couple strides of trot (with a lot of rest days inbetween but on turnout).

in february i was trotting for a few strides as reccomended by the vet and only in the last couple of months have i introduced a stride or two of canter when the ground was good. I am only hacking in walk really now as the ground is so hard.

She hasnt gone lame since despite constantly galloping around the field bucking and leaping like a 2 year old ! she does this at least once a day, i check every day how she trots up and i give the foot a firm squeeze at the fetlock near the hoof to see if i get any response ( she hit the roof when she was in pain) and she has been fine so far. no heat and to my eyes and the others on the yard she trots up fine.

I never really had much input from the vet apart from the diagnosis, ive had to go off my own back and research and try and do what is best, i didnt have any advice regarding supplements or workload really- just 'increase workload' and she is expected to become fully sound to full work by october again when she will have another ultrasound.

Unfortunatly the tendon appears to be reinjury- (she went lame when i first bought her but i didnt ride her much at the time so it healed enough to not show up when i did ride). so hopefully with proper rehab this time and time to heal she will be ok- and of course carefull management for the rest of her life.

hopefully this helps a bit but as i say, i didnt have much help myself so i had to go with what i felt was right at the time
 
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