Fractured Pedal Bone - anyone got a good outcome to share?

Lisamd

Lisamd

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My fab 6 year old (not technically mine as I sold him in Oct '11 but he has remained on full livery with me) managed to fracture the wing off the inside of his near hind Pedal bone on Tues afternoon.

Took him to be x-rayed and its a clean fracture that possibly just catches the joint. He is to have 6 mths box rest and re-x-rayed after 3 mths.

He was purchased to show (WH, Show Hunter etc), RC comps and possibly low level BE event but this is now all up in the air as we don't really know how/if it will heal well enough.

Anyone got any stories to share? Good or bad really - just trying to get my head around how a quick play in the field can end so badly. I am optimistic, I've nursed 2 previous horses though DJD and a fractured hock so am trying to stay positive.

He's now on a strong joint supplement and magnetic boots. Am trying to source some comfrey as well.
 
I knew a horse which jumped a gate and fractured the pedal bone. It came back almost totally sound - the only reason I say almost is the walk used to go a bit lateral down steep hills, but you only knew if you were looking for it if you see what I mean. He continued to do (very) well at BD up to elementary/working medium at home, and you would never have known then.

Fingers crossed the outcome is the same for your chap.
 
Please feel free to PM me - my horse did the same injury in pretty much the same place. He had box rest for 6 months and then he got the all clear straight away and I bought him slowly back in to work. I think I got the all clear in December and I started jumping him again in the following March.

He never had a problem with that injury again - he hunted, SJ'ed up to NC level, BD'ed up to Elementary (and was starting Medium training) and XC'ed up to 3'3 all with no issues.

About two years after that injury he had to have another x-ray on that leg (unrelated - turned out he had sprained his coffin joint but vet wanted to rule it out) and you could barely see any mark on there - it was a case of if you didn't know about it you wouldn't have seen anything.

Edited to say: all the photos you can see below (and in my profile area) are after his pedal bone injury
 
I know a horse who fractured their pedal bone, and then less than a year later won at HOYS (Sjing) and is totally sound jumping 1.30m+ :) Fingers crossed all works out for him.
 
I am aware of 1 or 2 racehorses that have fractured their pedal bone and are back racing. can't remember which ones they were so can't check on form.

My old boy broke both of his fronts as a 8/9 year old and I had a fun packed 5 years with him before I lost him to colic
 
I did nothing special in terms of "treating" his injury other then joint supplement and I occasionally gave him some red cell supplement as he got stressed being in. I think after three months he was allowed out of his stable a little so I let him wander up the stable block whilst I mucked out
 
I am about 7 weeks ahead of you, mine did exactly the same thing, in the same way, in the same place, even the same foot!! Only difference is he was loose in a sand school.

He is being remarkably good about his box rest...had a slight wobbly when I took the lorry out the other day, but a small dose of ACP sorted that! We will be re-Xraying in March.

You can get Comfrey from Feedmark (pure/dried leaf).,but only feed it for 1 month, then off for at least 1 month.

Good luck!......Join the "how the h*** do they do it" club!
 
I had a pony in to break who later fractured a pedal bone out hacking... he spent 6 months working in a riding school on sand - they were based on an estuary - (no box rest at all) and came sound...
 
My 20 something TB did the same at the end of August. He finished his box rest last week and is now out in a small restricted area getting used to the outside world again.

We think he did his by treading on a stone while turning during a bit of a hoon round the field. The x-rays showed a reasonably bad fracture from near the front of the bone to the back by the heel, but my vet insisted it should heal well and that the pedal bone is the best bone to damage as the hoof forms a natural splint. She and and a specialist remedial farrier shod him with a bar shoe to which was bolted a specially fitted steel plate to prevent upward pressure, and a sort of plaster cast encasing the hoof to prevent outward movement. This all did its job so well that even when he whacked the walls in moments of stress, later x-rays showed no further damage.

His most recent set of x-rays (about three weeks ago) from the front showed hardly any line at all, although from the side and below you can still see a faint line,which she says will probably be visible for months. Vet and Farrier both very pleased with him, and he now has a fairly thick but very slightly more pliable plastic plate sandwiched between hoof and shoe. That might stay on for another couple of months and then I understand he'll be back to normal shoeing.

I didn't really add anything to his diet which is fairly high in supplements anyway.

Occasionally I questioned the wisdom of imprisoning an elderly horse for an indeterminate amount of time, but carrot filled treatballs, fast fibre and Bach Rescue Remedy seemed to get him (and me) through it. Surprisingly I found he got used to total box rest relatively quickly (thank God for stable mirrors!) but once we started leading out for hand grazing life got very exciting (rolling, bucking and throwing ourselves around) and Dermosedan sedative gel became our friend!

He looks perfectly sound at walk and trot, admittedly on grass only at the moment, and his canter appears good but his field is not big enough to really get much of an idea!

The outlook for this type of fracture is very good indeed.

Hope this helps and your boy makes as good progress.
 
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Mr. Accident Prone stepped on something, punctured the foot, fractured the end of coffin bone into 3 pieces. Elected to do surgery, he was back walking undersaddle in 7 weeks, didn't miss a show.
 
Polotash said:
I had a pony in to break who later fractured a pedal bone out hacking... he spent 6 months working in a riding school on sand - they were based on an estuary - (no box rest at all) and came sound...
Click to expand...

Should have said, he had an egg bar shoe on that foot.
 
Lad, the coloured in my sig did his when he was 6. Did it in the field. He had an eggbar shoe with lots of clips on it to act as a cast. I gave him comfrey and put magnetic boots on him. He had 6 months yard rest. I have a small concrete yard in front of the stable and he was allowed to walk round this which kept him sane. Gave him lots of toys to play with, jolly balls, traffic cones, swedes and haynets in different places round the yard and stable.
After 6 months like this i decided to turn him away for 2 months to relax and be a horse again. He had missed virtually the whole season any way.
As you know he is eventing quite happily at intro level and does dressage and showjumping too. He has never had any problems from it, just a long healing process
 
My mare fractured her pedal bone big style, 9 months of complete box rest and then 2 months of rehab livery (swimming, spa etc) and same amount of time slowly bringing back into work.

I equiped her stable with rubber matting, wall to wall shaving bed, fed from the floor, lots of toys, small amount of feed with included Comfrey and got some magnetic boots to aid circulation. Farrier put on heart bar shoe to act as a cast.

We did lots of grooming, carrot stretches and a tube of Sedalin was in my first aid box.

The bringing back into work was the interesting part lol.

Good luck, im sure your horse will be fine.
 
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My 6 week old foal broke her pedal bone and the vet said out of all the things to break the wing of the pedal bone is one of the best things too.

He said where it fixes it will be even stronger than before so after the long box rest it will hopefully all be fine so try not to worry too much
 
My cob did his charging about in a frozen field. He was box rested for six months with a surgical shoe glued to his foot. The last few weeks he was allowed out into a field shelter with ever increasing access to grass - his x-rays were fine at the end of the six months. He has ringbone as well in both front feet so I took the decision not to jump him again. But we carried on showing for a while and did riding club dressage quite well until the ringbone worsened and I retired him. He's now a wonderful companion to my foal.

Good luck.
 
If it's non-displaced and the joint is not seriously affected, the prognosis seems to be very good.

I currently have one (very large, big moving) horse standing in a field after breaking a front one fairly significantly. The only thing I can say is I went off reservation a bit. :) After the box rest the fracture healed on xray well but the horse was not quite sound (quite common in my experience) and the vet suggested quite invasive remedial shoeing. I was already unhappy with the way his feet were looking so instead I chose to turn him out on good ground and leave him be through the winter. (A horse I broke went down the corrective shoeing route and ended up turned out anyway.) He's now sound on observation, which he was not initially with the shoes off. There is some question with this horse as the joint was involved so a risk of arthritis but we shall see. :)

I've heard similar from lots of people (it's a more common injury than you'd think), that it takes longer for the horse to be completely comfortable than it takes for the x-ray to look okay, particularly for a front foot. Fair enough, considering the forces involved! But bone is so much easier - once it's healed, it's healed.

In my horse's case, I'm almost certain it happened in two stages. There was an incident when I was riding that made me go hmmm, then a few "offish" days, then okay, then a few off days again, then finally quite lame. In his case, though, the vet was sure it wasn't a fracture because he wasn't lame enough and only x-rayed initially on my request. She was quite surprised to see how extensive the fracture was.
 
Friend's horse had front foot pedal bones fracture, healed in a bar shoe with no problems in 3 months, box rest at first and then restricted turnout, and sound ever since.
 
My 29yr old broke her hind pedal bone last March. X rays showed righ down the middle. I elected to do nothing at all. At her age - with Cushings, I wasn't going to subject her to box rest.

By about August she was totally sound and hooning around the fields again. TBH, she was hooning before that, but showed lame, and sometimes carried the foot.

My 1st pony also fractured hers after being hit by a 40 ton artic. She had a year in the field (a long time ago) and came perfectly sound.
 
Bronson broke his pedal bone (in his off fore) in a trailer accident back when he must have been about 12/13. Afaik, he spent some time at Cambridge vet school, then box rested for six months and was turned away after that for a year or two, until I took him on loan (then bought him :p)

It never affected him - he went on to hunt, jump, gallop about, do flatwork etc without a problem till we lost him to colic at 20. The only way you could tell which hoof was affected was that one of them was slightly more splayed than the other (once asked a vet to guess!).

It might be a long drawn out recovery, but from what I've heard and my own experience, it sounds like once it's healed, it's healed.
 
My eventer fractured his pedal bone in march 2006 and was back eventing that September!
And been eventing every year since! He did 3 months box rest, 6 weeks walking and then back to normal work.
 
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