Fractured wither

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Gracecushnie

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Hi, 3 months ago my horse reared in the field and slipped backwards, completely landing on his withers. He broke them quite severely according to the vets. He is recovering quite well and in this short time his swelling has dropped dramatically which is of course great. My question is has anyone’s horses who has suffered this injury been rideable again? Vets have said he should make a good recovery and be rideable but I couldn’t get many answers on things like jumping (he loves his cross country and it would be such a shame if he couldn’t compete). Of course riding would be great but he’ll stay here no matter what, would just be nice to hear everyone’s views. Tia x
 
Was he xrayed after the accident ? I had a horse a few years ago with strange intermittent symptoms that my vet eventually diagnosed as fractured withers which he guessed had been caused by a fall or by using a saddle with a broken tree and he wanted to operate to remove supposed broken bone fragments. I wasn’t convinced at all that she had broken them and arranged for her to be scanned at Glasgow vet school, turned out she had very bad sore shins which explained the pottery gait, there was nothing wrong with her withers at all. The vet at gladgow said it was a very unusual place to have broken bones and if that was the case she would have had much more extreme symptoms. Are you certain your horse has broken bones ?
 
Yes Richard Maxwell the horse behaviourist had a horse from Mary King an attractive large dark bay from recollection.

I am sure he had reared and fractured his withers prior to Richard or Mary having him. I believe the story I read in one of the horse magazines was that Mary had preserved with him but following a bad fall said he was unrideable and very dangerous as he kept rearing. This had been his downfall and caused him to fracture his withers in the first place. Even though they were healed and he was rideable using a specially designed saddle (one without a tree from recollection) he was still tapped in the head (to put it bluntly).

She had signed him over to Richard on the basis that if he could turn the horse into a ride-able animal he could keep him, otherwise he must ensure that he was destroyed. Of course Richard did everything in his power to get to the route of the horses problems and save him and this was essentially what the magazine article was about.

Richard did succeed and he and Kings Copy went on to have a successful partnership with the horse.
 
Yes he was x-rayed a few weeks after but they weren’t very clear because of the amount of swelling he had. Looking at getting him re x-rayed soon but still waiting for some more swelling to shift before it’s worth getting them redone x
 
Ah well that’s glad to hear! My thoroughbred is a cob in disguise and it was so out of character for him, he was chasing one of the mares in the field over food. I’ve started walking him out to try and shift some of his swelling and he’s back to his very energetic self haha so I’m sure he’ll stay himself.
 
Okay what kind of saddle did he take? I’m guessing I’m going to have to switch him to eaither a treeless or something similar. Do you know how would a western saddle sit on them?
 
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