HeresHoping
Well-Known Member
Would like permission to utter 1000 expletives, cry, curl up into a ball and get off the world, please.
:blue::blue::blue:
Having not ridden for 20 years, serendipity happened, and in November 2010 I took loan of a little bay Caretano Z mare with Falco dam lines. In the 18 months I had her, I rode for about 8 of them. She was always lame... 3 months in she fractured a sidebone and took 6 months to recover. From then on, it was on and off lameness until she was retired to stud with the vet's blessing. Her last diagnosis was double hind suspensory tears (fortunately not so bad rest wouldn't cure, but she wasn't going eventing again any time soon).
I then bought an ex PTPer to bring on. I only had a two stage vetting because he was only £500 with having been brought into work after a 6 month rest whilst the owner had a baby. Which was a big, no, HUGE mistake on my part because he would have failed the 5 stage spectacularly when it came to lunging on the hard.
Anyway, two months in and he began trying to kill me regularly with a rodeo act. My bottle more or less upped and went but I wasn't going to give in so did all the checks and found an instructor who was going to sort us both out. Then he had a bad reaction to sedalin during a farrier session. Basically, the sedalin never kicked in, he pratted about when it came to his hind feet (expensive lesson #2 - if a horse doesn't like having its hind feet held up for any length of time, suspect an issue and get it checked out - stories about abusive farriers are rarely true) and then froze. Vet came and took x-rays - they showed the possible source of the bronking was a mild kissing spines situation and concluded that the stationary horse was muscle spasm as it eventually eased off and he could move again. I started to work him, on the advice of Cambridge, in the EquiAmi to try and build up his back muscles and stretch out his spine. He never did. He got more and more aggressive and his hind end action became more and more mechanical. In March we did the right thing and PTS. Post Mortem showed a massive SI issue. Once upon a time he had obviously fractured the ilial shaft in his pelvis, and the SI ligaments were mostly shredded.
So, I went horse hunting. And, well, you probably know that when I bought Larry, he was the fifth horse I had vetted and the previous 4 had all failed, three of them on extra issues I had asked for checking on the basis of the above experiences. My big ginger ninja passed a 3 hour 5 stage check with flying colours and came home on 27th July. He did come with a few issues - he was petrified of everyone, lunge whips and schooling whips; he was a bit girthy; and would occasionally turn his bum on you in the stable when you approached with tack. We started to get to grips with each other (I told you I'd completely lost my bottle so we took it slowly) and the occasional misbehaviour in the school had been resolved. In November, I finally found a suitable jumping saddle that fitted his huge shoulders and a good pair of brave pants to start eventing.
About 8 weeks ago, a new person came to our yard. She let her horse out in the field next to Larry and Cassie, his fieldmate, without showing her the fence, and having kept her stabled for 5
mad days without even taking her out for exercise. New horse of course went straight through the electric fence and set them all off. I watched Larry do an enormous skid that saw his back hooves pass his front and he sat down. I said at the time 'Well, that's my horse lame for the foreseeable.' And he was. We suspected a pulled muscle over his backside as he was sore to touch but sound in straight lines. He dragged his off-hind a bit on the circle in trot on the lunge. He had three weeks off with in-hand walking to keep him moving on days when he had to be in the sand paddocks. He had acupuncture and the physio. And then I had to start riding him again in walk with a little trot, pretending (because I'm over-sensitive to lameness as it is, spotting it usually before the horse) there was nothing wrong. He didn't like trotting on the corners to start off with, there was much tail swishing and grunting but, bless him, he didn't throw any other shapes. After a couple of weeks of gentle work, he really was starting to feel better. He had a session on the lunge (huge circles only) where he demonstrated how much better by bogging off in canter and refusing to trot for the next 20 minutes, tail in the air, nostrils flared and much snorting.
Ten days ago, I went out for a hack with a friend and he felt fabulous, apart from 4 loose shoes. That day, an hour or two later, one of our juniors came back from a hack and her pony bolted past the fields. Apparently everyone out had a hooey for a good half an hour as a result. When I went to fetch him in and my heart sank as I saw the skid marks. Sure enough, on Monday I took him in the school and he just would not move forward in the trot, despite lots of long and low warm up before hand. I was unable to ride on Tuesday and Wednesday due to the weather so put him on the lunge on Thursday to see what his legs were doing and felt sick to the stomach. He walked and trotted fine, but bunny hopped, stumbled and went disunited in canter on both reins. On returning to trot, he dragged his hind leg. But he was still fine in straight lines. Called the vet. She advised just to keep walking in-hand until she could get to me.
She came this morning. He showed her all his beautiful trotting with perfect soundness. Then he showed her his bunny hopping, stumbling and disunited canter.
We're off to Sue Dyson next week. I don't know what to say or do. Does anyone's horse come back from Sue with a good prognosis?
:blue::blue::blue:
Having not ridden for 20 years, serendipity happened, and in November 2010 I took loan of a little bay Caretano Z mare with Falco dam lines. In the 18 months I had her, I rode for about 8 of them. She was always lame... 3 months in she fractured a sidebone and took 6 months to recover. From then on, it was on and off lameness until she was retired to stud with the vet's blessing. Her last diagnosis was double hind suspensory tears (fortunately not so bad rest wouldn't cure, but she wasn't going eventing again any time soon).
I then bought an ex PTPer to bring on. I only had a two stage vetting because he was only £500 with having been brought into work after a 6 month rest whilst the owner had a baby. Which was a big, no, HUGE mistake on my part because he would have failed the 5 stage spectacularly when it came to lunging on the hard.
Anyway, two months in and he began trying to kill me regularly with a rodeo act. My bottle more or less upped and went but I wasn't going to give in so did all the checks and found an instructor who was going to sort us both out. Then he had a bad reaction to sedalin during a farrier session. Basically, the sedalin never kicked in, he pratted about when it came to his hind feet (expensive lesson #2 - if a horse doesn't like having its hind feet held up for any length of time, suspect an issue and get it checked out - stories about abusive farriers are rarely true) and then froze. Vet came and took x-rays - they showed the possible source of the bronking was a mild kissing spines situation and concluded that the stationary horse was muscle spasm as it eventually eased off and he could move again. I started to work him, on the advice of Cambridge, in the EquiAmi to try and build up his back muscles and stretch out his spine. He never did. He got more and more aggressive and his hind end action became more and more mechanical. In March we did the right thing and PTS. Post Mortem showed a massive SI issue. Once upon a time he had obviously fractured the ilial shaft in his pelvis, and the SI ligaments were mostly shredded.
So, I went horse hunting. And, well, you probably know that when I bought Larry, he was the fifth horse I had vetted and the previous 4 had all failed, three of them on extra issues I had asked for checking on the basis of the above experiences. My big ginger ninja passed a 3 hour 5 stage check with flying colours and came home on 27th July. He did come with a few issues - he was petrified of everyone, lunge whips and schooling whips; he was a bit girthy; and would occasionally turn his bum on you in the stable when you approached with tack. We started to get to grips with each other (I told you I'd completely lost my bottle so we took it slowly) and the occasional misbehaviour in the school had been resolved. In November, I finally found a suitable jumping saddle that fitted his huge shoulders and a good pair of brave pants to start eventing.
About 8 weeks ago, a new person came to our yard. She let her horse out in the field next to Larry and Cassie, his fieldmate, without showing her the fence, and having kept her stabled for 5
mad days without even taking her out for exercise. New horse of course went straight through the electric fence and set them all off. I watched Larry do an enormous skid that saw his back hooves pass his front and he sat down. I said at the time 'Well, that's my horse lame for the foreseeable.' And he was. We suspected a pulled muscle over his backside as he was sore to touch but sound in straight lines. He dragged his off-hind a bit on the circle in trot on the lunge. He had three weeks off with in-hand walking to keep him moving on days when he had to be in the sand paddocks. He had acupuncture and the physio. And then I had to start riding him again in walk with a little trot, pretending (because I'm over-sensitive to lameness as it is, spotting it usually before the horse) there was nothing wrong. He didn't like trotting on the corners to start off with, there was much tail swishing and grunting but, bless him, he didn't throw any other shapes. After a couple of weeks of gentle work, he really was starting to feel better. He had a session on the lunge (huge circles only) where he demonstrated how much better by bogging off in canter and refusing to trot for the next 20 minutes, tail in the air, nostrils flared and much snorting.Ten days ago, I went out for a hack with a friend and he felt fabulous, apart from 4 loose shoes. That day, an hour or two later, one of our juniors came back from a hack and her pony bolted past the fields. Apparently everyone out had a hooey for a good half an hour as a result. When I went to fetch him in and my heart sank as I saw the skid marks. Sure enough, on Monday I took him in the school and he just would not move forward in the trot, despite lots of long and low warm up before hand. I was unable to ride on Tuesday and Wednesday due to the weather so put him on the lunge on Thursday to see what his legs were doing and felt sick to the stomach. He walked and trotted fine, but bunny hopped, stumbled and went disunited in canter on both reins. On returning to trot, he dragged his hind leg. But he was still fine in straight lines. Called the vet. She advised just to keep walking in-hand until she could get to me.
She came this morning. He showed her all his beautiful trotting with perfect soundness. Then he showed her his bunny hopping, stumbling and disunited canter.
We're off to Sue Dyson next week. I don't know what to say or do. Does anyone's horse come back from Sue with a good prognosis?
