Help please! Head tilting problem

[Tommiecharlie]

I'm really hoping someone on here has had a similar experience of this because I'm starting to really struggle with my horse and I'm not sure which route to go down next . Sorry for the essay...

I've had my mare since she was 4 years old, she is now 7 1/2. She is a TB ex racehorse, but as far as we know was only in training as she was given to a rehoming sanctury as a 2 year old where she was turned out to grass. They turned her out for 12 months, then started light work before we got her as a 4 year old. When I got her she had a very occasional head tilt but it was very rare and was not under saddle, I only noticed it when she was walking around her field, I had a physio come to look at her and she said she would grow out of it. We did very light work with her for the first 2 years, a lot of ground work, light schooling, lots of hacking no sign of the head tilt under saddle, still only very occasionally in the field. We then started doing a bit more - mainly dressage at Prelim level, some showing (RORs), jumping (which she seemed to enjoy) and she was going quite well. About 10 months ago I noticed her head tilt was getting more prominent, she would do it on both sides for about 4-5 seconds, a real neck tilt with her eye looking up at the sky. She'd do it under saddle, in the field and in the stable. I had our vet look at her and he checked her back, neck flexion, feet (I put her in pads for 6 weeks to see if it made any difference - it didn't), eyes, ears all were fine. I had a saddler come out to check her saddle and he was happy with it's fit. She has 6 monthly dentist visits so her teeth are fine. The vet suggested putting her on bute for 2 weeks to see if it made a difference, it didn't she still did this head tilt on both sides. He has now suggested it may be neurological.

On a friends advice I got a physio to look at her. She thought that at some point in her race training she'd had an accident and injured her SI joint and has recently re-aggravated this injury (she does like to gallop around her field like a lunatic so it's possible she's slipped or something). She thought her hind ham string looked tight and she wasn't walking freely with it and this sort of injury can show symptoms in the neck. I did some physio exercises with her but didn't really see much improvement. I decided to give her 2 months off, during this time she was mostly out at grass. After this time off I hacked her out a few times and didn't notice the head tilt so thought the time off may have healed whatever it was. However, yesterday I took her to do some schooling and she felt like a block of wood, head to one side, very awkward, napping, bucking, evading the bit. I knew that coming back from some time off she was going to be a bit stiff and green but this just felt extreme. Some people said she was just napping and to get after her and stop making excuses for her but i'm not sure.

On a separate note she has always been quite a difficult horse to handle on the ground, fidgety when asked to do anything / being handled, very moody, uninterested and unwilling, she has a bit of a reputation at the yard and most people don't like handling her, i've always managed to work through it although it has been trying at times. I'm now questioning whether her general behaviour and physical problems aren't related and it's not all down to her being a moody mare. Next steps...i'm not sure! Alot of people have said she's just a difficult mare who is napping and stubborn and I should return her (she's only on loan) but I'm not convinced that this behaviour isn't a symptom of something else. Has anyone had any experience with a neurological illness as this would be the next route to take with the vet? I was also wondering whether a chiropractor might shed some light ? Or whether I should investigate the SI injury route a bit more. Has anyone had any similar experience of this or have any advice?! Thanks for reading!

 

[be positive]

I think the vet needs to do a fuller investigation to get to the root cause, it is very possible that she had an accident in training, it would explain why she retired without racing, and that this has left her with some injuries that could now be changing, arthritis setting in possibly but it could be anywhere or in several places, the head tilt suggests to me the poll may be an issue the bones/ nerves are easily damaged and cause cause problems although I would have expected that to be picked up by a good physio they do not always check the whole horse if they find an area to focus on.
I have recently used an equine osteopath who along with my usual physio has really made a difference as she worked a bit more on the jaw/ head area whereas the physio is more on the larger muscles/ back areas.

It may be that she has damaged her SI but I would expect her to be showing other signs if this was the primary injury and the head tilt is long term, it is very likely that her attitude is due to pain, being moody, uninterested and generally unhappy to be handled sounds like a horse in low grade constant pain who has shut down to some extent, her recent more extreme behaviour under saddle may be that having had time off she has not had long enough to build back up again and by schooling her it was just too much, it doesn't sound as if the physio has given you much advice on her ongoing requirements or how to build her up properly over a period of time, if she has SI damage it will take months of slow work until she is ready to be schooled, my horse hacked for two months before doing any circles and even then it was on a long rein encouraging him to stretch, he had physio every two weeks, daily exercises in hand as well as a lot of work over poles to get him using himself properly.

If she is insured I think a bonescan may be the best place to start, it will find all the areas that could be causing issues and allow you to make an informed decision as to what, if any, treatment to do, otherwise you may treat one area only to find it is linked to something else by the time you do everything it will add up and you may still have a horse that cannot work fully, if not insured you do have to consider how far you take things, horses with this type of issue that are very difficult to pin point and has only slight symptoms can cost an absolute fortune in diagnostics if they are done in stages rather than taking a look at the whole horse..

 

[wkiwi]

Alot of people have said she's just a difficult mare who is napping and stubborn
Please don't listen to this bunch of people. A horse won't behave like this without a reason (even if it is very hard to find it). Agree with bepositive that this needs more investigation to find the cause, but it will have to be balanced by the cost of doing this (note that a head tilt issue could be any number of things, including something inside the head).

 

[Tnavas]

My TB did this for some time, he had regular chiro treatment for other reasons, the cause of the head tilt was found by my awesome Equine Dentist as a piece of a wolf tooth broken off in the gum. He had a wee op and I got a straight horse.

Suggest that you may need to Xray the jaw to check for 'blind wolf tooth' remains.

 

[Tommiecharlie]

Thank you so much everyone for your replies and sound advice, I'm going to speak again to my vet, I will ask about a bone scan I've not heard of that before but it sounds like a good idea to try look at the big picture rather than investigating areas each time. That's also interesting about the wolf tooth, I will ask if the bone scan will highlight any tooth issues, I presume it would..She is insured, up until now I've not claimed as it's been exploratory work and the vet said I might have problems with re-insuring her if they knew her feet,eyes,ears etc etc had all been investigated but I think it's now time to step it up a gear. Will keep you posted hopefully will get to the bottom of it soon!

 

[Birker2020]

My horse had this and my physio said his atlas was out. This may be whats wrong with your mare, but if the physio has already seen her I would have expected her to find this already. x

 

[Goldenstar]

I think if it where my horse I would have a ' problem in performance type work up "done by a good equine vet who does a lot of this type of work and has not seen the horse before.
The other thing I would make sure ,is that the horse has no diastemas or deep seated issues with the mouth thats exactly what J did before we got to the bottom of his mouth issues .