Help - Problem solvers needed....

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I need some help.....as I am very concerned....

Why would my horse suddenly stop cantering on one rein....??

Ill give you the specifics - hopefully without boring you all...

he is fairly well schooled, never had this problem before.... and now is very resistant to canter one one rein although deffo isn't lame and trot work is still fine on both reins when ridden..?

The first time this happened was about 4 weeks ago when I took him out to a show and he wouldn't canter on one rein in the warmup....but had been fine the day before....

Thinking back - The only thing I did differently was that I put his saddle on without a numnah (as was a showing class)....and its a new box for him that travelled rear facing rather then forward facing.....

On the day I put it down to the fact that maybe he had hurt himself on the box whilst in transit but now i'm wondering if its the saddle.. and I hurt him but not having a numnah on?

Could it now be a habit developing, he isn't usually that sort to play up which is making me think ther is a deffo problem there..?

His teeth were done about 4 months ago, the saddle is due for a check and saddler is now booked,His back has been checked about 4 days ago and i was told it is fine...?? Now i'm worried that if saddler says the saddle is all ok that it could be something more serious!! :eek:

Any ideas the only other thing changed is a new trainer 3 months or so back....so far the training has been going well and horse had been going better until this day where the canter stopped...?? Trainer has been getting me to do lots of excersies and lateral work in my schooling etc to supple him up.

Unfortunately is will be hard to pinpoint as I made so many changes at once as I have had him years and never had any problems so never thought that I would be sitting here dumbstruck and concerned as what could be wrong with my boy..? I am probably missing something really obvious in my panic and concern for him - any ideas..?

Baileys on ice for you all.... thanks mwaah..x
 
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well maybe he has pulled something on one side of him, and if he had then it had got better it could be just habit. possibly try loose schooling him and see if he does it then if he does get a psyho out and get him/her to check absulutly everything out! hope this helps! x
 
Damage to something, somewhere, usually sustained in the field from my experience. Often a back muscle (have a gentle feel - muscles should feel soft, so look for a hard spot or somewhere the horse puts its ears back when you touch it).
 
Thanks will do....although between riding him the day before when he went really well and then riding him in the warm up at the show he didn't go out, so you think he could have pulled it on the box on the journey down there..? Physio checked his back as said its not really sore..?? oh I'm sooo confused unless I get a different physio for a second opinion..?:confused:
 
could it be in his neck? you can try and check for stiffness by getting a carrot/handful of feed and putting it to on his side near his shoulder (don't let him shuffle round to get it) he should be able to reach round to get it, try on each side. does this make sense?? just if he can't flex he may be too unbalanced to canter?
 
jockmaster said:
could it be in his neck? you can try and check for stiffness by getting a carrot/handful of feed and putting it to on his side near his shoulder (don't let him shuffle round to get it) he should be able to reach round to get it, try on each side. does this make sense?? just if he can't flex he may be too unbalanced to canter?
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I will admit that he doesn't find them easy and does try to cheat by shuffling...lol...

But he has gone from being able to do walk to canters (late novice test level), no not wanting to canter left at all so would wonder why he would suddenly be too unbalance to canter..? bloody horses they do make you worry...lol..
 
right ok very similuar situation as me, my horse recently (last 2 times ridden) has refused to canter but absolutly fine in walk and trot, was worried rang the vet she came out looked at him throughly (with us an hour and half) and couldnt give us a real reason other than he was more stiff under saddle, he is now on danilon twice a day for a week doing no work but still turned out, and then on danilon once a day for another week and she wants me to lunge a couple of times with side reins also advised to get the saddle fitter out, so doing as told saddle fitter is booked and vet will come out after to check on him and decide hat to do next.

my horse was completly sound passed flexion tests when vet came out but a little stiff under saddle, when you go down the yard next pick up your horse front hoof and she what she does with the opposite hind one (make sure she is not weight bearing on the hind you are looking at ) if she shakes/lifts the hind i would say it is time to get the vet as that shows discomfort.
 
hannah28 said:
my horse was completly sound passed flexion tests when vet came out but a little stiff under saddle, when you go down the yard next pick up your horse front hoof and she what she does with the opposite hind one (make sure she is not weight bearing on the hind you are looking at ) if she shakes/lifts the hind i would say it is time to get the vet as that shows discomfort.
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Ok like discomfort in the quarters or hocks or something..?

so I pick up a front hoof when he is standing normally and see if he moves any hinds..? I picked his feet out yesterday one by one and didn't notice anything different but will have another look tomorrow... Thanks
 
Did you hear any noises when you braked in the lorry? If he was travelling backwards and was not used to it there is a possibility that he sat down the first time you braked and he didn't know how to brace himself for backward travel. "Sit down" episodes are a primary cause of sacroiliac strain which can present with some very odd symptoms. My horse, for example, went intermittently lame in front! An experienced physio missed the sacroiliac problem completely, as it's very difficult to spot unless it's serious. It could easily cause a reluctance to place the inside hind leg forward under the body. Feel for a lump or heat in a line between his hip joint and the tuber sacrale (two highest spots of his bum, feel bony). You might just find something there. If so, it's obviously very mild and rest should cure it. One week in the box sorted mine out completely.
 
cptrayes said:
Did you hear any noises when you braked in the lorry? If he was travelling backwards and was not used to it there is a possibility that he sat down the first time you braked and he didn't know how to brace himself for backward travel. "Sit down" episodes are a primary cause of sacroiliac strain which can present with some very odd symptoms. My horse, for example, went intermittently lame in front! An experienced physio missed the sacroiliac problem completely, as it's very difficult to spot unless it's serious. It could easily cause a reluctance to place the inside hind leg forward under the body. Feel for a lump or heat in a line between his hip joint and the tuber sacrale (two highest spots of his bum, feel bony). You might just find something there. If so, it's obviously very mild and rest should cure it. One week in the box sorted mine out completely.
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Quite possibly as he did move his legs a lot try to find his balance point when we first set off, he may well have sat down on the back of the cab to get his balance when breaking...
 
I agree with cptrayes here - although you can't really draw any conclusions from the sypmtoms it sounds like it could be an SI problem - in my experience horses which find it difficult to canter often have some strain here although I would have expected a good physio to spot this. Vets I find never believe you when you say your horse is not going right. If you've upped his work especially canter in circles this could bring it on or even reveal an existing problem as the more you ask for him to carry himself the more strain it will put on this area. (he wouldn't necessarily have to have had any major trauma recently) I nurse my boy constantly throuugh this (more severe) problem.

Who checked back - was it just the back? A qualified physio?
 
Thanks guys,

Update today is that he canters on both reins, free schooling and lunging.

When picking his front feet up he was deffo uncomfortable on the hind legs.

Today Very sore cantering on either rein when ridden. One day wont canter on left rein and then one day wont canter on right. My friend was very shocked when she saw him today as she saw him about 5 weeks ago and couldn't beleive it...she said deffo something seriously wrong and as he is such an honest chap he is trying but cant. To show me how bad it is she got on board and asked for canter firstly left rein and he was kicking his right hind out badly, she then tried to canter him right and he just ran on in trot...we wasn't going to push him as know he is in pain, she just wanted me to see it.

Yes physio was qualified - but i'm going to have another out for a second opinion. He is sore on the quarters and just infront as when I was pushing along the right he was turning his quarters into me..?

Think this may have been caused by the backwards travelling and hope it can be put right as worried about him to the point where I will prob ditch the backwards facing box and get him a forwards one again as he was fine with this way....

Cptrayes & Sussexbythesea I am very worried that is could be sacroiliac strain as another firend horse at the yard had this and she had to have scans and laser treatment as they are hard to reach by physio's..??

:-(
 
Please get your vet out to examine this horse. The physio cannot legally treat this horse until seen by vet. It sounds like there is an underlying lameness.
 
My sister's horse was becoming very resistant on one side. The vet diagnosed a problem at the poll which was affecting the neck muscles. She had a short course of acupuncture and was fine. The vet thought the original cause was probably a field injury, although she has needed a repeat acu session occasionally, so that might not be the case.

ETA, sorry I posted after reading the OP and have now realised that things have moved on. I'd definitely say get the vet.
 
Had the vet last week, who couldn't find anything wrong with him. Need to get it sorted asap but all these second opinions are costing a fortune :rolleyes:

Will keep you posted. he isn't lame in walk and trot just the canter when ridden - obviously my weight is putting pressure on the problem.
 
As I said before vets do seem to find it difficult to ackowledge problems when the horse looks otherwise OK i.e. there is no overt lameness just a lessening of the horses performance. If the vet has already seen the horse then it should be just a matter of a courtesy call from the physio before seeing the horse as obviously the vet feels that there is no major injury.

Stand behind your horse and look at his hindquarters - is one side higher than the other? Does his hindquarters slope off with a prominent spine even though he is carrying a decent amount of weight? Does he feel like the handbrake is on when asking to go forward? Does he seem heavy in the hand with a reluctance to take weight on hindquarters? Have a look at him standing naturally in his stable does he have a tendency to pack bedding under his hind heels so that he is tilting his heels up? These are all symptoms mine has had.

Although I think it is too soon to do this in the end I completely bypassed my local vets (who treated me like an idiot) and went straight up to the AHT to see Sue Dyson who diagnosed SI injury and almost kissing spine - i.e. spinal processe v close but not touching. They diagnosed this through nuclear scintigraphy and then xrays of affected parts.

I wouldn't like to advise further because really it may be not this at all and if its not then anything I may suggest might make things worse.

Good luck though and happy to help if I can.
 
When I had this problem with my horse it turned out to be his saddle. If your saddler says his saddle is fine and if the problem continues, please get it checked by another saddler too. I didn't do this straight away and my poor boy ended up having unnecessary bone scans etc. Since then, I've had another new saddle and the only time he did it was when I used a numnah that was too thick for him, changed the numnah and he was fine.

Hope its just a case of saddle fitting and nothing more complicated. good luck.
 
sussexbythesea said:
Stand behind your horse and look at his hindquarters - is one side higher than the other? Does his hindquarters slope off with a prominent spine even though he is carrying a decent amount of weight? Does he feel like the handbrake is on when asking to go forward? Does he seem heavy in the hand with a reluctance to take weight on hindquarters? Have a look at him standing naturally in his stable does he have a tendency to pack bedding under his hind heels so that he is tilting his heels up?
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Hiya...

I am having the vet back this week and will keep you posted....

His quarters a pretty even although the right side may be slightly bigger.

His hind quarters are not sloping off in any way shape or form- he has a big apple bum....

He does sometimes feel that the handbreak is on, but I just put this down to the fact that he is a cob and can sometimes be a tad ploddy....

He isn't heavy in the hand, but does sometimes tip onto the fore hand, and in my lessons we have been trying to get him to take more weight behind...

He doesn't do annything unusual with the bedding....

See.... maybe its a combination of the flat work lessons trying to get him to sit back more...the lateral & the rear facing box...maybe its all too much and has brought this out...?

His left hind leg also clicks in walk - dont know if this is any sort of symptom..? Once he is warmed up it stops..?

Vet next week & saddler the week after...in the mean time I am not riding x
 
My vet checked my horse's back at vacc's time last year, just said he thought that she had been over-jumped in the past. I laughed and said there was no danger of that now. She needed no treatment BUT a month later she started to be very spooky, so I got the saddler, we changed saddles and she continued to jump around at noises. After she bucked me off x2 I got the vet out again. He repeated the 'over-jumped' comment but said that she had muscle-wastage on one side. He treated this with acupuncture. I'm afraid that sometimes we as owners pick up on things long before the professionals can find any obvious symptoms.
 
SI strain isn't necessarily a huge problem, don't panic. I have known two with pronounced difference in height in the tuber sacrale. One was my friends, a sit-down injury, and the horse was barely stiff and never even rested, she continued to work him. Mine was also a sit-down and he was lame in front on and off for a few weeks. Vet and physio were both stumped (the tuber sacrale did not change height until some days after he came sound). We tried rest of various periods in the field but he came up lame again every time he was worked. Just prior to going for a scintigraph we stuck him in his box for a week just to see what would happen. On the eighth day he pulled away from me when I was leading him, jumped a five bar galvanised steel gate off a concrete yard, galloped around a very sloping field for ten minutes solid until he was running sweat like a tap, and was never unsound with the SI issue again!
 
Yes after ready other replies I did think about the 1 week box rest, have vet and physio coming out this week to hopefully fix him and saddler next week, only prob that i was worried about was if I put him on the rear facing box again will he have another episode..? how can I prevent it without selling the box and getting a forward facing..?

x
 
I suspect that your problem was simply that it was completely unexpected for him, the direction he slid when the box was braked. Now that he knows about it, he should be fine. It's just that rear facing, his bum would move towards the driver and his hind feet would slip forwards towards his front feet (and cause him to sit down) when you braked, and not being used to being rear facing he may have been bracing himself to slip the other way, as he would normally, and made it a lot worse. Take it slow and he should work it out!
 
Thanks - will do, will get him fixed first and then take him out on small trips again. Trouble is he now assosiates box with pain and won't load onto it....

It all clicked when I thought about it - too much of a coincidence!!

God I wish he could speak, sometimes he needs to shout at me before I can hear him!!:(
 
Update - he is booked in to go to hospital for all checks, scans,xrays if needed, so will keep you updated...please keep you fingers crossed for him..x:)
 
***UPDATE***

Went to the vets for full analysis and was told that he is 110% sound - no hint of lameness what so ever.... he walked trotted and cantered sound on the lunge in school and on the concreate ..:eek:

Was advised that any form of skeletal/joint/muscle lameness would have shown up when he was put through his paces on the concreate...

I then got on and rode him in the school....he really showed me up as walk,trotted AND cantered on both reins, no problem....not convinced I worked him for ages and asked for canter again, he cantered, ok change rein...and canter - yep he cantered.

Then took him into the field as said I wanted to try him on another surface...and yep he cantered again no problems!!:rolleyes:

Vet said he must have pulled a muscle in his back when travelling rear facing and what ever it was he must have fixed himself in the field rest period and to continue his work again and have the saddler as planned.

So i am relieved its not serious - but confused how it fixed itself in 5 days...after 3 weeks of being a problem..? Who knows if only they could talk...:D
 
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