Hind annular ligament and lump on fetlock

[Topaz Tiger]

Hi guys, posting this here and comp riders

Topaz has developed a hard large pea sized lump on the inside rear of her hind fetlock joint, towards the bottom of it. There appears no pain or heat on palpation.

This happened a couple of weeks before I was going away, so as she puts down bone very easily if she has a knock, I decided to leave it until I came back, to see if 2 weeks rest improved it.

Upon my return it was no different, so asked the vet to come out and give her a bit of an MOT at some point in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime i showed it to my physio, who was non committal and just said keep an eye on it.

Over the last 10 days she has occasionally slightly lost the 3 beat of her canter when she has the affected leg on the inside, partic shown during a dressage lesson this week, and when I schooled her today. She feels like she doesn't want to take more weight behind, tbf she has never been as good on this rein, but she now feels worse.

On examination the annular ligament on the affected leg feels very slightly thicker, but there is no hard swelling around it, nothing pointing to constriction of the area and she trotted up sound on the straight.

I saw her get up out of the corner of my eye in the week and I thought she was favouring the affected leg at first, but by the time I turned round, she seemed find and trotted up sound.

The vets coming out Monday, I'll give her an easy weekend, I'm googling the symptoms like mad, but finding no obvious answer.

BTW my previous horse was retired after a failed annular ligament resection, so I'm findng some of the similarities slightly alarming.

However topaz has had no injury to the area that I'm aware of, apart from some lameness in the winter that turned out to be an abscess.

Any thoughts/experiences would be welcomed. Our event season is actually going well for a change, so I'm dreading bad news.....

 

[Janesomerset]

Hi, I'd be really interested to hear how your horse goes on, as mine has just had an ultrasound which showed the annular ligament on his off-hind has thickened and is pressing in on the tendon on one side. He too favoured his affected leg when getting up from rolling and he rested it more often than his other hind leg. Our vet said at first, "oh well, some horses rest one leg more than another" but our farrier was in agreement with me that there was a lower leg problem. In the end, our vet did a flexion test, agreed horse was lame, and the ultrasound was very clear, yet there is next to nothing to be detected from the outside.

 

[Brecon]

would also be interested in replies, noticed this evening horse had a similar sounding lump but on the outside of a hind fetlock. He is slightly lame behind as well so much appreciated if anybody has any past experience of this?

 

[Topaz Tiger]

Well vets been out today.

He says it looks like the lump is an impact injury, that's caused some swelling to the surrounding area which has caused the AL to look more pronouced. The lump is caused by new bone being put down.

It is in ligament, sesamoid, annular ligament area, she reacts to pressure to the lump, but she is sound on it.

His advice was to keep an eye on it, if it gets any worse then we will need to X-ray and scan, but otherwise investigate it at the end of the season if necessary.

She also has some ringbone forming, as again she's not lame, advice is the same for that.

She's due for her inoculations end of August, so will get him to examine the two areas again then.

So good news, just the wear and tear you would expect on a 12 year old event horse

 

[Janesomerset]

Thank you for the update - interesting - glad it's good news for you!

 

[Princess P]

Read the above with interest as my horse has a hard pea sized lump on the back of his front leg. He is sound on hard surface on straight line but lame on it on lunge on surface.

When you pick his leg up the lump is really hard to feel, so not bony. Someone at the yard suggested it could be a ganglion - has anyone heard of horses having these?

RI telling me not to panic yet as he is 4 and youngsters do knock themselves hooning round the field etc, but can't help it!