Horse putting on Lameness...????

sturgo

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Well... I am at the moment working on a summer camp in America and having a really good time... I am teaching riding and everything is SO different to how it is at home and a few things have been a bit sketchy but its all a new experience...

Anyway. There is this horse and to me it looks like it is stiff when trotting but then it like throws one stride which looks really lame and kind of falls back to trot... I have only seen her withg the kids riding but I have mentioned this and everyone is like 'ah she puts it on to get out of work and she did this with the woman they loaned her off and when she first arrived but she stopped and now has started again'. To be it is complete rubbish but I just wanna be sure...


Any suggestions at all!?
 

bellaM

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As a generalisation Lame is just a word that describes pain in a specific area, someone tried to suggest something like this too me once this is just another way of saying I might lose money if this horse is out of work I don't want to pay a vets bill.
Horses just don't think like that.
 

zigzag

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I dunno.. I worked in a riding school and we there was a horse there and every Wednesday morning it would limp in from the field, only ever on a Wednesday and would be sound y after lunch... only difference to a Wednesday to any other day of the week was that a RDA group was on in morning, I didn't believe it at first just laughed it off but was there for 6 months and it was true , every Wednesday she was lame
 

Tinkerbee

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yep, rocket

every sat, he would limp up to the yard, sound as a pound going back

and if you took him out any other day, he was fine

lil beggar
 

hannah87

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i think horses are cleverer than we think - they can associate one thing with another and learn how to avoid things ie avoiding being caught, wenu hav the headcoller, putting head up wen trying to tack uo, blowing out wen doing girth, etc im sure some older ponies can learn that wen they are "lame" they dont have to work!!! however, always a good idea to thourohly check horse over to be absolutely sure
 

monstermunch

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It's a very interesting topic as so many peoples opinions differ. i don't completely rule out the possibility that if a horse is subjected to the exact same routine, over time it may learn that by doing something (such as limping) it may get out of work. However I would also say that this is very rare if it even exists and that most cases are not horses being clever and that they are actually telling you something is wrong. if this horse is like this every day then clearly this is not normal. many people do very sadly brush it off so that they don't have to pay a vets bill or because they can't afford for that horse to not be in work. Good luck!
 

sturgo

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I just dunno... I personally just cant believe it! Itsa just strange how she throws in the odd really lame stride. I would personally say that there is a problem.

One horse has already gone back to the woman they loan horses off because it was in foal and generlly unsuitable. There was also a horse which I kept saying had sweet itch but they didnt pay much attention and then the vet came out and said yes to sweet itch!

I dunno... Just the whole set up is something I am not used to and everything has different names which is confusing too!
 

FMM

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If horses are always lame on a certain day, I would look to what had happened the day before rather than what the horse thought was happening that day. i.e. was there a jumping lesson on Tuesday afternoon, which caused the lameness every Wednesday morning?
 

sturgo

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Yeah thats a good point.

I dont think the horse is putting it on... I think theres something wrong but who knows? The camp director is the one who was trying to tell me this and I dont think she knows that much. I disagreed with her at the time but she brushed it off. I guess they dont want to haver a horse out of use.
 

Twigben

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My horse had what people termed "bridle lameness" he was neither lame nor sound - i knew there was something wrong but the vets said that until he was actually lame on anyone leg they couldn't help - i persued it and asked for a bone scan, low and behold i was right he has arthritis of the spine and spavins in both hocks - so you see the reason he just didn't look right but also didn't look lame (i could see it but the vet apparently couldn't) was because he was bilaterally lame and so kind of off-set it, that tied with the back just made the whole gait odd. i would def think there was something wrong - gut instincts are rarely wrong. By the way arthritis etc isn't just an old horses aliment - my boy is just 5 yrs old!
 

Twiglet

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I think mine will exaggerate lameness if he feels he has cause (TB!!).......and he knows that if I'm trotting him up on hard ground, then I'm looking for lameness, so he might as well put on a show!
 

xfeex

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our little cob Kouros went lame once, vet nerve blocked him the lot, he was still flinching at the areas that were numb. vet said cover his eyes so we did and he didn't budge! vet said, I think he is having us on! and he was, sound as a pound since then!
 

Donna40

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Most def believe in put on lameness.
This morning I took my coloured boy out for a spin. We got as far as the end of the lane and he started dipping badly. I turned him and walked him back and he was as sound as a pound again, so I walked him straight past our gate and up the lane the other side and the dipping started again ! MONKEY.
I am trying to sell him at the moment but everytime someone comes to ride him its the same old problem again.
I have just seen him do a beautiful extended trot in the field with his chum when he thought I was'nt looking !
 
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