Ideas on this lameness?

[georgie0]

Obviously the vet is coming out but thought I would post here as well as I'm googling!

History - The horse is 18 years old. He has had an easy life, had the past 3 years off. Has tweaked a check ligament on his NF four years ago. I've had him a few months and have bought him into work carefully. He is 16.3 wb X.

He is sound trotting up in hand on tarmac, with maybe a tiny nod after doing it for ages. Ridden he feels awesome on one diagonal but not 100% on the other. In the school he feels lame on the right rein and looks VERY slightly unlevel when lunging on that rein. It is his OF. There is no heat, no swelling, absolutely nothing to see. Last week I put him on bute for 5 days and it made NO difference. He doesn't trip etc. He is very one sided to that side as he has had no schooling for years.

I'm thinking maybe arthritis in the foot? Like I said the vet is coming out this week but would be nice to have ideas. I adore this horse and he is so loving being back in work, it would be a shame to have to retire him.

 

[be positive]

I would suspect it is actually his hind leg where the problem is, feeling wrong just on one diagonal usually comes from behind and if bute made no difference I would think it may well be his hocks causing some muscular stiffness due to the discomfort, hence being so bad on one rein yet fine on the other, it will not be helped by having done nothing for so long.
If nothing obvious shows up when the vet examines him I would ask for referral to a good physio and see where that leads you, if something does show physio may still be appropriate as part of any treatment as you will need to address the one side stiffness in order to have him working evenly.

 

[georgie0]

Now that is actually a really interesting idea - I have though before that his canter transitions on one side were not as smooth as they could be. Thats for your input and I'll post after the vet has been!