Just unfit, or a pain response??

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MrsNorris

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My cob never seems to become fitter despite being ridden very regularly. He always struggles up hills, blowing quite a lot, and sometimes, on really steep ones, even grinding to a halt.

He does have an old injury, happened in 2004, which I only found out about 18 months ago (have owned him for 8 years), but I have been unable to find out exactly what the injury was other than that, in he words of his old owner, he tore one of his hindquarter muscles clean off his pelvis!

He has always had a slight problem behind, never lame but just not quite right, has had vet checks, physio etc over the years, nothing obvious found, (and I got a reputation as an over-anxious, neurotic owner!), but the old injury certainly explains a lot.

So my question is how can I tell if the blowing and stopping on steep hills is due to a simple lack of fitness or is a pain response from this old injury? Don't want to just carry on and see if he gets fitter in case he is hurting.

We have recently changed yards to a place with lots of off-road, hilly hackng so the problem has suddenly come to the fore. For the previous 7 odd years he has mostly hacked on fairly flat roads with relatively gentle hills, but he has always blown a lot up hill even then. Heart and lungs are fine.
Any thoughts greatly appreciated :)
 
I would suspect it's a combination of the two. If the injury was as you described, that's pretty major and one that would never be fully resolved - and so hill work would, I imagine, be particularly difficult for him.
 
I would think its to do with the old injury, how much work has he been doing? If he is struggling more since moving yards then his old injury is being aggravated more.
 
Thanks for the replies, he's always hacked at least 4 times a week, more usually 5-6 times, for 1-2 hours at a time, but we've not encountered hills like the ones we have now!
Vet who saw him yesterday thought it more likely that he had had a knocked down hip, than the injury described by previous owner, but horse is not uneven in his musculature, and strangley, you can see a slight uneveness in walk, but nothing in trot. This vet also thought problem was on the left (as do I) whereas previous owner insists injury was to the right!
Guess we'll never know for sure, have tried contacting vet who treated originally but with no joy.
Will stick to lessor hills for now and see how we go I think, just wish I knew what was happening, he's the stoical type and doesn't give much away, bless him.
 
I don't know the answer to your question but has he had a physical and bloods run recently?

Sorry, just seen your last post.
 
Could it be that with the injury to the right he has over compensated with the left? It is a bit like hip replacement patients the 'good' hip often has to replaced too. He could be a bit unfit too, he is used to steady 1-2 hrs hacks, you have now increased the intensity by adding in more hills. Hopefully his fitness will increase gradually.
 
The old injury might have something to do with it, but you have admitted yourself the hills are greater now than they were - think how you'd be if you went from rolling 'bumps' to big, steep hills. It might be worth reducing the hacks down in time and intensity for next month, then slowly upping it.
 
Maybe a bit of both. I hack out a lot on the Downs and my horse is endurance fit. But when I hack out with other people who hack long distances on the flat, they notice the difference in fitness between our horses. Doing a lot of proper hill work gets horses very fit, people tend not to realise the difference between a 2 hour relatively flat hack and a 2 hour very hilly hack - in terms of aerobic fitness and muscle fitness.

I would build up his hill work slowly and see if that helps.
 
Thanks everyone, think I will do just that then, build up very slowly and see what happens, I'm just really concerned about causing him pain, or worse damaging the old injury in some way, as I assume he will have scar tissue and weakness at the site of it.
Be so much easier if I knew exactly what the original injury was!
 
Could be that he's unfit for the new terrain, perhaps treat him as if he is less fit than you think and spend more time getting him fit, as if he's just come up from grass. Back to walk work for a few weeks then introduce trot etc. Could be that the old injury means he needs longer to get in shape?
 
Definitely don't rule out pain. I experienced exactly the same with my horse when I moved to a yard with hilly hacking, he just coldn't cope with the hills , ground to a halt like yours and seemed to remain permanently unfit and struggling. He also became not really very forward on the flat but I just thought he was being a bit lazy. He had the kissing spine op and operation on his fetlock 3 years ago and has never moved that freely behind but hadn't ever been lame since the ops. Anyway to cut a long story short I eventually got him checked out and it turned out he was less than one tenth lame on the fetlock but severely lame on flexion, so he had that joint medicated. A further check a few weeks later revealed he was stiff through his hocks, so he had those medicated too. I now have a different horse who can actually canter up the hills and who has got fitter than he's ever been this summer. He's doing great, and is full of himself, as he should be, but I do know it won't last forever - my warning flag will be when he starts to struggle again, then it will time for a check up. I wish I'd done it sooner, so if I were you, based on what you've described, I would defintiely get the vet out as what you're experiencing is exactly what I went through. I firmly believe that if he hadn't had to do the hills the problems would have been nowhere near as apparent.
 
How is he going down the hills? Is there any reluctance there? If your horse is suffering pain in the hindquarters any lameness will be more noticeable travelling downhill as he takes more weight behind. Have someone ride/lead downhill at a medium walk. You walk behind and watch how he moves. My cob mare is very fit but sometimes stops to 'look at the scenery' when we're travelling uphill :-)
 
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