Lameness help - hind end tripping

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Hello

My mare (15yrs, owned for 4) has been tripping with her hind end. It happens both ridden and on the lunge, where it feels like her back end buckles for a second and then carries on. It is intermittent, she will do it maybe once or so a session in the school. It seems to come out of no where without any signals that it is going to happen.

I have had the vet out previously for this, but as it is intermittent unfortunately he didn’t get to see this in person so was going off my description. It is only yesterday that I had managed to get a video of this. See the link here

Has anyone seen anything like this before?

I have put the video in slow motion, where you can see that she seems to land on her toe and then it buckles. She has has X-rays done of all feet and fetlock with nothing out of the ordinary. We also trialled wedge shoes for a while as there was suspicion it could be due to sore low heels etc but she then felt uncomfortable to ride and was still tripping. We have now removed the wedge shoes where she seems more comfortable, but the tripping is worrying me. She doesn’t seem to do this on hard surfaces.

I am going to get the vet out again next week but wondered if anyone has any advice or guidance on where we can investigate next ?
 
she's not extending her hoof to prepare it for landing arguably I'd think the wedges might have made that worse, does she just do it on the one side? I'd be scanning suspensories to start too I think given you've found nothing much on xray. Great video for the vet.
 
I'd also do the DIY neuro tests. If everything seems OK, then suspensories possibly. I've seen a friends horse do this regularly and he turned out to have kissing spines, was much younger though.
 
Thanks all, farrier had done some of the neuro and neck checks when I raised the issue but nothing overly concerning. She also has no swelling or heat and does not respond to pressure on the area making it more difficult to locate.

We haven’t yet scanned suspensories so that might be the next option.

She has always had clicky legs (unsure where from, perhaps hocks?) but vet didn’t think there was any signs of arthritis. Her neck had recently started cracking when I do carrot stretches (whether this is related or not).
 
Lameness work up definitely! Either take her to the vets where they can do the full work up and scan etc or xray or make sure the vet brings all the equipment. The basic work up isn’t that expensive and they only charge more if you have to xray, scan etc
 
My boy did this exactly as in your video and it turned out both his hind suspensories were completely shot. Poor boy was just so equally lame on both back legs he looked fine otherwise - the nerve blocking when he had his lameness exam was quite shocking and actually made me cry, I felt so awful for him! It would definitely be at the top of my list for your girl.
As an aside, if it does turn out to be the suspensory ligaments - be careful about treating just the suspensories. It's almost always a problem secondary to something else (for my boy, turned out to be his SI).

Good luck, I hope you get her sorted soon.
 
My old boy bless his heart who I lost in November did exactly this, he had hock arthritis. Unfortunately I tried everything to keep him going but sadly the back end kept going so much that I had him put to sleep in November. I kept him maintained on Catrophen for around eight months before it became ineffective and I could no longer see him do that anymore as I was quite concerned something serious would happen.

I would strongly advise a lameness work up if I were you.

I do have a video of mine doing exactly the same thing but I am not on YouTube so unable to upload.
 
did you ever figure out what was causing this? My gelding does something almost identical to this- he has hock arthritis and just had him injected so hoping that helps
 
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