Managing mild arthritis in hacking horse?

[canteron]

I would love to know your way of keeping a horse going - or is it just time to retire?
Daily light hacking or drugs or herbs and natural remedies or living out or …… ?
My 25 yo ID horse developed a cough so has had the Summer off - I know she is missing the attention, but when I rode her round the sand school as a trial she seemed so stiff and arthritic I had to get off.
I am happy to take it so slowly - or give up (which she would hate) but would appreciate your experiences.

 

[sport horse]

Speak with your vet but a little bute would probably help and hack out perhaps rather than school?

 

[Shilasdair]

Exercise is good for arthritic horses - as long as it's gentle.
She may find it easier to go out on a hack than do school work initially. You could try doing some in hand walkies, or perhaps raised poles to get her to flex her stiff joints a bit.
But I'd also give 'bute to make her more comfortable. Start at 1/2 or 1 a day and see if that helps her.
You could try leaving her out more, to move around.
And rug her in poor weather. Also maybe consider leg wraps in the winter.

 

[Bonnie Allie]

Our old eventer is arthritic but if not exercised is a paddock terrorist leaving a path of ripped rugs, gates chested off their hinges and teeth marks in every thing.

So vet said - work her regularly, hacking out only in walk and trot. We had to bute her for the first couple of days and keep the work to a maximum of 20mins in straight lines. Over a period of 6 weeks she is very mobile now and has stopped beating up her field mates and trashing everything in sight.

We do have her on green lipped mussel powder (Tech-ny-flex - one word, my autocorrect won’t let me type it as one word) Which keeps her fluid.

As a human I have arthritis and against drs orders I recommenced my running every second day and 10km walks on the off days. No arthritis pain anymore. Movement is everything.

 

[Britestar]

Ask your vet about Cartrophen.
It can help older horses.

 

[Bonnie Allie]

Apologies,I should have mentioned, before we started our old eventer exercising again we x-rayed. We had to know what was going on inside the joints and where her side bone was at. if It hadn’t been fine, we would have had to make a different decision.

As an eventer we had plenty of old x-rays to compare against as well! Most x-rayed and MRIed horse I’ve ever owned.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

One of mine has arthritis, only 13 and he has Cartrophen jabs every 12 weeks and is on a sachet of Danilon a day. The combination keeps him moving freely which is important in arthritic horses and I know when he is hacked he is comfortable.

 

[Shilasdair]

Bonnie Allie's post reminds me of a lovely trekking centre mare I looked after. She was a Welsh D x TB, deep rich red chestnut, and 26 years old.
We had been using her as our lead horse for fast hacks - 2 hours on tracks/through forest with a gallop along a lovely beach in the middle). She was invaluable as there was a burn to cross - and she always knew if it was safe or not. She was safe, sensible, sane and loved it.
Anyway, we thought we'd do the kind thing with respect to her age and reduce her work load to 1/2 walk hacks.

Bad, bad move! She turned into a maniac, snorting and cantering sideways down the tracks, rearing, bucking, menace in the field. Her shocking behaviour peaked when we took the 2 hour rides out past her. After a couple of weeks of this our vet suggested that she was better doing the 2 hour fast hacks she wanted, and so we gave up on the gentle retirement idea.

 

[J&S]

Your horse will make it quite clear what he/she can or can't do with the advancing years. I have been riding an ex eventer/hunt horse for the last 5 years and only now at 28 has he shown me he really does not want to go out any more. Only last October he was happy to go out and do arena Trec and won his last 2 events but since the end of the last lock down he, despite being prescribed bute, has shown less and less inclination to hack out, no interest in having a nice canter (he was a keen horse!) so now I just visit him and do a few stretches. He has access to a large field, brought in out of the flies when needed and he still looks the business. You know your horse, just feel for the changes.