Navicular : breeds and age

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vicky_sut

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I was just wondering if there is a certain breed or particular age that horses are diagnosed with navic. My own horse is a irish tb and was 7 at the time. I have noticed a few more posts on here recently regarding navic. So it got me wondering if there was any correlation between breeds and age. So not really asking how people have treated the navic, just thought it might be interesting what comes out. There may be no link at all
 
Well, years ago a rubbish Vet told me my I.D had Navicular and I was convinced that he didn't, I pursued it further,got a 2nd opinion and no he didn't have it, and neither did he have navicular syndrome.
 
I don't have any answers for you but I am asking the same questions. :)

I am interested in chronic lameness causes and issues atm and I'm doing a questionaire, shameless tout but if anyone who has a horse with navicular would be prepared to fill in a 20 q questionaire, all anonymous, then please email me on lilly-sian.hill@hotmail.com.
 
I bought a 4 year old Irish Sports Horse (7/8 TB) who was diagnosed with Navicular Syndrome 4 weeks later. She did eventually come right and event at PN level and went on to showjump to a decent level.
 
My horse is a 6 year old Selle Francaise. Have only been told by a girl who used to ride him that he has this. I have not yet had it actually diagnosed by a vet for myself.
 
Have known 2 with it, neither were purebred but i think both had some tb in there somewhere. Both were in mid teens when diagnosed but both went on to stay sound if kept in light regular work. One has recently died (think she was actually anglo arab) but worked right up until that point in her mid 20's, the other is still doing light work in his late 20s and is fine.
 
Hi, i have a Irish TB who is 17 now. He was diagnosed last month with Navicular :(. Vets said that its usuall to do with confirmation and their feet being small, long toe and low heel. Apoparantly they usually get navicular a lot younger so not sure why he has at the age of 17 (maybe he is younger than i think)
 
hmm quite a few tb. Just as an after thought are they exracers?
Just wondering if the fact that a lot of race horses are stabled most of the time as youngsters whether it has had a detrimental affect on how the muscles in the foot develop or more likely dont develop. Just a thought I could be totally wrong.
Sophiesmum by a growth did your vet mean a bone spur because mine had that as well as ' lolipops' .
 
Oh summit get my teeth into.

Navicular syndrome (it is not technically a disease and there for shouldn't really be known as navicular disease.) has many causes and some are unknown.

The breed and age of the horses are pretty irralevant. However, the condition is seen most commonly in horses with a low hoof angle (AKA flat feet.)

This is why so many TBXID suffer from it, along with TB and some WB's. Back in the early 70's when we started to import a lot of horses off the continent, a lot of WBs started to suffer from Navicular due to the way our farriers at the time shod them. The problem was that our farriers were used to shoeing TB's and Shires, which both have relatively low angled feet and shallow feet. So when our farriers were first given these exotic horses to shoe, they took the heels down and made the foot the shape that they were used to seeing. Which in turn put pressure on the distal sesimoid bone, cause degeneration (much like arthritis but not involving an articulated joint.) It took a couple of years to solve this shoeing puzzle but i'm please to say that farriers are more than capable of shoeing European horses now.

I suppose if you want to go only the lines of what is the normal age/type to suffer then it would be you TB TBx's and around the 8 to 14 mark, although Navicular is not unknown to occur at ANY age in ANY horse, after all they all have distal sesimiod bones.

Sorry for waffling on.

Lou x
 
Racing and Navicular do not seem to have much corralation other than the fact that hard work contributes to the damage, but the same can be said for eventing, showjumping, endurence and high level dressage.

its more to do with the foot angle and the strain this exerts on to the DDFT and the ligaments supporting the Navicular bone. The most common cause of Navicular is compression of the Navicular bone by the feep digital flexor tendon (DDFT)
 
agree with Nailed-I think it is more to do with flat footedness or hoof pastern confirmation rather than age/breed.TBs have a tendency to be flat footed so there may lie the correlation. My lad is 13yr TB,has very bad foot confirmation (flat footed) and was diagnosed with navicular syndrome following xrays and nerve blocks which narrowed the problem to this area. There were very limited changes to navicular bone though so am unconvinced that it was a true navicular problem but just a problem with him and his confirmation and have accepted that after a year of trying a number of things including barefoot he is never going to be ridden again as he just isnt right/ totally sound. What the actual problem is neither the vets nor I will never really know but I have a feeling that navicular 'syndrome' is often giving as a diagnosis to give a problem a label....
 
My old horse was Section D X and was diagnosed at 16 x He was hacked out until he was 24 retired and was PTS at 29 Navicular being the cause x
 
Oh and btw he was a showjumper all his life and the vet seemed to think that jumping on hard ground may have caused it x
 
Feel free to waffle Lou.

So if its the low hoof angle, is it a case of horses should be kept with very short toes? I get that that is the reason for wedges to help the angle and take the pressure off the navic bone and tendon. But if a horse constantly has wedges will that not cause the tendon to shorten, just a thought.
I guess the horses that are born with long pasterns would be more predisposed to the condition.
Oh dear its got me waffling now! Thanks for the replies x
 
When your horses were diagnosed with navicular was that the end of their career or were you still able to ride/compete them? what did the vet suggest was the best option?
 
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