Navicular occurring in a barefoot horse?

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mystiandsunny

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Has anyone else experienced this? My horse hadn't been shod for 12 years. Recently, her hooves began to crumble and we had to shoe. Then she went lame a little while afterwards. X-rays show navicular lesions in both front hooves. In hindsight, her hooves fell apart because she was landing toe first to avoid heel pain.

Interested to hear of other similar cases and how they responded to treatment.
 
mystiandsunny said:
Has anyone else experienced this? My horse hadn't been shod for 12 years. Recently, her hooves began to crumble and we had to shoe. Then she went lame a little while afterwards. X-rays show navicular lesions in both front hooves. In hindsight, her hooves fell apart because she was landing toe first to avoid heel pain.

Interested to hear of other similar cases and how they responded to treatment.
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Yes, I've known one closely and owned it before it was diagnosed. First, you need to know that x rays are no indication of why the horse is lame. It is extremely rare for it to be a bone issue and is usually a soft tissue injury. It happens in barefoot horses for the same reason as in shod horses, not enough stimulation of the back of the foot.

The horse I knew had been kept in during the winter with little turnout and not enough work. It was given a very pessimistic prognosis by Leahurst, then was sent to Rockley and was sound in five weeks. He has remained sound for four years since, kept out full time and ridden regularly.

The answer for your horse may lie in changing feeding regime - what do you feed and supplement? - And on getting her out walking, in hand if necessary, on a hard flat surface for at least two days in three.

Shoes will almost certainly only make things worse.
 
Hi,
She lives out 24/7 in a large (8 acre) field. It has hills and valleys and a small amount of flat ground. Some is softer, some harder also.

Hooves have been the same all her life. Good shape, stood up to regular hacking on roads and tracks no issues.

Previous laminitis so this field was chosen as it has no rye grass, grows long and woody and they eat it down over the winter. A handful of speedibeet as an after ride treat with vitamins in daily is all she gets for feed.

Has back end issues - tendency towards locking stifles. I always kept her in sufficient work that there was good muscle there, but have had two children now and she had sharers who couldn't do as much. Tried to bring her back into proper work but never really got anywhere - could not build the muscle. Then her feet started to deteriorate. Just broke up. Got so bad I had to call the farrier to shoe, or she would have had no hoof left. Was much happier in shoes. Took backs off after first shoeing and have stayed ok. Was planning to take fronts off after two shoeings but then she went lame on one foreleg. After nerve blocks is lame on the other also. Not field sound even on bute.

Vet consensus is try the drugs and get her back into work and off her front hooves. Everything I read says 'shoes off and good balance will fix it.' But it happened with shoes off and good balance! Even the vet commented on what a good shape her hooves are!
 
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Think you need to post photos of her feet.

If she has had some complication such as thrush preventing a heel first landing, for instance, that could be your issue.

Or as you say she has issues in other areas, she could be compensating for that and this has caused hoof pain.

There has been at least one BF rehab at Rockley I remember.
 
Shoes off does not necessarily mean good balance. Was she self trimming our being trimmed? If she was trimmed did your trimmer take of flare and make her feet look symmetrical? Do her x rays show the back of her pedal bone parallel with the floor in a side to side direction?

My guess is that the hoof quality deterioration is to blame. I would test her for Cushings and put her on one on the Forageplus or Progressive Earth no-iron/high magnesium, copper, zinc supplements which often produce a big increase in foot quality.
 
Will take hoof pics at the weekend and will dig through old photos to compare also. Has always self trimmed until I stopped riding - got too long then so had them trimmed. She got very thin in winter 2014-15 as she just would not eat, so I initially put the hoof quality thing down to a band of weak hoof growing through from that. Hooves were always symmetrical, no flare.

Would cushings cause her to struggle to build muscle also? That is another piece in this puzzle!

Will look into forage plus.

The worst hoof has some coffin joint arthritis and pedal bone arthritis on the end where it slightly rotated with her recurrent lami years ago (2 years of on-off lami every time she ate a blade of grass/someone decided to feed her some hay/feed/mints between ages 8-10, then a grass-free year with no flare ups and she has been out on this field ever since).

All thoughts much appreciated.
 
Yes cushings would mean it was difficult to build muscle.

Ffion, certainly there have been several BF rehabs at rockley, one was one Cptrayes had initially owned and rehabbed. stencilface's chap who is there now was bare when he was given his navicular diagnosis - but he did have quite typical navicular feet at that point as his toes were long and heels had started to under run.
 
FfionWinnie said:
Think your clue here could be she's always self trimmed (and was apparently sound?) and now isn't self trimming and has a navicular diagnosis...
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The whole thing makes my head hurt. What causes navicular? Especially in a barefoot horse? Is it some random underlying problem that has caused her not to build muscle when she should, or was the lack of muscle caused by the navicular and her not using herself well in the field? But she wasn't building muscle when she was otherwise sound. My worry is that if we have something unusual causing it, she may not come right at all and we're heading down a road that will not have a good end. Or conversely, if we found out what it was, we could treat that and enhance her chances. There are perfectly normal explanations for a lot of the problems we have had. For example she self-trimmed when I hacked her out regularly. During times when one or other of us has been ill over the years, there's always been the need for the odd trim. She was being ridden a couple of times a week by sharers between January 2014-summer 2015. I was unable to walk without pain - couldn't lunge or anything. Not very surprising she didn't need a trim. Haven't ever had her hooves falling apart before though - that and the navicular are definitely linked!
 
mystiandsunny said:
The whole thing makes my head hurt. What causes navicular? Especially in a barefoot horse? Is it some random underlying problem that has caused her not to build muscle when she should, or was the lack of muscle caused by the navicular and her not using herself well in the field? But she wasn't building muscle when she was otherwise sound. My worry is that if we have something unusual causing it, she may not come right at all and we're heading down a road that will not have a good end. Or conversely, if we found out what it was, we could treat that and enhance her chances. There are perfectly normal explanations for a lot of the problems we have had. For example she self-trimmed when I hacked her out regularly. During times when one or other of us has been ill over the years, there's always been the need for the odd trim. She was being ridden a couple of times a week by sharers between January 2014-summer 2015. I was unable to walk without pain - couldn't lunge or anything. Not very surprising she didn't need a trim. Haven't ever had her hooves falling apart before though - that and the navicular are definitely linked!
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As Andalucian and I said in our first two posts on your thread, it's caused by unbalanced feet or inadequate stimulation of the back half of the foot. It's got nothing to do with being caused by the rest of the body, but it can cause plenty of issues in the rest of the body.


Her issues are probably the foot quality and the fact that she used to self trim and now has a trim imposed on her by someone else. Can you post some pics?
 
Self trimming is an optimum state where the horse wears (both meanings!) the foot it needs through work, not the one imposed on it by the trimmer/farrier.

Looking forward to seeing the pics. If you haven't already done so, check out the Rockley farm blog.
 
The only other case I have found so far, the horse turned out to have severe arthritis behind, thus causing the overloading of the fronts, also had coffin joint arthritis in the worse hoof, like we have. That horse was pts. My vet has checked the hind end - no arthritis, just locking stifles. I will update this thread as we go for anyone in the future who ends up looking for a similar case. Currently on day 4 after adequan and tildren she is grumpy and bored, chasing her friends around and being extremely bossy. Is much sounder though - choosing to canter and trot where she was just walking before.
 
Well, she is still steadily improving. Has started long reining with a theraband and will now walk forward keenly (kept trying to trot today!). She is enjoying doing something again and is no longer grumpy and bored. Her trot in the field when I see her catching up with her friends, is short striding but otherwise ok (no limping as there was before the treatment).
 
There was a survey of mustangs, obviously unshod, and there was a evidence of navicular in a fair percentage of them. Any bruising of the heels/ligaments can cause alteration to the horse's action and eventually navicular of some sort. So it is more about what has happened to the horse and what has changed. It may not be anything in particular just that some sort of additional strain has been put on the heels. Good luck and once balance has been restored he should improve a lot.
 
old hand said:
There was a survey of mustangs, obviously unshod, and there was a evidence of navicular in a fair percentage of them. Any bruising of the heels/ligaments can cause alteration to the horse's action and eventually navicular of some sort. So it is more about what has happened to the horse and what has changed. It may not be anything in particular just that some sort of additional strain has been put on the heels. Good luck and once balance has been restored he should improve a lot.
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That is very interesting - thanks for that!

General update - at two weeks after initial treatment, she is trotting for part of each long-reining session (and I'm struggling to keep up, lame as I am!), is landing much flatter with her hooves rather than toe first, and is striding out a lot more than she was (although still not a normal, flicky trot). She is flicking her hooves out in front a bit in walk, which is good to see. She's also more alert and interested in the world, keen to do the long reining and full of horsey opinions on everything that her friends do!
 
Three weeks after treatment, now had the full loading dose of Adequan. With her last bute 30 hours before, she was trotting like a normal horse today. Striding out, tracking up beautifully and looking like her old stunning self. She launched into canter at one point and had a good buck and twist. No lameness after, no obvious 'ouch' as she landed. Her canter is not right - sits up a lot going one way and looks a little unbalanced the other (she offered it, 'twas not my suggestion!). Can trot for 10min solid though with no issues. 3 weeks ago she was lame in walk so I am quite happy with this! Still shod, due to see the farrier next week. No idea where the future will take us but she is happy. Time to get on and ride in walk now.
 
Four weeks after treatment, she's up to 20 minutes of exercise - 10 mins trotting with the theraband while being led from another horse, and 10 minutes of riding (walk). She cantered on the lunge yesterday and definitely looked better than last week. I say 'lunge' but we're in the field and we kind of do an arena shape (I run with her on the straight bits, then she trots round the end while I walk with her). She also came cantering up for her feed on Tuesday - she thought the others might get there first so raced them. It was uphill, but nice to see her having fun.
 
Glad to hear she's improving, I'm picking mine up this week who had ddft damage in both feet so I'll let you know how he is.

He's mentioned further up the post, I didn't realise his feet were that obviously bad, any average person would have said his feet were in good condition, as I would have done before. Who knew I knew so little!
 
stencilface said:
Glad to hear she's improving, I'm picking mine up this week who had ddft damage in both feet so I'll let you know how he is.

He's mentioned further up the post, I didn't realise his feet were that obviously bad, any average person would have said his feet were in good condition, as I would have done before. Who knew I knew so little!
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Would love to hear how he is! I couldn't afford to send my mare to Rockley (2 small children = no money!) so going for as much movement as possible and following vet advice.
 
mystiandsunny said:
Would love to hear how he is! I couldn't afford to send my mare to Rockley (2 small children = no money!) so going for as much movement as possible and following vet advice.
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Ha, no I can't afford it either. I am STILL battling with the insurance company 3 months on, I'm not letting it go! Grrr.

I've started to create a fenced area for him along our gravel track, put in some electric so he doesn't lean over the barbed wire fence and scoff the grass in the farmer's sheep field. Hoping to get him moving on there by putting a wheelie bin of hay at one end and leaving the water as far away as possible!
 
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