Samwhoo
New User
I purchased a very lovely and straight 16.2 lightweight hunter (ish) in September 2018. He had recently passed a 5 stage vetting and had previously been a professional horse competing with the likes of Jayne Ross ( Webber).
He has competed and placed well at county level most of his working life and placed 2nd at Hoys in the lightweight hunter class, my reason for mentioning this is not to brag but to state that the horse clearly has some good conformation.
Fast forward to May 2019. He was not sound. being barefoot over winter proved great for him until we had the week of dry weather throughout may and his feet cracked and chipped away. I called my farrier of 6 years and asked him to come out and put shoes on and check him over. Now this is where i think things went wrong.
Looking at the chips and cracks I believed that we would be looking at a couple of sets of shoes for them to grow out? Nope. Farrier cut them away and his feet were incredibly short. He was Lame within a few days.
I called the vet concerned about an deep rooted abscess ( gut instinct feeling from previous experience) the vet attended and diagnosed bruising to the hoof wall.
prescribed bute for a week and too call him if needed. very blaze in my opinion but on we went with the bute of which he finished on a Friday.
Sunday i brought him in from the field and a few hours later popped back to see to him. He was around 7/10 Lame. I called the vet who attended and confirmed an abscess.
This resulted in a week of box rest and poulticing which left me annoyed as this was my original worry. The abscess burst and drained and i requested the vet Xray to ensure that no damage has been caused. X-rays were clear. I was told to have his shoe put back on and again see how he goes.
Weds last week I called and requested my usual vet as the horse is still clearly lame. what i did notice at this point is a distinct 'twist' from the fetlock down. the inside of the hoof is considerably shorter than the outside. Heartbroken i realised that my farrier of 6 years had potentially botched my horse.
This was commented on by the farrier that also placed his shoe back on at the abscess point and advised that the side heel was slightly 'crushed'
The vet advised that she did not believe this to be lameness from bruising or abscess and requested the horse attend for lameness work ups at the practice.
2 days later ( This friday just gone) my horse arrived at the vets for 9am for a lameness work up. i left expecting a call around 12pm. My phone rang at 10.30
We are looking at a navicular diagnoses with minimal changes to the bone but concerns are the soft tissue and DDF tendon? and that the horse has god given poor conformation fetlock down. That conformation issue is not god given and has been caused by my farrier ( his sloppiness had been noticed in the run up to this so i take full responsibility for not dealing with this)
now my question is. Why would this not have been picked up on the first lot of Xrays of which 3 people had reviewed? If the changes in the bone are minimum would this be expected in a horse of 14 years old?
I am genuinely thinking this is an issue caused by my farrier ( i would not say this lightly and have no intention of bad mouthing him)
Can a 'twist' in the leg give off similar soft tissue symptoms to navicular ?
I apologise for a the babble its hard to write it all out.
He has competed and placed well at county level most of his working life and placed 2nd at Hoys in the lightweight hunter class, my reason for mentioning this is not to brag but to state that the horse clearly has some good conformation.
Fast forward to May 2019. He was not sound. being barefoot over winter proved great for him until we had the week of dry weather throughout may and his feet cracked and chipped away. I called my farrier of 6 years and asked him to come out and put shoes on and check him over. Now this is where i think things went wrong.
Looking at the chips and cracks I believed that we would be looking at a couple of sets of shoes for them to grow out? Nope. Farrier cut them away and his feet were incredibly short. He was Lame within a few days.
I called the vet concerned about an deep rooted abscess ( gut instinct feeling from previous experience) the vet attended and diagnosed bruising to the hoof wall.
prescribed bute for a week and too call him if needed. very blaze in my opinion but on we went with the bute of which he finished on a Friday.
Sunday i brought him in from the field and a few hours later popped back to see to him. He was around 7/10 Lame. I called the vet who attended and confirmed an abscess.
This resulted in a week of box rest and poulticing which left me annoyed as this was my original worry. The abscess burst and drained and i requested the vet Xray to ensure that no damage has been caused. X-rays were clear. I was told to have his shoe put back on and again see how he goes.
Weds last week I called and requested my usual vet as the horse is still clearly lame. what i did notice at this point is a distinct 'twist' from the fetlock down. the inside of the hoof is considerably shorter than the outside. Heartbroken i realised that my farrier of 6 years had potentially botched my horse.
This was commented on by the farrier that also placed his shoe back on at the abscess point and advised that the side heel was slightly 'crushed'
The vet advised that she did not believe this to be lameness from bruising or abscess and requested the horse attend for lameness work ups at the practice.
2 days later ( This friday just gone) my horse arrived at the vets for 9am for a lameness work up. i left expecting a call around 12pm. My phone rang at 10.30
We are looking at a navicular diagnoses with minimal changes to the bone but concerns are the soft tissue and DDF tendon? and that the horse has god given poor conformation fetlock down. That conformation issue is not god given and has been caused by my farrier ( his sloppiness had been noticed in the run up to this so i take full responsibility for not dealing with this)
now my question is. Why would this not have been picked up on the first lot of Xrays of which 3 people had reviewed? If the changes in the bone are minimum would this be expected in a horse of 14 years old?
I am genuinely thinking this is an issue caused by my farrier ( i would not say this lightly and have no intention of bad mouthing him)
Can a 'twist' in the leg give off similar soft tissue symptoms to navicular ?
I apologise for a the babble its hard to write it all out.