Navicular Syndrome ?

[Samwhoo]

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.

 

[Meowy Catkin]

This is a quality horse and at 14 he should have many more years left in him. I wouldn't mess around, get in touch with Nic at Rockley (send her the x-rays and photos too) and see if your vet would consider a referral.

https://rockleyfarm.co.uk/blog.html

 

[Pinkvboots]

Quite often navicular is a condition caused by soft tissue damage or a strain elsewhere in the leg, so yes there is a big possibility that your horse has soft tissue damage elsewhere, I can't imagine your farrier has done that much damage in such a short time but I stand to be corrected. I have a 15 year old Arab with navicular his no kept barefoot as after much research I found it was possibly the best way to go ad Faracat has suggested.

 

[Pinkvboots]

Best option may be an mri that way it will show everything soft tissue bone the lot.

 

[Gloi]

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.

The usual reason for barefoot hooves starting cracking and chipping is that the walls have been left too long, or have been allowed to grow too long. Keeping them short with a good roll on them this shouldn't happen provided the horse has a diet which is suitable for growing a healthy hoof.

 

[sbloom]

The usual reason for barefoot hooves starting cracking and chipping is that the walls have been left too long, or have been allowed to grow too long. Keeping them short with a good roll on them this shouldn't happen provided the horse has a diet which is suitable for growing a healthy hoof.

I would say actually it's more likely to be mild to more severe white line disease, especially in shod horses but can be common in barefoot horses too, hardly ever mentioned by farriers because, like mild thrush, it's often seen as perfectly normal. I have known a horse be lame on and off for nearly a year because of undiagnosed thrush which only showed once xrays were taken!

 

[Samwhoo]

Thank you everyone.

I had the vets farrier assess him last night and he has advised we still need growth in the foot before we can do very much. They have been growing out for 9 weeks already... i will pop pictures on later of a few days after i bought him and recent. The difference is shocking.

I will contact rockley farm as advised above. They seem to be the most recommended course of action I've seen throughout others posts.

MRI referral has gone through and I'm awaiting the appointment.

 

[Samwhoo]

I would say actually it's more likely to be mild to more severe white line disease, especially in shod horses but can be common in barefoot horses too, hardly ever mentioned by farriers because, like mild thrush, it's often seen as perfectly normal. I have known a horse be lame on and off for nearly a year because of undiagnosed thrush which only showed once xrays were taken!

He has had two lots of Xrays and attended the vets for a lameness work up. They found a mild changes in his navicular bone and have requested MRI to assess soft tissue damage. The farrier that assessed him last night said his leg isnt sitting where it should be. The inside of the hoof is much shorter than the outside.

 

[pastit]

Can the farrier not pack out the short side with resin(?) as a temporary measure to make the horse more comfortable? The farrier organisations show some pretty fancy remedial shoeing techniques. Perhaps you need to find a remedial specialist to use until the hoof recovers.

 

[sbloom]

He has had two lots of Xrays and attended the vets for a lameness work up. They found a mild changes in his navicular bone and have requested MRI to assess soft tissue damage. The farrier that assessed him last night said his leg isnt sitting where it should be. The inside of the hoof is much shorter than the outside.

I was talking about the chipping, not the lameness, and that there was another likely cause rather than the hoof being too long. May not apply to you but wanted to add it to the conversation as it's so seldom talked about.

 

[ester]

I'd suspect you have a good change of this being resolvable it would certainly be interesting to see pics especially given the cracking you mention - which would at this point make me wonder about diet and whether that can be improved as a starting point while you wait for MRI etc.

 

[holeymoley]

In terms of farriery you need a good remedial farrier who not only knows what he’s talking about but is interested in ‘fixing’ the horse. Ideally try and get one with Awcf or even better fwcf to their name as they will be trained to deal with some aspect of remedial shoeing. I personally believe what your describing is fixable over time. The whole hoof sounds unbalanced and will need supported and corrected through various shoeings.

 

[holeymoley]

In terms of farriery you need a good remedial farrier who not only knows what he’s talking about but is interested in ‘fixing’ the horse. Ideally try and get one with Awcf or even better fwcf to their name as they will be trained to deal with a greater aspect of remedial shoeing. I personally believe what your describing is fixable over time. The whole hoof sounds unbalanced and will need supported and corrected through various shoeings.

 

[ohmissbrittany]

Answer to your main question: Yes, if everything was good with the feet until your farrier started doing him for several months... that's the first place I would look. Often in a misguided attempt to "grow heel" they can be made to collapse. Other posters have chimed in about what causes chipping etc.

But a lot of "navicular" diagnoses I have witnessed (or had in my own horses) are not true navicular bone issues, more DDFT/soft tissue but basically all heel pain is now described as navicular whether the bone is actually afflicted or not. Take the shoe off and allow the feet to "reset" themselves- I've seen it work in my own crushed heel horse, a couple other with "sucked up" or sheared heels, etc. Sometimes the best thing to do is leave them alone for a bit and they'll tell you what needs growth or removal.