littlemare_
Well-Known Member
Looking for advice and opinions please… sorry this will be rather long!!
I have a 17 year old mare who has started struggling with straightness on the right rein. She is trailing her hindquarters to the inside - mostly in trot and worse with a contact; she’s pretty good in in canter. She is also showing reluctance to go bend into the corners and will push to cut them off, sometimes brings her head up. Mare knows her lateral work but is again trailing her hindquarters when asked to leg yield to the left (off the right rein) and is very unwilling to move over. She finds left rein canter more difficult and this has weakened in the sense she is less willing to soften over back and is rushing. She can lean on the left rein sometimes.
Having looked back at photos she does tend to stand with her right hind toe slightly pointing to the outside and more under her.
I will say that when I got her she was very tense and unbalanced/incorrect in her way of going generally, terrible saddle/teeth etc and has hugely improved and was still improving. I have weekly lessons and my instructor also picked up on the changes so we tried to work through them in the school, but haven’t seen an improvement so I called the vet. He is a lameness specialist and highly reccomended in the area. He palpitated her back which was fine but with some soreness in the SI area. He assessed her before and after flexions (which showed no change) and on the lunge. He then watched me ridden and could see the issues I felt. He said he wouldnt describe her as lame but understood what I meant and agreed she was ‘off’.
He said that she also moves her right hind slightly unusually - instead of bringing it forward straight she rotates it inward slightly, but it lands where it should and she is forward and tracking up. He felt there was something going on in the right hind and that any SI soreness was likely secondary because of this.
His initial thought was probably the start of mild hock arthritis so nerve blocked her right hock. The fluid came out clear which he said is a sign of inflammation (should be yellow?) but that the needle was easy to inject so no sign of fusing. Unfortunately this didn’t make any difference her when worked.
We then ran out of time/daylight so he is booked to come out again next Friday to carry on the work up. He would like to block the suspensory and stifle next.
I’m really looking for any opinions/experiences about what these symptoms might be, and advice on if this seems to be the right diagnostic route or if I should be pushing for something else. I do wonder if there is inflammation in the hock it could still be a hock issue, but improvement wasn’t seen because of her soreness in the SI. Vet doesn’t seem to think so, thinks it would be secondary and says SI is very difficult to diagnose.
She is my one in a million and I just want her to come right!
Many thanks for any thoughts
I have a 17 year old mare who has started struggling with straightness on the right rein. She is trailing her hindquarters to the inside - mostly in trot and worse with a contact; she’s pretty good in in canter. She is also showing reluctance to go bend into the corners and will push to cut them off, sometimes brings her head up. Mare knows her lateral work but is again trailing her hindquarters when asked to leg yield to the left (off the right rein) and is very unwilling to move over. She finds left rein canter more difficult and this has weakened in the sense she is less willing to soften over back and is rushing. She can lean on the left rein sometimes.
Having looked back at photos she does tend to stand with her right hind toe slightly pointing to the outside and more under her.
I will say that when I got her she was very tense and unbalanced/incorrect in her way of going generally, terrible saddle/teeth etc and has hugely improved and was still improving. I have weekly lessons and my instructor also picked up on the changes so we tried to work through them in the school, but haven’t seen an improvement so I called the vet. He is a lameness specialist and highly reccomended in the area. He palpitated her back which was fine but with some soreness in the SI area. He assessed her before and after flexions (which showed no change) and on the lunge. He then watched me ridden and could see the issues I felt. He said he wouldnt describe her as lame but understood what I meant and agreed she was ‘off’.
He said that she also moves her right hind slightly unusually - instead of bringing it forward straight she rotates it inward slightly, but it lands where it should and she is forward and tracking up. He felt there was something going on in the right hind and that any SI soreness was likely secondary because of this.
His initial thought was probably the start of mild hock arthritis so nerve blocked her right hock. The fluid came out clear which he said is a sign of inflammation (should be yellow?) but that the needle was easy to inject so no sign of fusing. Unfortunately this didn’t make any difference her when worked.
We then ran out of time/daylight so he is booked to come out again next Friday to carry on the work up. He would like to block the suspensory and stifle next.
I’m really looking for any opinions/experiences about what these symptoms might be, and advice on if this seems to be the right diagnostic route or if I should be pushing for something else. I do wonder if there is inflammation in the hock it could still be a hock issue, but improvement wasn’t seen because of her soreness in the SI. Vet doesn’t seem to think so, thinks it would be secondary and says SI is very difficult to diagnose.
She is my one in a million and I just want her to come right!
Many thanks for any thoughts
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