Old Suspensory Branch Injury in OTTB

[CurbBitz]

Hello everyone, I recently purchased my first OTTB. A 9 year old gelding with 69 starts that was just retired in September of this year. He is a pretty solid built gelding but has one major flaw. He had a suspensory injury years ago. He has been raced on it since and according to the lady I bought him from has had no issues. The inside of his left front is clearly thicker and harder than the right. I did have him to my vet to verify that he was not in any pain from it. The vet did determine that he is 100% sound and had little to no sensitivity to the area. He didn't respond negatively to any of the flexion tests that the vet did and the vet determined that he SHOULD be ok so long as he is not brought back into work too quickly (though there is clearly a lot of scar tissue). I do trust my vet but also apparently really like to lay awake at night thinking about these things.

I'm curious to know what everyone else's experiences have been with suspensory injuries. While I would love to do some jumping, I am sure that we will only be doing trail riding, fun shows (equitation, HUS, etc), and maybe some very low level dressage. My biggest concern is weather or not he will be able to climb in the mountains as we do tend to go on overnight rides in the summer.

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

So long as you don't plan to gallop up one side and then down the other of the steep bits of trail rides then there is absolutely no reason why the horse won't be able to do everything you want to do. The fact that the horse has raced on for a few years from the injury suggests that it is well healed and stands up to a lot of work.

When bringing the horse back into work off of a long break - 1 month + - then yeah you will be doing a fair bit of walking and building up but so long as you take it slow the horse should be absolutely fine.

 

[ihatework]

My take on it is if a horse has started 69 times and has raced post injury and retired sound then you are stacking the odds in your favour of being ok! If I were wanting to take on an ex racer I’d want one like that proven tough and sound.