Pics and vids for those who asked...

kerilli said:
i'll fish out another vid if you want.
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yes please :D

Sorry I cant offer any help about your predicament btw. I can't ride for toffee and wouldn't know where to start (lucky for me BH turned out to be naturally tidy over a fence or we'd be in big trouble :eek:)
 
Personally I do not think she is a hopeless case. Her hindlegs do not shout "problem" to me and she canters in a balanced way (albeit her own way...) Perhaps she does have kissing spines but I suspect a lot of horses do. One of my horses was graded Advanced and evented to 2*. We discovered his kissing spines after he retired. His XC record was only spoiled by two rider error 20 penalties.

Have been trying to find a video of The Irishman online but he seems to have been competing before video was invented. He had a similar style.

Give it three months of schooling and testing exercises. If she has not improved then let her go hunting. Change takes time.
 
jesstickle said:
yes please :D

Sorry I cant offer any help about your predicament btw. I can't ride for toffee and wouldn't know where to start (lucky for me BH turned out to be naturally tidy over a fence or we'd be in big trouble :eek:)
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Huge apologies for being out of touch, I've been away so neither saw the original thread nor read the legion replies you've had to this! But something caught my eye in your first post where you mentioned she made her shape after the fence. I had one that did this, a good number of years ago. He was quite nappy too, and considered opinion was that this (ie the making shape after the fence) was usually a sign of back issues. This was before MRIs and thermal imaging and such things being par for the course, so the horse was eventually retired to the blood bank. However we suspected sacro-iliac with this particular one.

Sorry didn't mean to quote above, that's what happens when you take a few days away from the internet, you forget how to use it!
 
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teapot said:
Can't offer any advice on the horse but loving the crow :D
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Ditto this! My uncle has one too - rescued from their street with a dodgy wing. He lives in a jerry-built aviary in their garden as he can't fly properly now, and is completely tame - and very cool. Certainly finds his humans amusing! Corvids are seriously bright birds :)
 
We gave him his leg rings, they had my phone number & Reward on them, but we've taken them off him now, he can obv fend for himself, & find his way home...
Thanks for the other advice everyone.
I have a vid of The Irishman, will find it... I remember him being good in front tho..
 
Bearskin said:
Perhaps she does have kissing spines but I suspect a lot of horses do. One of my horses was graded Advanced and evented to 2*. We discovered his kissing spines after he retired. His XC record was only spoiled by two rider error 20 penalties.
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Research would say that you're probably absolutely right about that one- there have been a few papers on kissing spines that say that they are really quite common (one paper found that 90% of wild horses had them but had no lameness/other physical issues). A lot of people are now theorising that in many 'kissing spines' cases the horses have had impinging DSPs for a long time and some sort of trauma has caused them to become painful.
 
vallin said:
Nothing constructive to add, was just wondering how you other (patient) horses were doing?
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Ellie's turned out (finally) and improving, just finishing second course of steroids. At this rate I hope she'll at least stay good enough to hack and maybe do some dressage, the odd thing is she looks 100% in herself (no atrophy anywhere etc) apart from wobblyness of hindend... but she's now cantering around and not looking as if she'll fall over, so, huge improvement.
Jinni (the yearling) is now turned out again, on vet's advice; she's coping, but her neck looks pretty awful. muscle really atrophied, equally both sides. vets say 'wait and see'... but i am heartbroken, she looked so promising before and now she looks like two different animals shoved together. her neck looks very stiff, she isn't bending it well but doesn't seem to be in any pain, just doesn't want to bend it. :( :( :(
thanks for asking, much appreciated.
dafthoss, he spat a bit of his suet bird pellet into my mouth, i just couldn't cope with that! only time he's done it too, typical.
 
kerilli said:
Jinni (the yearling) is now turned out again, on vet's advice; she's coping, but her neck looks pretty awful. muscle really atrophied, equally both sides. vets say 'wait and see'... but i am heartbroken, she looked so promising before and now she looks like two different animals shoved together. her neck looks very stiff, she isn't bending it well but doesn't seem to be in any pain, just doesn't want to bend it. :( :( :(
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This makes me so sad for you :( I really hope you and your girls have a change of luck very soon. For what it's worth, as a person with an injured neck whose problem stems from muscle wastage, stretches, religiously, are slowly making improvements for me that I never thought possible before they diagnosed the reason behind my pain, so do keep persevering. Give me a shout if you want to know more, as what the hospital have taught me about my condition may well apply to Jinni. x
 
Caz is cool! Thank you for sharing the video of him.

Glad to hear that Ellie is improving. Sorry to hear that Jinni is still stiff, but Dr Green is a wonderful healer so will keep things crossed that Dr Green and some stretching help everything recover.
 
Re Jinny agree with Puppy, physio (especially every day stuff, rather than just having intense sessions) is the way forward for things you can't "fix". It may not make it so it never happened but at this point I think it makes sense to help her as much as possible, in order to optimise her growth.

I think I mentioned before that a breeder I work for had a similar-ish thing happen to their absolute star, all the hopes pinned on three year old. They turned him away for the summer, in the field with the other colts, with the idea of likely putting him down in the winter. He was better enough by fall so they left him and by the next summer he was okay enough to back. I'll admit he wasn't the horse he was - he even looked different in some undefinable way - and he'd lost some of his movement but he went on to event for a good few years, up to the equivalent of Novice. Given how many fabulous three year olds don't fulfil early promise, for all I know he never was going to be a star anyway. They had time and space.

I know you don't have that sort of challenging turn out but you do have your own time and enthusiasm. There are lots of interesting rehab ideas for horses. Look into T-Touch and the relatively recent "Masterson Method" book. There is also a very interesting French book (some of which will make you cringe but skip those bits!) which I will find a link for. What they heck, it's worth a shot.

Heck, my mother designed a successful rehab program for my pet rat after he had a stroke!

It is true, she might never now be the horse you've dreamed of but maybe the grey horse is here to show you that proactive measures at the first sign of trouble are the way to go, not just trusting to luck time and the same old, same old will fix things? (Although I'm a big fan of time and tradition, too!)
 
great, thanks.
am doing daily stretches and massaging on her, physio booked, thermal imaging booked, chiro booked, not sure what else i can do now...
trouble is i don't want to risk making it worse, and it clunks and grinds when she turns it, argh. :( :( :( a little bit of me thinks 'nature's way is to lock it straight for a while to let things heal as they are'... you know?
Puppy, I'll ask you on fb, thankyou so much.
 
Oh, completely agree, you have to get a diagnosis and know you're not making anything worse before you start any kind of program! Just to the idea that there are lots of helpful options out there if and when you get the all clear.
 
kerilli said:
Ellie's turned out (finally) and improving, just finishing second course of steroids. At this rate I hope she'll at least stay good enough to hack and maybe do some dressage, the odd thing is she looks 100% in herself (no atrophy anywhere etc) apart from wobblyness of hindend... but she's now cantering around and not looking as if she'll fall over, so, huge improvement.
Jinni (the yearling) is now turned out again, on vet's advice; she's coping, but her neck looks pretty awful. muscle really atrophied, equally both sides. vets say 'wait and see'... but i am heartbroken, she looked so promising before and now she looks like two different animals shoved together. her neck looks very stiff, she isn't bending it well but doesn't seem to be in any pain, just doesn't want to bend it. :( :( :(
thanks for asking, much appreciated.
dafthoss, he spat a bit of his suet bird pellet into my mouth, i just couldn't cope with that! only time he's done it too, typical.
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Best of luck with them, time and patients is a great healer :) I managed to pop a few (albeit very small!) jumps on my mare this weekend who I never thought would be able to do more than really hack (and she doesn't do that very well! ;) ) so there is hope :)
 
Oh you are having a bad time at the minute it's the horsey doldrums that hits every so often keep smiling and you will come though.
And I so want a Caz I am going to check from lost chicks under the crows nests in our woods and then I'll be pming you for advice.
 
thanks FF, i'll look into TTouch, i have a book about it somewhere, will fish it out.
oh, post resurrected, thanks hollyandivy! progress... hmm. had her treated by my excellent McTimoney Chiro last week, he found quite a few things wrong but nothing terribly bad, he thought. she had a few days off after that treatment, then hacked a few days, felt absolutely fine and quite a bit brighter in herself. I worked her harder on the flat on Tuesday, no vid unfortunately, but she felt totally even and fine, and I asked a lot more and got the canter more 'up'. Had Thermal Imaging done yesterday and am awaiting report and pics. Certainly there were quite a few red flag areas, withers area was very bad, C7 chest area was very bad, and her lower limbs all showed terrible circulation, coming down from a back issue apparently. so, numb legs? maybe. possibly a reason for the lack of conscience? more questions than answers at the moment... frustrating!
 
so it is good and bad with the thermal...............bad that there is a problem but good in the sense that there is a problem to treat and gives a possible starting point to work from which i hope has an easy solution!
 
Just saw the comments about Tellington Touch - what is it you are thinking of using it for? I've done some training of this (I worked for Sarah Fisher who does it and teaches it) for a little while, so just wondered? Sorry haven't read the whole post...
 
hollyandivy, yes, good and bad with the thermal... funny, no surprises really. i had my yearling Jinni done too, and gave the lady a brief history. it shows HUGE heat in the head, as well as the known trouble spots of neck, C7 etc... and she came back with "is there any chance this one has had a head injury"... ah, yes, seriously concussed herself. amazing what the Thermal Imaging shows up, even months later. I think it's a very valuable tool... will save up for my own camera at this rate!
lynds, i have two ataxic horses at the moment and a new one in who doesn't seem to know where her front legs are when she jumps, so, 3 of them, really. i have the big TT book though, is that a good starting point? thanks.
 
kerilli said:
hollyandivy, yes, good and bad with the thermal... funny, no surprises really. i had my yearling Jinni done too, and gave the lady a brief history. it shows HUGE heat in the head, as well as the known trouble spots of neck, C7 etc... and she came back with "is there any chance this one has had a head injury"... ah, yes, seriously concussed herself. amazing what the Thermal Imaging shows up, even months later. I think it's a very valuable tool... will save up for my own camera at this rate!
lynds, i have two ataxic horses at the moment and a new one in who doesn't seem to know where her front legs are when she jumps, so, 3 of them, really. i have the big TT book though, is that a good starting point? thanks.
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Not entirely sure which book you're referring to - I've got a massive folder that I was given but not the books; Linda Tellington-Jones is the founder (name gives it away!) so she'd be the one to read it from I would think.

There's one exercise that would probably help your mare that doesn't always pick up jumping (had a look at the videos) called a Python Lift - might be worth taking a look at... It might help her to become more aware of where her legs are.

To be perfectly honest I haven't seen it used on ataxic horses; I would imagine it could be useful as it releases stiffness, and raises the bodies awareness as to what the animal is doing etc.
 
kerilli said:
hollyandivy, yes, good and bad with the thermal... funny, no surprises really. i had my yearling Jinni done too, and gave the lady a brief history. it shows HUGE heat in the head, as well as the known trouble spots of neck, C7 etc... and she came back with "is there any chance this one has had a head injury"... ah, yes, seriously concussed herself. amazing what the Thermal Imaging shows up, even months later.
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Can I ask who you used and how much it cost you. I'm very sceptical ( because I am a massive sceptic about pretty much everything!) but someone suggested it might be useful for BH's mystery lame leg ( I decided to just turn him away in the end btw, at least three months but probably six I expect)

Sorry to hijack!
 
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