Possible Navicular ( also in Vet)

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CleverHorses

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On behalf of a friend.

Her novice eventer has just been diagnosed with left suspensory and bone changes to the navicular in both feet.
She is going for for an MRi soon subject to insurance to see if there is any soft tissue damage.


Is she going event again?

Wanting all storries good and bad on horses that have it.

Thanks
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My advice to your friend.

Navicular is curable in very many cases by taking the horse shoeless. Start by researching at rockleyfarm.co.uk, uknhcp.org.uk and barefoothorses.co.uk and follow every lead you find until you understand what is involved. It is more than just a trim, it's a management, feed and conditioning issue. You have to get everything right, but if you can do that then experience has shown that your eventer should be curable.

If your insurance will pay or you can afford it Rockley Farm in Devon takes rehabilitation liveries. There may be others but I don't know of them.

Please don't listen to anyone who tells you to put the horse down before trying a barefoot rehab (unless you decide to do it to take the insurance money and save the bother of a rehab). There are many of us who will take it off your hands, get it right (if possible) and then ride it hunting and jumping .

You would, of course, be daft to shoe again if shoeing gave the horse navicular, but you don't need to. I evented two horses to Novice affiliated barefoot and three more to Pre-novice. I hunt others. Tom Robinson took a barefoot horse to Advanced.
 
Navicular is not curable.. im sorry. Navicular syndrome is a degerative condition that is managable but is not curable.

If the horse is sound there is no reason why, with the correct farriery (and i dont mean shod, I mean any form of the proffession) and management this horse can event, It is unlikly the horse would be able to compete at any high level unfortunatly.

Lou x
 
Navicular is a degenerative condition and cannot be 'cured'. There are treatments and management steps which can manage the condition to slow the disease's progress and aliviate pain and symptoms.

I have had a few horses with navicular, one personally and the others through work. By far the best reigime we found was good shoeing for support (farrier had extensive experience and did fantastic jobs), and devil's claw for anti inflammatory and pain management. All the horses continued in light work, but we stopped the sort of hard fast work associated with eventing (horses did XC and hunting prior but not actual eventing) but continued to be happy in light work ( vet recommended light work over field ornament as exercise increases blood flow to the area which is beneficial). My horse was insured for LOU and this was paid out when he was diagnosed and he carried on for several years as a pleasure ride.

I would encourage your friend to seek her vets advice, only they can assess what damage there is and what the prognosis is. I hope for the best.
 
Our boy has just come back into work after lots of treatment for navicular (Tildren, Irap and now wears bar shoes). He had a collection of mild conditions, all related to navicular "syndrome" - some bone deterioration, soft tissue damage (small tears to DDFT and possible damage to collateral lig). All this showed up on his MRI at O'Gorman's in Newbury. The vet there, who's an expert, says there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to do whatever we want him to in the future and we should get "several" more years riding with him (whatever that means!). Navicular isn't the automatic write-off it used to be but it will depend on how severe the changes are. It can't be cured but it can be treated. There's another horse on our yard who was diagnosed with N 18 months ago. Owner was told he'd never be ridden again (his was worse than our boy's) and he's absolutely sound now.

Fingers crossed for your friend. Tell her not to lose heart!
 
Yes ditto this, get the feet balanced! Plenty of time to rest recover and heal....

Must admit im quite intrigued about the barefoot theory, as it actually makes sense to me...

Just dont know how practical it would be for every horse.
 
If a horse with Navicular is currently lame i normally suggest shoes off and a a period of rest. with regular trimming to balace and correct the feet as navicular seems to go hand in hand with long toes and collpased heels. (often)

Then there are various methods you can try to keep the horse sound and in work. Navicular disease is degenerative and will get worse but can be managed. Has she chatted to her farrier about the horse yet?

The easywalker horse shoe is fab as its a bar shoe made from plastics that allow the foot to be supprted correctly and protected for work, it eliminates concussion which is not a friend of navicular and it allows the foot to move like a barefoot one ensuring blood supply to the area, i have had some good results with this shoe.
 
There are plenty of case studies of navicular horses that have been cured by going barefoot, and as the above poster says, it is a whole horse regime. Just look on the above websites. There was a picture in Horse and Hound last season of a horse that had been diagnosed and retired with navicular, which was hunting again on Exmoor, without shoes.

Of course, if it is so far advanced that the bones have been destroyed then it couldn't be cured.

There are also the Epona shoes that are suggested for such feet, but I don't know if you could event in them, although people do endurance with them,and like them a lot.
 
The horses are not CURED.. of navicular.. the nature of the condition is that is causes arthritic changes in the distal sesimoid bone and therefore can not be CURED.

for any for of lameness to occur, the condition has effected the internal stuctures nd will continue to progress.

LOu x
 
Just to add that I went to a seminar by an american barefoot expert, who was also a trained farrier - Pete Ramey. I was sitting by a lady whose 10 year old mare had been PTS with navicular. Pete went through step by step the "convential" treatments described above, which is what this lady's horse had received. She was quite upset to think that had she had the knowledge that she might have been able to keep her horse.

When Pete first started treating horses with his barefoot method he made a point of buying up horses that had navicular and then treating them by his barefoot trimming and he mostly cured them, to enable them to go back into work and be riding horses again. The one he couldn't cure had severe bone changes, so he warned the audience that the horse should have X rays first to determine the amount and type of damage. A competent barefoot trimmer would insist on X rays and the correct diagnosis first.

Pete also had before and after X rays to see how the feet and internal structures can heal.
 
Please stop saying cured as it isn't fair on people with horses with Navicular. Navicular is NOT curable. It is manageable. I am really glad that 'Pete' has had such a good success rate of making the horses he deals with 'sound' but they are not cured! Once you have changes they cannot be reversed. Some horses can be mis-diagnosed as conditions in the foot can be hard to pin point but Navicular does not disappear.
Good foot management with a knowledgeable farrier working in conjunction with your vet is the first thing to do after diagnosis.
 
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