Serviceably sound

[SO1]

Interesting article doing the rounds on Facebook. I quite like the doctor ramey articles.

What Ever Happened to "Serviceably" Sound? - David Ramey, DVM

When I first got out of veterinary school and started looking at horses prior to purchase (usually referred to as a “vet check” or a prepurchase exam), the horses usually fit into one of three categories. The first category was the horse that had no problems noted at the time of the exam. That...

www.doctorramey.com

 

[ycbm]

I'm afraid I hated that article when I first read it a couple of years back (it's not new, it's been republished) and I hate it now. It just gives people excuses to ride lame horses.
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[FieldOrnaments]

Serviceably sound is just a nice way of saying 'not lame enough to pause our enjoyment for the animal's comfort'. They deserve so, so much more than that.

 

[FieldOrnaments]

It brings to mind this I saw the other day. If this is the state a horse who is uncomplaining and polite can be in - how much physiological disorder could a 'serviceably sound' one be in?

"Horses owe us nothing. We owe them everything."

 

[Birker2020]

It rather aludes to the fact that there are only a small proportion of horses that are actually technically sound, my vet said in all his years he'd only found a handful that truly were on a pre purchase examination. I agree with low level work and pain relief, its only what humans have been doing for thousands of years. If a horse is no longer in pain then that can only be a good thing. However, not sure I would want to buy one on pain relief!

 

[khalswitz]

Yes, there are times when I’d ride a horse that wasn’t sound. But they are a small number of specific circumstances and I don’t think it’s necessarily useful to put the general idea of riding a lame horse out into the world like that.

Older horses with arthritis may have low grade lameness but benefit hugely from movement and therefore regular light riding - especially straight line hacking at their own pace. They will *not* be athletes, though.

My last horse had a horrific injury where he severed his extensor tendon in the near hind - he did unfortunately die due to a bone sequestrum developing, but prior to that coming up my vet was having frank conversations about riding him again once healed up. He developed a stringhalt gait because he had to sort of flip his foot and stamp down rather than extend the joints properly, so he wasn’t sound - but when the injury was healed and there was no damage to be done, he would have been in absolutely no pain to hack about on.

But a lame horse where you don’t know the reason? Or there’s ongoing soft tissue damage? Or anything causing pain that isn’t benefitted from movement? Absolutely not and I think the reason we’ve lost the serviceable sound horse is because of better welfare and medicine.

 

[ycbm]

Coming back to this to specifically answer the question.

"What Ever Happened to “Serviceably” Sound?"​

We developed an understanding of how much an animal which evolved to hide weakness from a predator, so that another member of the herd became the victim, is able to mask pain. With technical advances we obtained the use of long scopes and with huge surprise at the time realised how many horses are experiencing ulcers. Then when those ulcers recurred after treatment we had the diagnostics to tell us that they were happening as a result of long term hidden pain. We dropped the "man has dominion over the animals" ethical stance, which originated in the days when we needed to use horses to keep ourselves alive, and developed an increasing understanding that every animal on the planet, including us, is just a bundle of interacting chemicals. And we rightly began to question very seriously our rights to use animals for our own pleasure.
.

 

[Birker2020]

Yes, there are times when I’d ride a horse that wasn’t sound. But they are a small number of specific circumstances and I don’t think it’s necessarily useful to put the general idea of riding a lame horse out into the world like that.

Older horses with arthritis may have low grade lameness but benefit hugely from movement and therefore regular light riding - especially straight line hacking at their own pace. They will *not* be athletes, though.

My last horse had a horrific injury where he severed his extensor tendon in the near hind - he did unfortunately die due to a bone sequestrum developing, but prior to that coming up my vet was having frank conversations about riding him again once healed up. He developed a stringhalt gait because he had to sort of flip his foot and stamp down rather than extend the joints properly, so he wasn’t sound - but when the injury was healed and there was no damage to be done, he would have been in absolutely no pain to hack about on.

But a lame horse where you don’t know the reason? Or there’s ongoing soft tissue damage? Or anything causing pain that isn’t benefitted from movement? Absolutely not and I think the reason we’ve lost the serviceable sound horse is because of better welfare and medicine.

How interesting about your horse's extensor tendon. I had a horse aged 14 who fell down a ditch on a fun ride, lacerating his fetlock joint from one side to the other, at the hospital they said he'd severed two tendons (must have been extensor and something else not extensor for certain) but said would not affect him to ride him once the initial laceration had healed. He never did heal though unfortunately as he kept getting heel rubs under the plaster cast, after the third GA to fix it he was in stocks, they took the cast off as he was still lame and stretched his leg and opened up the wound, so I never found out if he'd have recovered enough to ride, but I was amazed the vet saying that at the time.

 

[khalswitz]

How interesting about your horse's extensor tendon. I had a horse aged 14 who fell down a ditch on a fun ride, lacerating his fetlock joint from one side to the other, at the hospital they said he'd severed two tendons (must have been extensor and something else not extensor for certain) but said would not affect him to ride him once the initial laceration had healed. He never did heal though unfortunately as he kept getting heel rubs under the plaster cast, after the third GA to fix it he was in stocks, they took the cast off as he was still lame and stretched his leg and opened up the wound, so I never found out if he'd have recovered enough to ride, but I was amazed the vet saying that at the time.

According to my vet at the time, you only get away with that with extensor tendons - flexors they will never will never weight bear properly again and for them to be severed you are euthanising realistically. Which makes sense if you think of the lower limb and that it’s the flexed side of the lower joints that would bear the weight.

We genuinely were at the point of fitting tack again and getting ready to start long reining when he suddenly went hopping lame and we found the sequestrum (basically a bit of chipped off bone that had gotten infected). We were so close to coming back from the most traumatic injury I’d ever seen in a horse not immediately put down. But yeah I agree my mind was blown when rhe vet said he’d be perfectly rideable, he’d just have the whistle blown on him immediately if I ever tried to take him out to dressage again.



This was his bandaging - wound went from lower cannon, wound up around the hock and up to the top of the gaskin. Was pretty dramatic.

 

[conniegirl]

I ride my pony who would be described as “serviceably sound”.
He has arthritis in one stifle and he has dropped hind fetlocks from a suspensory branch injury.

He gets better when ridden but will never be 100%. He is not in pain I don’t think and whilst i try to keep him at walk we do often end up piaffing down the tracks sideways with him trying to canter every other stride.

However i have hobsons choice at the moment.

If i ride him, im riding a lame horse.
If i don’t ride him he is at very high risk of laminitis.

He is on a bare paddock, with restricted double netted, soaked, year old hay. He is enormously fat!

The only thing i have found to keep his weight down is exercise. I ride him and he drops weight! I don’t ride him and he piles the weight on.

I cannot hold him on long reins and my ankle would not allow me to do the distances needed to keep that weight off him.

So we ride, ignore the comments and i know he would let me know if he was sore (he always has in the past, quite forcefully too) but whilst he is quite happy to piaffe sideways down the lane on the way out i’ll take is as happy enough.

 

[Birker2020]

According to my vet at the time, you only get away with that with extensor tendons - flexors they will never will never weight bear properly again and for them to be severed you are euthanising realistically. Which makes sense if you think of the lower limb and that it’s the flexed side of the lower joints that would bear the weight.

We genuinely were at the point of fitting tack again and getting ready to start long reining when he suddenly went hopping lame and we found the sequestrum (basically a bit of chipped off bone that had gotten infected). We were so close to coming back from the most traumatic injury I’d ever seen in a horse not immediately put down. But yeah I agree my mind was blown when rhe vet said he’d be perfectly rideable, he’d just have the whistle blown on him immediately if I ever tried to take him out to dressage again.

View attachment 141870

This was his bandaging - wound went from lower cannon, wound up around the hock and up to the top of the gaskin. Was pretty dramatic.

Sorry I hope I'm not derailing the thread but I've never met anyone who has a horse with the same injury.

My horse Biggles was operated on under GA, the wound flushed out and a plaster cast was put from under his foot to just below his hock. But after a few days it was evident that he was developing pressure sores underneath so he had a second operation to remove the cast and was recast again under GA. Again after a few days he was unusually lame moving around his stable and again pressure sores had developed under the cast so a third time he was put under GA and had a third cast on.

When it was evident that this wasn't working and he was still developing pressure sores they took the cast off to further examine what was going wrong with him stood and he stretched his leg backwards and any healing that had taken place (there was very little at this point) just all came undone and he had to be pts on humane grounds. It was very sad, but three GA's on a 14yr old horse took its toll - the last operation under GA I had just arrived at the clinic and they were slapping him to wake him up and said each time he'd been harder to bring round. Sadly although he didn't make it, he gave all the vets who worked so hard to save him a unique learning tool.

I don't think I helped because we were an hour (53 miles) from home and a bank holiday. All the vets were on other emergencies, we had to drive him home to our vets on three legs with a tourniquet that we'd put on to stop the drip drip of blood (it was a venous bleed) largely controlled by leaving his boot on - the cut was where a brick or root of a tree had sliced through his fetlock when he fell down the ditch and was immediately below the bottom of the boot. So we put a tourniquet on thinking we were doing the right thing but we think that we probably compromised blood flow to the area and the tissue had started to die somewhat. Coupled with the fact he was bleeding steadily and all the local roads were flooded and the fact it was a bank holiday, we were very lucky to even make it home as quickly as we did.

When we finally made it home (we'd had to stop and ring the vet from a phone box and we didn't have a mobile phone in 1997) the vet was there to meet us at the yard and it looked like a slaughterhouse inside the trailer, there was that much blood. When she took the tourniquet off there was a massive clot so the tourniquet had quelled the flow but unknown to us I am guessing (although I was never told) had compromised the tissue.

They did say after that if they had another horse with a similar injury they would not try to save it, but they could see how attached I was to the horse and how good a patient he was so they tried their very best for us both. Sadly it was not to be. This was him and I circa 1996, I can't get over what it was like to ride a horse you know would never stop at a fence!

I'm sorry it didn't work out for your horse Khalswitz.

 

[FitzyFitz]

I have one who retired from endurance for arthiritis. Truthfully she'd probably still pass an initial trot up if properly warmed up, but would be dodgy on the final. She's stiff, but does far better doing regular hacking and still hares around a fun ride, although usually needs buteless in her supper afterwards.

Another of mine has various issues in his front feet, slightly crooked hinds and generally shoddy conformation. Retired age 12. He actually trots up sound at most of his physio appointments but having had him from a colt I can feel the compensatory stiffness in his movement when ridden and although he'll still kick up his heels for a trot and canter of his own accord, they are short stretches now. However, he's young and interactive enough that leaving him in a field at rest just results in chaos, so as long as he'll stroll along the lanes with his ears pricked, I'll keep hacking him out occasionally. We do a lot of on the ground stuff and long reining too, and I'm sure the balance of ridden vs non ridden will change even more as the years go by, and eventually even that will be too much for him. For now though, it's a careful balance of maintaining flexibility and muscle tone vs avoiding discomfort.

Got another who severely strained both hind suspensories and was off for 3 years, but now is sound, if not able to extend as much as he used to. Careful about what terrain and distances he does now so he doesn't re-injure, although the initial strain was actually a field accident.. Slightly dodgy vision too especially in the dark/shade so I'm a bit careful what we do.

Yet another who was healthy and problem free till this year when she acquired wobblers due to enlarged neck joints, currently been able to reduce her symptoms to nothing and she's in no discomfort but who knows if she'll ever compete again at a high level where the additional strain/tiredness/stiffness might cause problems to raise their head again.

So.. I have 4 that could reasonably be described as serviceably sound, although you'd really be stretching the definition for the second one. He's the youngest but definitely the most retired!
In all 4 cases, its a bit of a knife edge balance trying to keep their overall physical and mental health as good as it can be. The first two are incredibly stoic though so I always err on the side of caution. Neither will ever be totally free of all discomfort but I reduce it as much as possible and try to keep their enjoyment as high as I can.

(do I have any actually sound horses?? Currently.. no. Although hopeful that no.5 will be off box rest soon...)

 

[Cortez]

I ride my pony who would be described as “serviceably sound”.
He has arthritis in one stifle and he has dropped hind fetlocks from a suspensory branch injury.

He gets better when ridden but will never be 100%. He is not in pain I don’t think and whilst i try to keep him at walk we do often end up piaffing down the tracks sideways with him trying to canter every other stride.

However i have hobsons choice at the moment.

If i ride him, im riding a lame horse.
If i don’t ride him he is at very high risk of laminitis.

He is on a bare paddock, with restricted double netted, soaked, year old hay. He is enormously fat!

The only thing i have found to keep his weight down is exercise. I ride him and he drops weight! I don’t ride him and he piles the weight on.

I cannot hold him on long reins and my ankle would not allow me to do the distances needed to keep that weight off him.

So we ride, ignore the comments and i know he would let me know if he was sore (he always has in the past, quite forcefully too) but whilst he is quite happy to piaffe sideways down the lane on the way out i’ll take is as happy enough.

You do know that horses will often try to canter or trot because walking is causing them pain, right? At the faster paces there are fewer/faster points of contact.

Serviceably sound = a bit lame. Pasture sound = lame. Mechanically lame = lame, but it doesn't hurt.

 

[conniegirl]

You do know that horses will often try to canter or trot because walking is causing them pain, right? At the faster paces there are fewer/faster points of contact.

Serviceably sound = a bit lame. Pasture sound = lame. Mechanically lame = lame, but it doesn't hurt.

I know this pony and it is out of sheer excitement.
This pony is not shy about letting his opinion be known at all. He loves life and going places, always has.

He is Ears pricked and hauling me on the way out, wants to keep going not turn round and go home.

 

[khalswitz]

Sorry I hope I'm not derailing the thread but I've never met anyone who has a horse with the same injury.

My horse Biggles was operated on under GA, the wound flushed out and a plaster cast was put from under his foot to just below his hock. But after a few days it was evident that he was developing pressure sores underneath so he had a second operation to remove the cast and was recast again under GA. Again after a few days he was unusually lame moving around his stable and again pressure sores had developed under the cast so a third time he was put under GA and had a third cast on.

When it was evident that this wasn't working and he was still developing pressure sores they took the cast off to further examine what was going wrong with him stood and he stretched his leg backwards and any healing that had taken place (there was very little at this point) just all came undone and he had to be pts on humane grounds. It was very sad, but three GA's on a 14yr old horse took its toll - the last operation under GA I had just arrived at the clinic and they were slapping him to wake him up and said each time he'd been harder to bring round. Sadly although he didn't make it, he gave all the vets who worked so hard to save him a unique learning tool.

I don't think I helped because we were an hour (53 miles) from home and a bank holiday. All the vets were on other emergencies, we had to drive him home to our vets on three legs with a tourniquet that we'd put on to stop the drip drip of blood (it was a venous bleed) largely controlled by leaving his boot on - the cut was where a brick or root of a tree had sliced through his fetlock when he fell down the ditch and was immediately below the bottom of the boot. So we put a tourniquet on thinking we were doing the right thing but we think that we probably compromised blood flow to the area and the tissue had started to die somewhat. Coupled with the fact he was bleeding steadily and all the local roads were flooded and the fact it was a bank holiday, we were very lucky to even make it home as quickly as we did.

When we finally made it home (we'd had to stop and ring the vet from a phone box and we didn't have a mobile phone in 1997) the vet was there to meet us at the yard and it looked like a slaughterhouse inside the trailer, there was that much blood. When she took the tourniquet off there was a massive clot so the tourniquet had quelled the flow but unknown to us I am guessing (although I was never told) had compromised the tissue.

They did say after that if they had another horse with a similar injury they would not try to save it, but they could see how attached I was to the horse and how good a patient he was so they tried their very best for us both. Sadly it was not to be. This was him and I circa 1996, I can't get over what it was like to ride a horse you know would never stop at a fence!

I'm sorry it didn't work out for your horse Khalswitz.

View attachment 141871

Yeah very weird!

Geoff got a hindlimb caught and then wrapped in a high tensile wire fence - he was a shivered, so we suspect that had something to do with it. We found him in the morning, exhausted, limb hanging from the fetlock down, and a ditch basically dug under the fence where he’d struggled to free himself. Five months box rest, two months small field rest and we couldn’t believe his recovery. But the bone wasn’t right underneath unfortunately.

He was the best patient - even on box rest I could bring him out his stable and leave him untied whilst I cut off his bandage, cleaned his wound and rebandaged it all again. He was an absolute doll.

You do know that horses will often try to canter or trot because walking is causing them pain, right? At the faster paces there are fewer/faster points of contact.

Serviceably sound = a bit lame. Pasture sound = lame. Mechanically lame = lame, but it doesn't hurt.

I completely agree that they’re all lameness - but whether or not to ride a lame horse I do strongly thing depends on whether they’re in pain (most are) and whether exercise is more beneficial or further damaging in their case (mostly the latter). There’s not many I’d ride, and you’re absolutely still riding a lame horse and no getting away from that.

I have a dodgy knee and a bad lower back after too many horse falls. I still run and cycle and play sports, because it’s good for me, and I just manage the niggles in such a way that I don’t worsen anything. Now a horse can’t tell you it’s pain level or choose to be ridden so you need to be more careful in what you ask of them, but I think similar principles apply.

 

[suebou]

Just a comment, Geoff billington spoke about It’s Otto, Olympic sj and prolific prize winner internationally, and said, he didn’t think Otto would have passes a trot up, which weren’t required then! He never gave any sign that he wasn’t willing to work or was in pain…

 

[AShetlandBitMeOnce]

Ranty post warning, but this conversation really irks me.

I wish more people would remember that any degree of lameness is pain.
Stiffness is pain.
Looking a bit crocked 'because they're old' is because they are in pain.
Compensatory movement is because of pain.
Needing to warm up before they're sound is pain.
Only a truly mechanical lameness is not pain, and that's a lot rarer than you'd think, and even this often causes compensatory pain elsewhere.

Horses are trained to obey, they are prey animals and their brains aren't that big relative to their size so even with a certain degree of pain (which sometimes is extreme) they will do as they're told - adrenaline will also take over pain so being raring to go when in company or at the beach or whatever doesn't actually mean anything, and it doesn't mean they don't suffer for it afterwards. Look up Becky Nairns on Facebook to look at the underlying pathology of 'willing' horses in post mortem, it's truly eye opening.

I wish more people would listen to animals when they whisper so they don't have to shout.

And I'm sorry but the whole 'they're better when they're moving' argument is a load of tosh, take them out in hand then, or train them to go alongside a bike, or roller blades or whatever - it does not mean you have to ask them to carry you to keep moving, that is a self-serving argument (unless you have a genuine mitigating disability, but even then there are usually work arounds).

 

[moosea]

I would and have ridden diagnosed arthritic horses on bute. Just gentle hacking, with the awareness that they are on pain killers and it is my job to remember that and look after them.

I've hacked horses with mechanical lameness from old injuries.

But I wouldn't ride a servicably sound horse without a diagnoses. It's just riding a lame horse surely?

 

[Landcruiser]

I still ride my healthy older horse who has hock arthritis in one hock, just pootling out once every week or two week at most. He steps out eagerly with his ears pricked, not noticeably lame at all in walk but definitely lame in trot - so we don't. That said, on our old canter stretches it can be quite an art to keep him sensible, he's very forward. I can't deny I'm conflicted - but vets are happy to continue as long as he's wanting to, and I've known him long enough to know that he does. He lives out 100% and gets plenty of movement, but he's always loved being out and doing stuff. He's not on any medication.

 

[scats]

My vet told me that a huge portion of his job involves going out to medicate top level horses to keep them competing.
I was querying the ethics of lightly walk hacking my mare who was having arthramid for mild arthritic changes.