Side bone any experiences

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beaconhorse

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I know what it is etc and that normally it doesn't cause many problems but just wondering if anyone has personal experience of it and did you alter anything. What do/did you do with the horse and if you did not do much was that too do with the SB or other things.

Particularly interested in anyone who has jumped BSJA and or evented
 
As a teenager I had an intermediate show horse who used to paw the the ground constantly, eventually causing side bones.
I had an excellent farrier who shod him to give support on the areas affected, I avoided doing too much on the hard but he was sound most of the time and is now PC and affiliated SJ with another young girl and is 17 this year!
We also put rubber matting in his box so when he was pawing the ground there was some give!
If he was unlevel I could tell if it was a side bone because you can feel the calcification under the coronet band when applying slight pressure- he ended up getting them on both front feet inside and outside!
feeding wise used no bute when the SB were forming and that seemed enough to take the edge off, he was a little toughie tho!
 
My last horse had sidebone - I only knew because it was pointed out at the vetting.

I had him 18 months - I would never have known he had it - never caused any problems. The vet who vetted him said that most horses over 9-10 years would have it to some degree.
 
My 10 yr old Sec D x was diagnosed with it 2 years ago. She has ENORMOUS sidebones in both front feet and I have to be very careful what I do with her.

Because the x-rays showed that she also had slightly rotated pedal bones, the main thing was to keep her weight down. I was already treating her as a laminitic anyway, even though I didn't think she had it. I kept her out 24/7 with happy hoof and hay twice a day.

Because I was preparing for a driving event when she was diagnosed, the vet advised me to carry on, because I was able to do most of my riding and driving work on grass. The vet also 'phoned my farrier and she has had remedial shoeing ever since.

She was VERY sore on the road at first - could barely put one foot in front of the other, and just went slower and slower until she almost stopped. That was just crossing a road about 20 ft wide! As soon as she was on the grass, she was a different horse though - trotted and cantered around the bridlepaths as though nothing was wrong. At one stage I asked my vet if I would ever be able to ride her on the road again, and he said he didn't know.

I found that she was better on the road when I drove her. Probably something to do with not having 12 stone on her back as well as painful feet!

Anyway, about 6 months after she was diagnosed, I started trying her on the road in walk again, and just went a little bit further each time. I can now walk her for about a mile, then go onto the bridlepath, or sometimes do half a mile of road at each end of the ride. I have never tried to trot her on the road since she was diagnosed. It just isn't worth it, as she would definately be lame the next day.

Had an occasion last year when she bolted with me on the bridlepath when a tractor scared her. Not very far - but too much concussion and she was lame the next day. At first I used to give her Danilon if she went lame (on the advice of my vet), but don't do it now - just don't ride her and she'll be ok the day after that, although luckily, she hasn't gone lame for about 9 months, as I'm just very, very careful with her.

The vet told me at the time that she was very young to have developed sidebone, as they take 2/3 years, which means that hers would have started forming when she was 5/6 yrs old. He also said that sidebones the size of hers are more normally associated with heavy harness horses that do a lot of roadwork for a living. Although we do drive, Mol has never been knocked along on the roads - driven or ridden - so basically it looks as though we've just been very unlucky.

Like katycrunch, I also put rubber matting at the front of the box when she was in for the winter, as she scrapes at the ground too.
 
Yeah def minimal trotting on the road- if my horse looked sore usually a few days off did the trick. Was also told it was unusual to find them in non-draught animals (mine was a 15.2hh hanxTB) but since finding out more it really depends more on horses way of going and conformation on top of workload. As well as the floor scrapping sprite also had whopping shoulders that he used to pull himself along, which contributed, he also was very extravagant and flicky toed which all helped the SB along!(according to farrier)
 
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