Annapp
Member
Hi, , sorry, a bit of a long post but any any advice or reassurance would be brilliant, we bought our first horse 9 weeks ago, he’s a 7 year old TB, lightly raced and he passed a 5 stage vetting. He had already had some retraining and was home bred so there were no alarm bells and he seemed to be the perfect horse. We bought him mainly for our 2 teenagers (18 and 15) who have ridden TB’s for the past 5 years.
For the first weeks he was brilliant, hacking out alone and with others, and schooling, and he is the loveliest boy who we have completely fallen in love with. After 3 weeks he spooked on rough ground out hacking and the following day was lame, he had a couple of days rest and was fine, hacked out again for a couple of days with no apparent issues, then slightly lame again on foreleg. We called the vet who said he had a sore hoof so a likely abscess, which was a relief, we poulticed for 5 days but he was still slightly lame, vet came out again and nerve blocked the leg up to the knee, then he was sound. He said to box rest for 2 weeks, which we did (ended up being almost 3 weeks, but he is still slightly lame. He has know had a scan last Thursday and it showed a new small suspensory tear, I think it was the body of the ligament, but more significant damage to the branch, the vet thought their was scar tissue as well, so he scanned the other foreleg and he said there is chronic damage to his other suspensory branch, he said both ligaments have chronic damage that is old and would have been there before we bought him, he also said that as the leg has never been swollen or hot since he was first lame with us this also points to a re-injury. He suggested we return him if possible ( he was not cheap!) but we love him to bits and are devastated. I have contacted Moorcroft and asked about rehab, who think they can help, subject to the vets report, but before we commit to this we really would love to know if anyone else has had a good outcome for this type of injury.
For the first weeks he was brilliant, hacking out alone and with others, and schooling, and he is the loveliest boy who we have completely fallen in love with. After 3 weeks he spooked on rough ground out hacking and the following day was lame, he had a couple of days rest and was fine, hacked out again for a couple of days with no apparent issues, then slightly lame again on foreleg. We called the vet who said he had a sore hoof so a likely abscess, which was a relief, we poulticed for 5 days but he was still slightly lame, vet came out again and nerve blocked the leg up to the knee, then he was sound. He said to box rest for 2 weeks, which we did (ended up being almost 3 weeks, but he is still slightly lame. He has know had a scan last Thursday and it showed a new small suspensory tear, I think it was the body of the ligament, but more significant damage to the branch, the vet thought their was scar tissue as well, so he scanned the other foreleg and he said there is chronic damage to his other suspensory branch, he said both ligaments have chronic damage that is old and would have been there before we bought him, he also said that as the leg has never been swollen or hot since he was first lame with us this also points to a re-injury. He suggested we return him if possible ( he was not cheap!) but we love him to bits and are devastated. I have contacted Moorcroft and asked about rehab, who think they can help, subject to the vets report, but before we commit to this we really would love to know if anyone else has had a good outcome for this type of injury.
