Toe dragging

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Nannon

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I have noticed my ex racer drags his back toes - no lameness or anything like that but you can hear it on the road and see in the school where he's done it. He doesn't do it when walking - big walk with plenty of over tracking, only in trot when he isn't powering along from behind. He doesn't do it when loose in the field, and only does it on the lunge when I'm not telling him to trot on "properly"
Teeth, back etc all fine checked in the last month and no other signs when schooling etc however he can be a bit tight when he gets cold?
Any thoughts?
 
The only one I have known who drags her hind toes is my very old lady who has stiffness in her sacroiliac joint. She has to have Danilon daily to keep her comfortable - might be worth a bute trial if your vet agrees, or alternatively, maybe thermography?
 
Can be caused by lots of things hocks and SI joint problems being the most common nasty things .
In young horses it can be caused by weakness and can resolve as they develop.
In lazy horses it can just be laziness .
It can be exacerbated by inappropriate shoeing .
You probally should get it checked out .
The vet can feel the SI joint and see if they get a pain reaction and some hock flexions will give an indication of whether there's hock pain , this should not be too expensive .
 
Mine does it on and off. Sometimes he'll go months without, then he'll slop along dragging them and squaring them off. He's sound and generally very willing, so I'm not too worried.
 
My horse was dragging his toe quite bad once. Got the physio out after scaring myself with what it might be, but turned out it was something to do with his pelvis and was sorted in 1 session. Never happened since (that was over a year ago now!)
 
My arab used to do it massively, within a month of having new shoes he'd square the toes off his hinds to an extreme degree. One was always worse, his near hind. He was really fit around that time, we did endurance and were up to doing 50 milers so was being vetted at the endurance venues at least once a month, he always passed the vetting and there appeared to nothing wrong with his paces etc, the endurance vets are very thorough and would have picked it up if anything was wrong. It was just that he dragged hinds.

I considered going down the barefoot route with him and had several chats with my farrier about it. My farrier was convinced that it was a bad move, he said within 2 weeks my horse would have knocked his hinds down to the white line and would be crippled and sore. What the heck, I gave it a go. Amazingly it was a success, that was 13 years ago, from the very first the horse started lifting his hinds without dragging them and my theory it was because without shoes he could feel where his feet were landing on the ground. He has NEVER dragged them since, he's barefoot trimmed now and his feet have remained in brilliant shape.
 
with PSD I would expect the outside toe to drag worse on small circles like when lunging. My horse did both suspensories - on straight lines, he drew straight lines in the arena surface.
If it was sacroiliac I would expect the toe below the bad side to drag, the horse when viewed from behind may tilt his hips (well the pelvis really.)
My horse drops the hip on the affected side and drags the toe on that side.
you need to investigate a bit further.
 
Mine does this a bit on and off but he is happy in his work and sound so I've decided not to go looking for issues. If at any poing he doesn't feel as well then I'll investigate.
 
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