Vetting an older horse

She was sound when vetted, and also passed further flexions when checked over by my own vets shortly after I got her home. However, her grossly wonky musculature showed that she had been 'saving' her right hind for a long while. This is the one that has now nearly fused, so she had worked through the lameness by the time she was 5 stage vetted.

She went lame recently on her 'good' left hind. X rays show that the arthritis in this is not as advanced, and there was plenty of space in the joint to get the steroid injection into. There was barely any room left for the needle in her right hind. She was jabbed 6 weeks ago.
 
Tiddlypom said:
She was sound when vetted, and also passed further flexions when checked over by my own vets shortly after I got her home. However, her grossly wonky musculature showed that she had been 'saving' her right hind for a long while. This is the one that has now nearly fused, so she had worked through the lameness by the time she was 5 stage vetted.

She went lame recently on her 'good' left hind. X rays show that the arthritis in this is not as advanced, and there was plenty of space in the joint to get the steroid injection into. There was barely any room left for the needle in her right hind. She was jabbed 6 weeks ago.
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Thanks. Hope injection has helped.
 
I bought one of these sorts of horses last year. Passed the vetting at the time. However, knowing what I know now, I’d X-ray the feet, but I’d X-ray the feet of anything with shoes on these days due to my experiences with this horse. Also have the vet measure the feet at the vetting. Mine has subsequently had X-rays and his joints are perfect. Poor foot balance wrote off most of the summer but the horse was 100% as soon as I got it shod to X-rays by a different farrier.

Speaking to the vet school vets and farrier, most lamenesses they see come from the feet originally. Mine is an unusual case for them as it wasn’t end of the line desperation he ended up there. I got him referred straight away. The farrier said to me that most horses they see it’s too late for a complete recovery. Mine is lucky.

Incidentally mine has good feet, they were not balanced feet but they look good! My other horses are all BF and thus I was never happy with how his looked but the farrier didn’t give me any advice. In hindsight I should have xrayed them straight away and he should have told me to do so.

He’s had 3 months of shoeing at vet school (not remedial just normal shoes but put on correctly!) Vet expects to review in 3 months and have insurance exclusion removed because there’s nothing wrong with my horse just poor farriery (and judging by the shoes he had on when I got him he hadn’t been well shod for a very long time, despite coming from a top SJ yard).

So that’s what I would do if I bought an expensive one again (but frankly I probably won’t!) because the feet can be better shod giving the horse the best chance of long term soundness. Other joints are only going to be an insurance exclusion if you X-ray them and find something that may or may not be relevant.
 
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FW, I can echo all of that scenario about the feet with the same mare that I refer to above. Neat tidy feet and shoes, shod in front only, but cr@p balance from her time at the equestrian college. She nerve blocked as slightly lame in all 4 feet not long after I got her home, and the x rays showed poor balance all round. Initially, we thought that rescuing the feet would be enough to fully sort her, but of course it turned out she had other issues brewing.

My vets and physio use her to show to their trainees how a horse can pass a 5 stage but still have significant problems.

Bless her, she's the most lovely girl, I just wish I'd got her as a youngster. I'm sinking everything into getting her right as I can't face starting over with another horse.
 
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