Weak hind end?

[lucy_108]

A lovely client of mine has an 11 year old gelding who is in full work (at least 5 days/week). He is mainly hacked out in walk and trot for a minimum of 30 minutes a day. He does a at least 10 minutes on a hill twice-three times a week in walk and trot (sometimes long and long, sometimes a little more upright in the contact).

He looked after beautifully, on good grazing with good quality hay. He is fed a couple of handfuls of chaff AM and PM as he is super sensitive to feed.

But his hind end is shockingly weak to look at. His quarters almost dish in and he is very angular from his hips up to spine/tail and over to his other hip.

Any other horse on his work regime would look fab (her other horse in the same work looks amazing - well rounded behind).

He’s off to the vets for investigations as in the eight months I’ve known him, he’s gotten worse not better.

Any ideas before the vet comes back?


I have a sneaking suspicion of something going on in his hocks, but not sure if that causes the level of muscle wastage being seen?

 

[sbloom]

I would suspect something triggered a poor way of working (posture, whether a small incident or rider induced, though in this case the latter sounds less likely) and that there may be one big symptom or several small ones, KS, SI, hind legs, all sorts of things might be going on. Gillian Higgins believes that a huge majority of issues are the result of RSI. He might have something like EPSM, a glygogen storage issue in the muscles, it would go with the sensitivity to feed in some cases.

 

[Melody Grey]

I would suspect something triggered a poor way of working (posture, whether a small incident or rider induced, though in this case the latter sounds less likely) and that there may be one big symptom or several small ones, KS, SI, hind legs, all sorts of things might be going on. Gillian Higgins believes that a huge majority of issues are the result of RSI. He might have something like EPSM, a glygogen storage issue in the muscles, it would go with the sensitivity to feed in some cases.

All of the above plus/ minus ulcers and hindgut issues?