Worst injury you've seen a horse come back from.

Enfys said:
Absolutely off topic, Sarah I used to ride my horse to Tai'rgwaith and stand up on a bank to watch the racing. I also used to use the track as gallops in the days when we could ride across it.
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It's absolutely in the middle of nowhere isn't it?! I've always wanted to sit on the hill opposite to watch the racing but (un)fortunately I'm always there working!

You'll have to let me know if you're planning another day watching racing, I can send you the fixture list! We'll be there from the middle of April on work out and qualifier days :)

As you were everyone :p
 
A horse I knew had it's back legs go through the floor of a trailer whilst it was on the move. No-one knew how long they had travelled with his legs dragging on the road .. completely took all the skin off and also scratched down the bone. Hideous, and it took 12 months or more to treat .. but he survived. He was a successful showjumper before the accident and could never jump again after it, but he went on to be one of the best horses at the riding school I used to go to as a child and was a definite favourite of all, and competed at novice dressage! - yes he even loaded after the accident - although his poor old fetlocks were very scared and had no hair on them at all!!!
 
EKW said:
The worst bit is is that that is only half of his story! Lol! He also struck into a front fetlock and missed the tendon sheath by a hairs breadth and thus went for a double round of joint flush surgery - though for this one he did win the race and the 6k prize just covered that vets fee! He put a 50% hole in the tendon & tendon sheath in a hind leg going round the fetlock - he had 6months to try to come sound to be a field ornament - scan it now and there is 5% of scar tissue the rest is brand new perfectly formed tendon tissue. In training he was also a chonic bleeder and smashed himself off the road and spent 2 weeks stiff as a board unable to move in a stable. He's not the brightest button in the box upon occasion :D
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Crikey I thought I had an accident prone TB!

In 2 and a half years we have had major surgery for a sarcoid over the eye, slashed a foreleg in a barb wire fence, recovered and 2 weeks later mangled a back leg in a damaged barb wire fence needing a skin graft and 3 months box rest. Last year we had fore leg suspensory damage (4 months box rest), was in work rehabing for 6 weeks then got kicked and ended up with a fractured radius (same leg). 4 months box rest, went out in the field for 8 days and came back in having managed to get kicked again in the same place and refractured his leg. Another 5 months box rest and treatment, spent 3 weeks out in the field, got physio and vet all clear to ride, saddle sent away to be re-fitted and he came in that evening (last friday) having done something to his o/s hind tendon.....
Monday I'll find out how long this batch of box rest is for then I shall go stock up on calmer and flourescant light fittings (he broncs in his stable and kicks the light)
 
There was a woman at a yard I used to be on who's horse broke its leg 3 times in the course of 10 years. Every time vet advised PTS but was told no, save him. Said horse hates being stabled at the best of times so you can imagine how distraught it became after so much box rest.

Some of these stories really are amazing, but I do think sometimes owners can be very selfish and keep the horse alive for themselves rather than for the horses sake. Just my opinion and will probably get shot down but that is my feeling.

Saying that though I also knew a mate once who foundered terribly with lami, pedals rotated etc. 6 months box rest and lots of patient rehabilitation and she went on to be sound, happy and healthy. She also had a beautiful foal a few years later.
 
Horse impaled on a fencing upright. Missed heart and lungs thankfully - but the hole was :eek::eek:

Took 12 months, but horse came right.
 
EKW that is amazing. I saw a horse bleed to death at a point to point a few years ago. The very same day I decided to stop my mare from pointing. I'm amazed yours survived, the one I saw was dead in a few minutes.
 
I have never seen any really really bad injurys but have seen a few that were quite nasty.
The first was my own horse, I had been a bit strapped for cash so I had put my horse on a part loan to help cover the costs. Anyway a young girl about 17 started riding him and seemed like a really nice girl.
We were taking it in turns to look after my horse, one day she would do it the next day I would, one morning I went to my horses stable and his knee was covered in blood, after inspecting it I noticed a nasty wound with something sharp sticking out of it. It turned out the girl had been mucking out the stables the day before and left her cup on the ledge of the stable, my horse had knocked it down and it had smashed, he must have layed on the cup and it imbedded in his knee.
After some rest he was fine, but it was a expensive lot of vet bills, and more annoyingly the girl obviously heard about it thru the grapevine and was never seen again, she didn't even come to say sorry.
Another was a friend who was sharing a field with another woman who had some very sorry looking horses, my friend called me out to help her look at one of the horses her horse shared a field with, she had noticed the horse was looking lame and had not seen or heard from the horses owner in a few days and was worried about the horse.
We inspected the horses foot and found it had a massive hole in the sole of his foot that was full of maggots. We didn't really know what to do as we were struggling to get this massive cob x shire to pick up its feet as he was biting and threatening to kick and we couldn't get hold of the owner. In the end we called the RSPCA who came out and the horse left the field a few weeks later, we are not sure if the RSPCA took him away of if the lady who owned him moved him, I always wonder if the horse had his foot sorted as it was quite a mess, and he really didn't like being handled much, but I hope he was ok.
 
Polos Mum said:
Oh have a look in vets section here - there was an amazing set of photos with a poor horse that had the whole of it's side opened up (you could see rib bones!) then healed to a tiny scar!

Personally for me a horse that reared up at a gateway when being turned out and came down with a post up inside it's armpit sort of between the skin and bones 3/4 of the way to it's withers! Huge wound that couldn't be stitched - vet was getting his whole arm up to clean splinters out from inside it - smell was gross for weeks - but totally recovered with no ongoing ill effects !
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This sprang to my mind too... The pictures in vets:eek: epic recovery...

The other one that amazed me was another poster on here who posted about her horse who had had its shoulder/chest cut open... Huge triangular flap, the flesh died and they treated with Manuka honey... Another fantastic recovery.

I'm sure there are a lot worse out there, but these two really amazed me
 
EKW said:
My horse was racing at Huntingdon, Andrew Thornton was on him, should have pulled up but kept him going. Horse fell 2 out, back hoof came forward and thundered into his chest between the front legs, opened up a HUGE hole and severed all bar 1 artery to the heart.

Horse got up and galloped back to me where we took the saddle off and used the number cloth to plug the hole while the horse bounced on adhrenaline all the way to the vets box with blood quite litterly pumping out of his body at high speeds.

Got him into the vets box where his owner rocked up, turned round, spewed his guts up and between spewing he managed to blurt out to save the horse no matter the cost. So there I am holding a horse that is quite litterly bleeding to death in front of and all the vets can do is sedate him to slow everything down, stuff the hole up with a role and a half of cotton wool and stitched it over. They gave him a 2% survival rate. If he was still alive in an hour they would move him to the box next door. The floor of the vets box was an inch deep in running blood with more down the drain. And that's where I had to leave him.

He collapsed in the treatment box but he got back up. So he moved next door. We got a call saying that he was down again and could the vets have the owners number to put him down, during this call the horse got back up again. They gave him 2 hours at 5% survival rate and they would try to transport him to Newmarket vets. 2 hours later we got a call saying that he had been down twice more, he kept getting up and because he kept gettingup under his own steam the owner wouldn't let them quit. So Jeff went to Newmarket. He collapsed 3 times IN the truck and he fell down the ramp into a heap on the floor. And he STILL got up!

So strung up on the opperating table with still a 5% survival rate, 14 vets (more out of noseyness than need!) 8 hours and MAJOR heart surgery to reattach everything back where it should be. He collapsed AGAIN in his stable 2 hours after surgery but he got back up!

3 months later he comes home from Newmarket looking an absolute wreck. By now we are just coming into June and so he goes out into the summer Hay fields for 2 months. He comes in looking a great fat heffalump and he resumes his racehorse training ...

He raced for another 4 years, winning 5 more races and placing numerous times before doing a 3 timer at Ayr (during which he injured himself and had joint flush surgery) before running in a Grade 1 and finishing his career at Perth before retiring sound to me to be my show horse at the grand age of 11.

He has never had a days bother with his heart, the only way you would know that there was a problem is the thumb sized dent in his chest just to the left of the centre and the massive dent in his owners bank ballance :D

I was 16, at only my 3rd ever race meeting, never looked after the horse or ridden it and I had never in my life seen so much blood and carnage and I honestly didn't know what to so I just held his head up to try to keep him on his feet while he was space caked. When he came back into work my boss gave me the chance to ride him seeing as we had been through so much but she thought he would be too much for me as he was a big, strong, buzzy 17.2hh horse. We clicked. Whether it was because of what we went through or maybe we were always destined to get on I don't know. I don't care I just know that he is my friend for life and every single day I am thankful that his owner is a stubborn git that wouldn't take no for an answer!

And to this day I still have a MAJOR dislike of Andrew Thornton! The boss stopped using him too!
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Absolutely amazing!
 
A bit like Foxhunter's pic, a mate's mare impaled herself on something in the field and opened up her chest to halfway along her belly. The vet spent five hours stitching her up n the field with blood dropping on her, euw. Horse is now sound!
 
Wow some of these stories!:eek: Mine is nothing in comparison! My parents found my girl oreo one morning like this:
http://s1091.photobucket.com/user/A...ear/Oreos injury/IMAG0092.jpg.html?sort=6&o=3
Our best guess is that she kicked out too close to the fence and came down on it slicing her leg open. She was very very lucky not to have damaged her bone or her joint, and that no infection set in. We were starting to bring her back in to work recently, her outlook was very positive (no showing due to scars but should be fine for everything else) and she was doing great. But she has damaged the tendon sheath on her other hock (now swollen) and is on bute for it. If the bute does not work it will mean an injection, that does carry some worrying risks :(. Again this is her being an idiot and its extremely likely that shes done it by repeatedly kicking the stable wall - decided she hated her neighbour :rolleyes::mad:

I swear i should have run a mile when i went to see her as she already had a small scar on her fetlock, i should have seen it as a sign :p. The winter before she was also very lucky as she decided from standstill to crash through some electric tape she was just stood right infront of, to jumping a five bar metal gate all in a metre or 2!! When my poor mum was closing it! :eek: She just caught a leg and did a flip to land on her back on a wheelbarrow! How she managed to walk away from that with merely a few scratches is beyond me :eek::o. My mum was more shook up than the blooming idiot horse, whom quickly wondered off to eat grass :rolleyes:. Dumb as a box of rocks she is :p.

Whilst the spotty one hasn't been lame or had an accident in the 7/8 years we've owned him! 3 with oreo and she's had the worst injuries i've seen/had to deal with in the 15 years iv had horses so far :rolleyes::mad:
 
Old youngster at work, basically cheese wired his hock open going through fencing overnight getting it caught on electric wire strand. Anyway...had enough internal damage and bleeding to all the parts of the hock and surrounding, that they'd seen less impact damage from horses in collision traffic accidents. How he did it and what must have happened overnight, I'll never know. Vets didn't think that going forward for surgery had a very high success rate, but owner pushed for it as had youngster since wenaling.

Very long recovery...but horse is now sound as a pound and hock has recovered with virtually no enlargement or stiffness [yet...may be future arthiritic problems] and only a minimal dark scar. Back in work and will be competing dressage again no doubt. He's a star. :)
 
EKW said:
His name is Jefertiti. He will never leave me until the day he says good bye. I owe him that much in the very least.
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Wow! I remember Jefertiti (odd name, sticks in your head!) but didn't know about the accident.
How lovely of the owner to try so hard to save him, and great to know he has a lifetime home with you. :)
 
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