Would you ride a horse that is 1/10 lame on both hind legs....

so is this a mechanical lameness rather than a pain related one?
also as Flicker mentioned it also depends on what you mean by 'riding' .. i would of thought such a horse would only be suitable for light hacking at the most.
 
I think I mean any form of riding - I am experiencing very different views on what people would do i.e., retire, light hacking just to keep joint mobile or schooling in order to build up muscle to support the joint and keep the joint more mobile.
 
Probably controversial but there's a lot of horses who are 1/10ths lame who are in complete work and work very well. i'd not be worrying about it unless it was a horse I was expecting to achieve great things like winning the grand national or jumping clear around badminton....

If the horse is fine in itself and happy to work, then work it,

(but some have been known to call me a cruel and heartless cow!)
 
If the horse was happy to do what it was doing then I would keep working it to whatever level it was happy at tbh. My friend's boss is looking to loan a horse as a hack at the moment due to sacroiliac problems (I don't know the details). He is sound on bute, but funny in canter without it - although not in real pain.
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See the thing is that he is not that happy to work at first but once he warms up he works very nicely and happily - just takes some convincing - I train with a professional and he is regularly seen by the chiropractor and they have both said he is sound..........
 
We used to have a pony with spavin who was very uneven on his back legs - mechanically lame I would say, and after time warming up his odd action got less and less. And point him at an xc course and you'd have trouble stopping him.
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I know spavin is totally different though.......
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Difficult one, and you have to bear in mind that a lot of horses are out in full work and even competing whilst being bi-laterally lame - people don't seem to notice it!

I think I would ok light hacking....I have a mare who is out on field rest at the moment, but she's had a year in the spring and if she is no worse than she was (1/2 tenths lame on the hard on a small circle both front legs but sound straight line) then she will commence light hacking.
 
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If it felt happy and eager to be ridden then yes i would. Lots of horses will be 1/10 lame IMO.

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Totally agree. My farrier said to me recently alot of horses can appear 1/10th lame on a trot up and are fine to be ridden
 
Depends on whether the vet said the condition would be
helped by gentle exercise or made worse i.e. speed up deterioration.

If not being made worse and the horse was not in pain then probably.
 
Totally agree with you - about 50% of the horses I see around my livery yard don't look 100% sound. A lot of horses especially older ones are fine as long as they are warmed up properly and ridden sympathetically. I think the judgement is whether your horse is still a willing ride (aside from an initial warm-up). In my experience SI injuries don't seem to respond much to painkillers as its more of a mechanical weakness. Not riding a horse like this is likely to make it deteriorate quicker as the muscles stabilising the joint weaken. Both my physio and vet say to keep working.
 
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