Jayzee
Well-Known Member
Evening,
Just looking for some opinions from people not emotionally attached. For a bit of background I have a lovely 16hh ISH 11 year old by Ghareeb who I have owned for 3 years. Pretty much for the whole of the 3 years except the very beginning (she had a five stage vetting) she has had soundness issues with her front feet. I had a couple of different vets who had different diagnoses from navicular to thin soles. She had her navicular bursa injected which seemed to work for a couple of months. We then went though a year of working with the farrier and slowly adapting her foot balance and a coffin joint injection and front shoes with pads and impression material and I had a sound horse!! I then had 9 months possibly slightly more of being able to ride and get her out. Last summer was fab; xc schooling, dressage, lessons, hacking just enjoying having a lovely horse to take out. She is the easiest horse to do and take out and a horse I really get on with. However towards the end of the summer I was having some issues with jumping, having always been pretty bold jumping she started stopping
At the end of last summer she did a ODE she went beautifully and came 3rd. A couple of weeks later while xc schooling she went to jump a couple of smaller jumps but`stopped half way over the jump, she did this twice and I stopped and came home. Vet came out the following day and was happy she was sound but said she was very tight and gave her some oral muscle relaxants for 10 days. These made no difference and when the vet next came out she was bilaterally lame behind, worse on the soft. Her suspensories were scanned and she had enlarged branches at the upper and lower branches as well as a couple of holes in the lower branches.The left leg was slightly worse. She is not insured and therefore an op wasn't really an option. The vet also said that as she has slightly dropped fetlocks then the operation is less likely to be successful. He suggested 4 months off then 2 months of 30 min road walks.
Vet came out again after the 6 months and he was disappointed with how she looked and suggested she needs more time so would give her another 6 months. I had her hind shoes removed and shes been out. However with the hard ground she is slightly sore behind. I watched her trot across the field the other day and she in my eyes doesn't really look any better and possibly a bit off in front too.
So the dilemma is I'm not sure where to go; I could give her more time (I can put shoes back on behind) or it has crossed my mind whether PTS is a kinder thing to do as she has such a list of problems and I don't have an endless money supply to put in to fixing it. Another though is (a selfish one possibly) that if she does ever come right I have made a decision that she I would only hack and do light schooling. However I would really like to compete (only riding club level but a bit of jumping, dressage, fun rides ect) I wouldn't be happy pushing her to do this.
So what would you do? Does anyone have any success stories of PSD without surgery? Any other suggestions
Thank you for reading if you make it to the end
Just looking for some opinions from people not emotionally attached. For a bit of background I have a lovely 16hh ISH 11 year old by Ghareeb who I have owned for 3 years. Pretty much for the whole of the 3 years except the very beginning (she had a five stage vetting) she has had soundness issues with her front feet. I had a couple of different vets who had different diagnoses from navicular to thin soles. She had her navicular bursa injected which seemed to work for a couple of months. We then went though a year of working with the farrier and slowly adapting her foot balance and a coffin joint injection and front shoes with pads and impression material and I had a sound horse!! I then had 9 months possibly slightly more of being able to ride and get her out. Last summer was fab; xc schooling, dressage, lessons, hacking just enjoying having a lovely horse to take out. She is the easiest horse to do and take out and a horse I really get on with. However towards the end of the summer I was having some issues with jumping, having always been pretty bold jumping she started stopping
At the end of last summer she did a ODE she went beautifully and came 3rd. A couple of weeks later while xc schooling she went to jump a couple of smaller jumps but`stopped half way over the jump, she did this twice and I stopped and came home. Vet came out the following day and was happy she was sound but said she was very tight and gave her some oral muscle relaxants for 10 days. These made no difference and when the vet next came out she was bilaterally lame behind, worse on the soft. Her suspensories were scanned and she had enlarged branches at the upper and lower branches as well as a couple of holes in the lower branches.The left leg was slightly worse. She is not insured and therefore an op wasn't really an option. The vet also said that as she has slightly dropped fetlocks then the operation is less likely to be successful. He suggested 4 months off then 2 months of 30 min road walks.
Vet came out again after the 6 months and he was disappointed with how she looked and suggested she needs more time so would give her another 6 months. I had her hind shoes removed and shes been out. However with the hard ground she is slightly sore behind. I watched her trot across the field the other day and she in my eyes doesn't really look any better and possibly a bit off in front too.
So the dilemma is I'm not sure where to go; I could give her more time (I can put shoes back on behind) or it has crossed my mind whether PTS is a kinder thing to do as she has such a list of problems and I don't have an endless money supply to put in to fixing it. Another though is (a selfish one possibly) that if she does ever come right I have made a decision that she I would only hack and do light schooling. However I would really like to compete (only riding club level but a bit of jumping, dressage, fun rides ect) I wouldn't be happy pushing her to do this.
So what would you do? Does anyone have any success stories of PSD without surgery? Any other suggestions
Thank you for reading if you make it to the end