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Cappuccino said:
I would definitely not be riding her without seeing Xrays etc.
She could have a fracture that never healed properly, chipped bone etc etc. Especially to STILL HAVE HEAT 2-3 YEARS later. That's a major red flag. Swelling is one thing, heat is another.
Also makes me weary that they would want her worked. If its a breeding farm there should be enough other horses to focus on and let that mare retire to the pasture or breeding shed if they don't want to move forward with continued vet work.
Just because she doesnt appear in pain doesnt mean there isnt something going on.
Alsoooo again, just because she runs the stud off when shes not in heat (as mares will do with any horse they dont want around "their" tribe) doesnt mean when she is cycling she wont get covered. Just the way nature works. Horses mate for reproduction, not fun. Just sayin.
^^^ Stoic horses don't always show signs of pain. My eventer had a minor tendon injury and the only indicator she gave was that she occasionally switched diagonals in trot which majorally went unnoticed by everyone but my eagle eyed trainer. Luckily, I get lessons regularly and we caught it very quickly. To me, swelling after 2-3 years sounds like a tendon or bone related injury. Which, if it was me, I'd be on the phone to my vet and getting her x-rayed. But even with vet care, I'd be retiring that mare. |
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The way I’m taking things as I read through this forum post, is that even though everyone is insisting on getting it checked, you insist that “nothing is wrong” and that she’s fine. By riding her, you’re potentially putting her at risk for re-injuring that leg. It may have been a few years, but if it never healed properly, which is what a good deal of us are thinking, that makes it where it can become re-injured more easily. Would you rather do things your way, re-injure her without meaning to, and end up her having to be put down because the injury won’t be able to heal without very expensive surgery, or would you rather have her checked by a vet and figure out why there’s heat and swelling several years after the injury?
Personally, if I may add, I think that being ridden and “raced” against the Fresian may be the cause of the swelling and heat in the leg, in addition to the possibility of the previous injury not healing correctly. Let me say why I think that. A couple of my cousins had a gelding when we were kids that sustained a leg injury 6 months before they bought him that they weren’t made aware of. He showed no signs of pain, but had similar symptoms to what you’re describing with the mare; when they had a vet come out to do a checkup a year or so after buying him, they discovered the injury and were told it hadn’t healed correctly, and that because they rode him on trails at a canter and gallop for several hours every other day with it being incorrectly healed, the heat and swelling would keep coming back. They had to put him down several months later because the injured leg (he had broken his cannon bone in his right front leg) ended up fracturing when they were letting a friend ride him at a trot on the trails and they couldn’t afford the surgery the vet suggested. Now let me say this, before someone says it could have happened because the trails weren’t flat: the trails he was ridden on were so flat that if you put a ball on them at any point they wouldn’t move. |
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No, she is literally not MY horse which is what I've noticed a couple of you failing to remember. I CANNOT pay for the vet fee because I'm not old enough to have a job to pay for the vet fee. Nor will my parents help me out by letting me exchange work for money. I'm asking for help to bring down the swelling in her leg temporarily until I can see about a vet check. I did NOT race her, I held her back. She WANTED to race. I did not push her into a faster than a walk on that trail, she always wanted to go faster but I didn't let her BECAUSE of her leg. I was even skeptical about riding her in the first place BECAUSE of her leg but the owners said she would be okay because if amything, the light work(walking through the round pen and arena and turning around barrels and trails) would be good to help her build up muscle and good for her leg. They suspect arthritis in her leg(which is what i suspect as well) and I will be getting supplements for her for that leg because thats all i can afford under the age of 16 years old with no job. That is, as of right , the best that I am able to do with her because she is NOT MY HORSE. I simply work and ride for a breeder whos been breeding these horses for over 20 years. And I'm sure she was seen by a vet when the injury happened. There is nothing I can do for her beyond supplements, cold hose and ice packs for her leg. I myself havd been to vet visits with some of the horses and I'm going to do the same with her as the Morriesian mare with sore feet, wrap her leg to prevent further injury to the coffin bone and pastern if there was previous injury to either, as the vet instructed me to do just as a precaution. |
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You... do realize.. you have to be 16 to play the game? |
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Your friend the breeder seems like an irresponsible one. We understand you are not the owner, we can read. |
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I signed up last year when I was old enough to play, before they made the 16 rule. |
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If they have that many horses, why not just ride a different one? When I was little, I rode a TB mare that has retired from polo. She was somewhere in her twenties, but all we ever did was walk in the pasture. When her health started failing, we got an AQHA mare that was having foot problems while being ridden by the 300lbs guys who had bred and raised her. I weighed around 50 to 75 at that time, a long time ago, and she didn't have any problems. I ride mostly bareback with her and finally got a western saddle after a couple years with her. As she got bigger and heavier (this fat thing grew 4 inches after we bought her at 4 years old and she got super fat) her front feet started bothering her more and more, so I stopped riding her completely and started occasionally riding an OTTB in her late teens. I didn't ride Petals, the ottb, very often because she was very energetic, and while she was easy to handle, I was too scared to go faster than a trot. Now, I have an AQHA mare in her mid teens that I run barrels and poles with at local playdays and her 5 year old daughter, who I broke and trained, that I'm running barrels and flags with. We used to have a bunch of retired racing mares, so if the horse I usually rode had any sort of leg of weight issue, I would pick a different one to ride. Now, I have two sound, healthy, and energetic horses to switch between and a 3 year old I'm about to start riding, so if I find an issue, even a minor one, I can let that horse have time off until further notice. I could ride our five year old stallion as well, but he is very lazy and I now enjoy a little speed.
If the people you ride for have enough horses to have two properties and a bunch of brood mares, then there is probably another horse out there that you could ride that is sound all the way around. It's hard to find a decent equine vet where I live as well, so we do 90% of any work that needs done ourselves, but I agree with most everyone else that a leg that is still warm and swelling over 2 years later needs more than a topical treatment. I would not ride her, even if that meant I didn't have a horse to ride. Horses often try to disguise any pain they're feeling. As prey animals, they know that showing pain could mean death. It's an instinct.
If you are hard set on riding this mare with issues though, Icthamol may help if you can find it. It does a lot to help draw out swelling. Smells like pine tar. Super sticky. My mom used to use it if a race horse had swelling, and it worked fast and well. |
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IÂ’ve been researching leg injuries having to do with the coffin bone and lower in horses. IÂ’ve come to the conclusion that it really could only be arthritis because the swelling is in her sesamoid bone(itÂ’s one of the bones that is in the fetlock area) and a small part of her large pastern. With a tendon injury the cannon bone area would be bowed(her cannon is not bowed, itÂ’s actually normal aside from the swelling starting in the lower area of the cannon bone) and a sesamoid fracture would affect the suspensory ligament because it connects directly to it, so a sesamoid fracture would cause the fetlock drop and she would be limping and not want to run around the pasture with her friends. IÂ’ve compared her leg to pictures of horses with arthritis and they are identical, not the size of a softball but a couple centimeters smaller in minor cases. I have topical cooling gel for horses, MSM cooling gel, used for inflammation and swelling which I will apply as soon as I can get out to the barn again. She lets me do everything with her leg that I want as long as I run my hand down it to let her know IÂ’m there because the swollen leg is on her blind side so I donÂ’t want to spook her. IÂ’ll be taking some vet wrap and this gel the next time IÂ’m there to cover the leg with the gel and then wrap it. This will bring down swelling as well as hopefully prevent injury to tendons, ligaments or bones. IÂ’m going to try to ask a vet the next time I can but it might have to be a couple weeks because I have an 8 day trip to Florida and Georgia for agricultural purposes, I will be stopping by some Ocala horse farms which will give small insight on their programs so I believe that will help too.
All the horses currently at the breeding farm are only semi saddle broke young stallions and breeding mares that it would be unwise for me to ride because they get a little bratty when their babies arenÂ’t underneath them so it would be unsafe for me and the mare and possibly the foal. I will not be taking out any stallions because the ones to take out arenÂ’t worked highly often because IÂ’m never there long enough to start round pen and arena work, plus having a stallion in a pasture with mares, riding the property(where most of the trails are) is basically a suicide mission because of in heat mares and bossy stallions. ThereÂ’s also a couple of geldings who have lost weight because one got a good injury and didnÂ’t eat because he wouldnÂ’t move and the other one simply lost weight due to the other horses doing what horses do and secluding him. IÂ’d rather wait for them both to regain weight on their hindquarters a little bit more before IÂ’m fully okay with working them myself. I might walk them through the trails that have hills though just to help them with muscle build up. IÂ’ve heard chia seeds could help as well because chia means muscle in Chinese I believe so it should help to at least aid in muscle production/building. |
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Honestly, if it was me I'd not do anything more than walk/ in-hand work until I had proof via X-ray that everything is fine with that leg. It's so easy to misdiagnose a swollen leg with arthritis when x-rays aren't done (you never answered the question of whether or not x-rays were done?). I know a horse who was diagnosed with arthritis and then when x-rays were done it turned out he had an infection in the joint that had gone septic. I would really strongly advise playing safe and getting that leg completely cleared by a vet. If the vet says she can be worked then they usually can also recommend exercises to do to bring down the swelling as well. |
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I wasnÂ’t riding at this barn at the time of the injury, I donÂ’t think she had x rays done but was most likely seen by a vet. Again, the injury was only tissue because it was a wire fence that she was pushed into. The most that could have happened would be tendon and ligament damage but she didnÂ’t have any signs of that when I first starting riding there, when I first started riding it had been about 6 months since the injury and she was walking on it okay and didnÂ’t mind walking around with the other horses but it was swollen more than it is now. IÂ’m going to try my best to have her checked by a vet, I was hoping at the beginning of the summer to start jumping with her and show in the mid to late fall depending on what my coach says so they would get her checked by a vet for coggins and leg complications anyways. IÂ’m not sure when our other mares vet visit is but I can see about them taking her with us just to get a small check up on the leg by a vet when I can. But as of right now, IÂ’ll just do the most that I can to bring the swelling down and then reassess the leg when thereÂ’s no more swelling. I can even take before and after pictures and post them on my Deviant for you guys to look at, youÂ’ll have to mind the couple of scars she still has from the fence injury though |
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Spring Showers
