Re: RC: stumbling gaited horse

[Truman Prevatt <tprevatt@mindspring.com>]

I'd start looking at two places. First is the feet. Check the angles and make
sure they are reasonable (52-55 in the front and sightly higher in the
back).  I have one walker here that would pull a front shoe every 3 weeks. We
tired everything with him. I finally pulled his shoes and we rode him for
three months. We told the farrier to shoe hist feet the way they were worn.
He looked at them, pulled out a NBS shoe, held it up to his front feett and
it was a perfect match. He's had them for two years and has not pulled a shoe
since!

If the feet are fine, look at your saddle. A long time ago before we knew
that we would have to invest in a larger tack room just to hold all the
saddle we have bought because saddle fit is so ciritical, we had a gaited
horse that would start to stumble at about 15 minutes into a ride. He'd even
go to his knees at a walk. Walking horse tend to have a lot of shoulder and
tend to need a lot of freedom in the shoulder area from the saddle. We had a
custom saddle made for him and the stumbling stopped. Take a critical look at
the saddle in the shoulder area.

Once that is done and there is still a problem, try nerve blocking to see if
you can find the problem.

Truman

"Linda B. Merims" wrote:

> Here's several ideas.  Take them as just ideas.  They could very well
> be wrong...
>
> If your horse is truly doing a rack (and not a running walk or
> one of the many other broken lateral gaits), she may just be tired.
>
> A rack is widely held among Saddlebred types (where distinguishing a
> real rack is important) to be a very, very tiring gait.  In fact,
> Saddlebred trainers will tell you there's no quicker way to ruin a
> 5-gaited horse than to make it rack too much--you either end up with a
> pacer or a horse that constantly breaks into a canter.  Trainers
> are loathe to sell a good 5-gaited horse to a novice because,
> dollars-to-donuts, they'll overdo the gait and ruin the horse.
>
> And Ray's comment on Truman's advice is right-on:  correctly shoeing
> any gaited horse--whether TWH or another flavor--requires an expert.
> Those same-side feet have to get out of each other's way mighty quick to
> make the gait comfortable and sustainable for a horse.  The usual offense
> with a gaited show farrier is a foot that's too long in the toe, with
> the pastern too slanted.  This configuration is popular with the show
> types because it exaggerates the front motion, but it is hopeless--late
> breakover and hard on the deep flexor that attaches to the coffin bone
> under the navicular--with a trail horse.
>
> Lastly:  have the vet check for stifle soreness.  High rear lameness like
> this is very common in gaited horses.  However, the kind of stumbles you
> get with rear lameness are pretty unique:  more like staggering with
> the hind end dropping out from underneath you and the head going up in
> the air than dropping the head and going down in front.
>
> And, to be very cold-blooded about it, if you can't figure out what
> the problem is, sell her as a pasture ornament and get a different
> horse.
>
> Linda B. Merims
> lbm@naisp.net
> Massachusetts, USA
>
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