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Re: [Guest] [RC] Lameness Problems, long - Ridecamp Moderator
You have just finished describing complete, MY Mustang mare. In Sept. of 2002 I started having the same problems with her. It was two weeks after she got her first West Nile Virus shot. She started out with a snotty nose, and a little coughing. Quite the energetic horse to ride, she suddenly became uneager to go and sweated and panted a lot. On the ride before I called the vet, besides refusing to go forward, she stumbled a few times and fell to her knees once. The vet did a blood panel in October and found nothing. He was very adamant about the fact that it couldn't have been the WNV shot. He put her on extra strength vitamins, thinking maybe I was over conditioning her. In the middle of this, I bought a new saddle. During the testing ride of the saddle, which had flexible panels and shouldn't have caused a problem, she she got a horrible cramp in a rear leg and I had to dismount and take the saddle off and wait for her to get over it. We weren't doing anything fancy or fast, just a plain old trail ride. She'd already been on two LD's and done well earlier in the year. I got rid of the saddle and continued my search, thinking that it caused her back muscles to cramp (which is some of the advice that I'd been given). I gave her a couple of months off and and things seem to improve. I had a wonderful ride in the fall with a couple of Top Ten people and she was able to keep up with the "big dogs" pretty well (they were conditioning younger horses so weren't traveling a race speed). I was elated. Winter came and I couldn't ride very much. Spring came and our first trip to the foothills produced a sweating, panting horse at a non-stress level pace. I'd been conditioning her on the flat land about once a week. And it was just a little hill. And she had the same short-stridedness you are mentioning. I started to think about allergies. Something in our foothills bothering her. The vet gave me some allergy medicine. I started putting it in her feed on a daily basis but got injured and didn't get to ride so quit feeding it to her. My trainer said I'd probably get a pretty "high" horse using that anyway. Two months ago, I took her up to the foothills and did a 6-hour, 19-mile ride and I didn't really have any problems with her. She didn't want to go very fast, but then, she knows the trail and I think is too smart. I can hear her saying "Do we HAVE to do this trail again???" She stopped on me a few times close to the end of the 19 miles, looking back and me and then heaving a big sigh and continuing on by herself. I got injured on another horse and she wasn't ridden again for 4 weeks when a friend of mine took her out for a 9-mile ride and she did brilliantly here on the flat ground. Good speed, no problems. My first day back in the saddle after 7 weeks was to take her up to the foothills again and just do a little walking and trotting for 5 miles total. It was all I could to push her into a trot. She'd keep stopping on me every so many feet. And it was a lot of work. She didn't act sick and she seems to be moving OK. On the way back I asked her to canter a little and with no apparent reason a few strides into it, she reared off to one side and I lost my balance and hit the dirt. It was the strangest thing. I'm pretty positive it wasn't a deliberate move to get me off. And now sitting here thinking about it, I remember one other time I was out on the flat here at my house when we were just walking along and she reared the same way and came down. And then looked totally surprised afterwards. During the period between when she started having problems and now, I've purchase and returned 3 saddles. My ride this last weekend was on my new Boz saddle with a flexible tree and 1" foam pads. I can't for the life of me, see how that saddle could be hurting her back. Especially when I'm using a Supracor pad underneath it. I'm really starting to think neurological and this little horse is so cool. I too, really want to find the answer. It might behoove both of us for you to share this information with your vet and we should start looking into whether it is neurological or not. Obviously, vets here on RideCamp are welcome to comment. I'm sure both Stephanie and I are both open to any comments anyone might have. As far as why my Mustang is fed, she's on oat and/or grass hay, a pound of beet pulp a day that I put her vitamins and daily wormer in (the wormer is a fairly new thing so I'm counting it out). She only had her shoes removed for a short period in the winter, the rest of the time she's shod all around. She only gets electrolytes when we're on LD's and tough conditionings but we haven't had any of those since last September when the problem started. Jackie Floyd
I'm having some problems with Star, and my vet and I are at a loss for what's wrong. I'm open to any kind of sugestions or ideas for what might be wrong. Star's around 6, spanish mustang mare. She's been barefoot for most of her life, I shoe her about once a year. She's been eating the same 10% protien/3% fat sweet feed for a year and a half, beet pulp with molasses for two years. Right now she's getting some supplements, Tri-Min minerals, Accel, MSM, Garlic, Vit E/Sel, Apple E Lytes (off brand) and InflameAwayEQ. About six weeks ago I started her on NOMS from ABC for daily wormer. The same weekend she took a fall in a creek and my riding buddy's horse fell against her. She seemed fine and I didn't see any swelling or lameness from the fall. The same weekend she also got attacked by dogs, one of which was rabid, but we don't think she got bit The following Thursday I rode her lightly and she didn't feel right. She felt very short strided, like she was afraid the earth was going to fall out from under her. Figured it was just a bad expierience and did some inhand despooking. A week later she got hives. My vet came out revaccinated her, did a lameness exam, and gave her Benedryl. He said she pulled somethign in her right shoulder. Give her two months of light work and it'll get better. No stall rest or anything, double her MSM. So, Over the next two weeks I worked her lightly bareback so I would have a better feel of what was going on with her shoulders. She seemed to feel tons better, but I noticed her sweating much worse than usual. She started coughing and having some breathing problems. She had no temperature, and hadn't been exposed to any horses outside my two friends horses who hadn't been exposed to any horses outside mine. So, they weren't sick, after alot of thought I figured it was the NOMS and the DE in the NOMS. She was removed from the NOMS and fed a very wet diet of hay and beet pulp, no grain. I continued to lightly work her, but she never seemed right. Instead of being happy to go riding her ears stay pinned the entire ride. She was no longer energetic and happy on the trail, she was lethargic. I started having some refusals to go over water, mud, trees, etc... I chalked it up to her shoulder and figured she'd get better as her shoulder healed. Weekend before last I rode her in my friends Wintec Endurance Pro with the X-wide gullet in it. The saddle was a hair narrow, but she didn't seem to mind it. We rode about 8 - 10 miles of moderate terrain. Several times Star just stopped on the trail and refused to go forward. After about 400' of moderate uphill climb, steping over fallen logs on the way up she got a cramp over her haunches. The entire ride she wasn't her entergetic self, she just seemed tired. Rode her Friday, made it about 2 miles of flat terrain and she got cramps again. This time her hind leg was stickign out strait and she couldn't move at all. I massaged her and got her where she could walk home, loosened her girth and her breastcollar. My riding buddy commented how strange she was acting. She would let Pat's horse get way out of sight and not try to catch up. I was constantly nagging her for going too slow. Saturday I rode with another friend and she all out refused to go down the trail. I ended up walking and running most of the 8 miles loop around the barn. She would rear at any hill, however slight and not want to go into it. I just purchased a saddle that fits her, it's a bit wide, but I've got a riser pad. Throught my ride Saturday I tried three different pads, with the riser pad, half the riser pad, and just my Skito, nothing helped. I finally dumped my saddle at a neighbors about 2 miles from the barn and rode her the final leg bareback. She moved better bareback and seemed to be in less pain. I decided that since my vet said she might have broken something and I might want to think about taking her to NC State to have her shoulders X-rayed that I'd give her at least a week stall rest. I went last night and handwalked her in her bridle, we made it 3/10 of a mile before she got a major cramp in her neck and it drew her neck back to the point she couldn't breath. Thankfully it only lasted about ten seconds (longest ten seconds of my life!) and she got over it. We walked about 1.1 miles total at a slow pace, took us 20 minutes! When I tried to get her to pick up the pace she ended up dragging her right front foot and not being able to hold an extended walk. My thoughts at this point is that it's not EPM or other neuro problems, she's sound neurologically as far as I can tell with the few neuro tests I know. I think it's back/shoulders/hips, I don't think it's a lower leg problem because there's no heat or swelling. The cramping I'm clueless about. I'm not keen on taking ehr to a lameness specialist, she's a tough horse on vets and I don't like putting her through that. But, does anyone know a good lameness vet in teh Charlotte, NC area? Thanks! Steph
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