[RC] re Lucy C Trumbull's soft tissue injury question -- any answers? - Karen Bratcher
Did anyone ever answer Lucy's question on
10/22/03 re soft tissue injuries? If so I didn't see any of the
answers... and I am interested also.
I did a lot of conditioning riding this year on my
two horses, the gelding went out every time whether ponied or ridden, the aged
mare was more often ponied than ridden but did almost as many miles.
Completed two 25s and a 50 on the gelding, did not compete on the
mare. Five weeks ago a friend was riding the mare and I
noticed as we went downhill (an easy grade, not steep) she stumbled in the rear
a couple times like perhaps she knuckled over too far with a hind foot.
That pastern/fetlock swelled up, but she never was lame or even seemed to favor
it at all.
The gelding threw a fit for no particular reason
while tied, lashed out behind and connected with a heavy duty steel corral panel
bar about halfway up the cannon in back. It swelled immediately and he
held it tightly squinched up under his belly in pain for a few minutes, but then
started putting weight on it and within half an hour was walking normally on
it. After that initial pain, he never favored it.
We bandaged both these injured legs and poured
some "Draw" brand name liquid down that my friend gave me. I had
to trailer home (400 miles) the next day, and kept them bandaged 6 days
continuing to pour more Draw down daily. There was still some minor
heat and swelling when I pulled the bandages off, much less than initially; but
within three weeks I could detect no difference between the injured and
uninjured legs.
The horses race around the pasture as always,
bucking, sliding, doing rollbacks etc, and have never favored the injured legs
at all. I am wondering if it's okay to start riding them slowly
again, or should I give them the winter off completely? With the weather
and work, I would probably only be riding twice a week, 5-10 miles a ride.
I don't plan on my first endurance ride til the beginning of June next year...
I'd love to go to Home on the Range at the end of March, but ice usually
precludes any riding here in January-February; and there are no other rides
within reasonable (for me) driving distance til June.
