I had a horse once that broke his splint
bone. I had it surgically removed and once it healed he was fine for
anything, including endurance. As long as the break isn't too high up,
involving the ball of the splint bone, he should be OK. The ball is part
of the joint articulation and is important, I understand. If there is
plenty of splint bone left, they just remove the broken piece and maybe smooth
it on the end. If the break is up a bit higher, it may require screwing it
to the cannon bone to keep it from popping out and piercing the skin..
Well, I had another visit from "Murphy". After
just recovering from colic surgery, my 4 year old gelding was looking
good. He was supposed to go to the trainer on April 1st.
Last week I found him lame in the pen, looked
like he had a puncture wound to his leg. Vet treated him for infection and
inflamation and the swelling went down, and he actually doesn't even look that
lame. He seems to be feeling quite well.
I took him back to the vet this morning because
his wound keeps oozing yellow stuff. The vet wanted to make sure there
was no foreign object in the puncture wound.
Took an x-ray and turns out he has a fractured
splint bone. It is fractured about 1/3 up and the again 1 cm above that.
Appears to me that he got kicked. My vet wants to do surgery early next week,
I can't get in until then, they are swamped and two vets are gone this week.
Couldn't find very much in the archives, and I am
wondering if anybody has experience with this and was able to ride their horse
in endurance rides after this surgery. My vet seems to be optimistic, but then
again, I am helping to put his kids through college ;-)
Gandalf is the sweetest horse and I feel so bad
for him. I just got him in November and we are already on our second
surgery.
