Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Having worked my way through tendon and ligament
problems, I've now got a new worry to obsess about.

Some of you may remember the tale of Zini colicking
at the East Bay ride last month. I'm happy to report
that she seems fully recovered from that, however,
I'm still a little worried about her in another
(probably unrelated) direction.

During the ride, I noticed that she was "knuckling
over" in the back more than I was comfortable with.
She was otherwise sound and got As in gait, so wasn't
showing any obvious signs of a problem - other than
the mis-stepping - say once an hour or so (we went
38 miles). East Bay was her third 50 and had quite
a bit more continuous flat(ish) trotting that we're
used to generally.

While she was being treated and I was stroking her,
I also noticed (judging from her sneery face) that
she seemed very sore in her stifle areas. Since she's
such a mouthy-crabby horse anyway (always has been,
since a baby), it's hard to tell what's real and
what's "just her", but still, over two weeks later
she still isn't happy with me touching the area
around either stifle (one side possibly worse than
the other?). I'm not talking palpating here - just
stroking over the joint. If I approach the area
carefully and she's distracted, I can sometimes
rest my hand on it for a half-minute or so without
any reaction - other times, I need to be careful
to avoid being kicked/bitten (she's usually crabby,
but not *that* crabby <g>).

She hasn't been ridden since East Bay and has been
scuttling around her paddock. She received some Bute
towards the end of the first week to see if that
eliminated the apparent tenderness. Over the weekend
we lunged her to see if we could see any short-striding
or other gait anomalies, but couldn't see anything
at all. Judging by the way she was leaping/bounding/
cantering/trotting at high speed/cavorting, she isn't
feeling any worse for wear and my initial reaction
is to just start riding her again. But I don't want
to do that if it means I'm going to gradually make
something minor a lot worse.

I'm unsure how to proceed at this point. I need to
take one of my other (broken) horses, Mouse, in for
her second ultrasound (for a second pulled suspensory)
and wondered about taking Zini along too to get the
joint(s) looked at. Would they be x-rayed? u/sounded?
is this overkill? (keep in mind my bank account is
looking very sad indeed right now, after having her
treated at East Bay/Loomis, so if I can avoid any
unnecessary further vet bills my husband will
appreciate it (of course, on the other hand, if it's
something that *needs* to be looked at, then there's
always the credit card <sigh>).

Reading up on stifle problems, if there is a weakness,
it says to strengthen the area the horse needs to
step over things. To that end, I've put a step-over
log in the doorway of her stall and was planning, once
she was being ridden regularly again, to work over
cavalettis, etc.

As I mentioned, I've not dealt with stifle problems
before, so don't know if this is a lack-of-condition
issue that just needs strengthening through more
conditioning, or if I need to take a big step back
and make like it's a tendon injury and go with tiny-
baby-steps (oh please no, not again).

Thanks for any comments.


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Lucy Chaplin Trumbull
elsietee AT foothill DOT net
Repotted english person in the Sierra foothills, California
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