Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I have a similar story.  My old horse strained both front  
suspensories on a training ride - no indication at the time.  He had  
a very, very slight lameness going downhill the following week that  
seemed to clear up fine with a few weeks rest, so I entered him in a  
25 miler.

The ride had two vet checks, one 5 miles before the finish.  He was  
fine in the first leg, but trotting out of the first vet check, he  
seemed to be very slightly off.  I couldn't really tell -- every time  
we got to a smooth, flat stretch, he was fine.  Came into the second  
check trotting totally sound on a flat road, but I asked the vet to  
look at him.  He squeezed just the right place and Shadow went  
straight up in the air.  The vet thought it was a splint bone, so we  
walked in and I iced it, then asked the head vet for a recheck.  He  
couldn't find a thing.  Asked the vet that originally found it and  
again -- he went straight up.

Back home, I had my vet look at him.  He was very slightly off on the  
circle.  My vet thought it was a middle suspensory, so off we went to  
the ultrasound clinic, where he trotted out totally sound on  
asphalt.  The ultrasound showed both front middle suspensories were  
badly strained.   Year and a half rehab.

Through all of the original diagnosis, his lameness never even got to  
a grade 1.  Just an occasional "off step".


On Jun 14, 2007, at 5:43 AM, Nancy Sturm wrote:

> Ah Barbara, I was going to stay out of this, but you nailed it.
>
> Our OT track Standardbred was occassionally lame.  We had our  
> equine vet out
> three times, plus a pre-purchase.  Each time he swore there was not  
> a thing
> wrong with the horse.  He even told another woman that he was tired of
> dealing with an owner who bought a pacng horse and then thought it  
> was lame.
>
> He told my daughter "there's nothing wrong with this horse, just go  
> ride
> him".
>
> So, she took him to an LD and he was pulled for lameness at 12  
> miles.  Cary
> Hills, the ride vet, is a very good lameness man.  We hauled Twist  
> into him
> the next week and the horse had an old suspensory injury.  Dr.  
> Hills said
> that Twist is just such a phlegmatic horse that he wasn't  
> expressing pain
> until he couldn't stand it anymore.
>
> We followed his instructions for care and eventually (8 weeks)  
> Twist had a
> nice clean ultrasound.   Just so we weren't missing something, I  
> had him
> X-rayed too.  He looked good.  Because I was busy with my other  
> horse, he
> ended up getting quite a lot of rest, but he's back on trail now  
> and doing
> fine.
>
> Nancy
>
>
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