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RE: [RC] Injecting hocks for mystery front end lameness!!!!! What? HELP!!!!!! - Linda CowlesI have a friend with a 16h TB/Trak. 9 yo mare. She kept being on and off lame in the left front, she insisted this was because the mare had been diagnosed with navicular in that foot. However, no actual navicular degeneration shows up on the x-rays. When the mare kept being off, I suggested that she call the vet and have the horses back and saddle fit checked. Sure enough, the saddle did not fit and her back was very sore. <snip> ...wide and sunk when the mare was being ridden. I have ridden the mare for her and when doing so, concentrated on getting her to travel naturally as she was high-headed-- and is ewe-necked as well as being atrophied along the top line as a result. Well, vet said, the horse must be ridden collected all the time.... --- Claire Nystrom Injecting this mare's hocks to "fix" atrophied back muscles? Riding her collected? Claire, you are soooo right that riding a horse with severe back atrophy is counter-productive... Trust your instincts, here. Most saddles won't fit this back conformation, and saddle fit is a significant part of her problem. If this particular mare's head is up, it's very likely she's in pain, & pain might explain the dull coat. Body work, chiropractic &/or acupuncture should help. Sometimes horses end up traveling like this when their toes are too long, too, and finding an expert to evaluate hoof pictures makes sense too. Diagnosis isn't always easy. I had an experience with a 4YO TB with back muscle atrophy that resulted from riding the colt in a Full QH Bars roping saddle (narrow horse/very wide saddle tree) combined with bad shoeing. After 45 days, the back pain began to trigger bucking sessions that lasted for minutes after the rider was unloaded (that's a symptom that the saddle might be part of the problem). When I was introduced to the horse, he was being worked hard in the round pen to "get the bucks out". His neck was hollow, his head was up, his eye was wide, and he was slightly off. He occasionally bucked viciously for minutes at a time. "He's a mean one, a born bucker!" quipped his owner, a weekend cowboy, proudly. "I may sell him as rodeo stock". I stepped into the round pen & stopped the lathered colt. Ignoring the trainer's warnings, I unsaddled the tall, skinny colt. He sighed, shook hard, rubbed his head on me, smacked his lips and alternately lifted his feet. As he gently rubbed his head on my arm and offered to suck my fingers, I chuckled aloud that this mean rogue might attack when I turned my back on him. I turned and he pressed his head against my back, still breathing hard. He wearily followed me to the gate. I immediately noticed his atrophied back muscles, so I spent 20 minutes explaining saddle fit and the imbalance of his long toes & under run heels... It didn't work. The trainer said the colt needed more training because he had 'learned to evade being ridden'. After spending another $900 on training, the owner agreed to have Jamie Knox of JCK Equine Services in Windsor Ca. try bodywork. After the first session, Jamie announced that the saddle was the worst possible fit made worse by over-padding, his toes were much too long and his heels badly under run. The horse was out chiropractically in several areas. After a lengthy session, he recommended that the gelding be trimmed in a balance trim, turned out for at least a week, then ponied at a long steady trot on fairly flat ground for 20 minutes every other day for a week, increasing the time, distance, frequency and terrain as the his muscles strengthened until he was ponied for an hour 4 or more times a week by the end of 4 weeks. Jamie saw him again at 4 weeks, and asked that he get another week or two of long trotting on hills with the new saddle (it fit) before they rode him. Jamie had specified that the horse not be exposed to hills until he was totally fit on the flat and explained how to evaluate improvement in the horses muscle tone. After a total of 6 weeks of ponying, the colt had a *totally* different top line and soon became awesome riding horse. No bucking. The average trainer try's to help a problem horse with training. The average vet try's to help a problem horse using his medical training. The average tack store owner try's to help a problem horse by changing the tack, and the person at the feed store recommends supplements and tonics. The average body worker try's to help a problem horse with bodywork, and the average hoof care provider try's to help a problem horse starting with his feet.... A few service providers consistently look beyond their own set of tools to recognize problems best fixed by others, but there is usually a little something we see that we *can* fix, and we are driven to try. Too often the problem we work on isn't *the* problem; it's a symptom of an underlying problem. Fixing it may provide temporary relief. Diagnosis, identifying the root cause of our horse's problems isn't easy. Saddle fit problems can trigger repeated suspensory problems, but so can hoof imbalance and some chiropractic problems complicated by hard work. Successful evaluation means questioning our experts and searching our memories to give them as complete a picture as we can, because they aren't always clairvoyant. We need to ask them to expand their thinking and explanations so that we can be part of the team. Forums like this help us share experiences, but learning about saddle fit, conditioning, movement analysis and balance is important. Good luck! Linda Cowles Certified Hoof Care Provider HealthyHoof@xxxxxxxxxxx =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. 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