Still musing ....
..... about what a good girl Tia was yesterday. She hadn't seen a course of showjumps in five weeks. Or a cross country fence. Or ever jumped on insecure footing before. And I fell off last time we competed. I really waited for her to jump, I was far too concerned about all that to be positive, and yet she jumped anyway. She has improved more than I had thought her capable of and quite shocked me really. Entries to 3 affiliated competitions in September are in the post and now I hope no-one wants to buy her!
Tetley is almost sound today. I did a flexion on his hock to make sure that it wasn't his sacroiliac playing up, because the lameness is quite similar. But flexing the hock never made him lame with the sacroiliac, and I did manage to make him a bit lamer. And it started to click, or his stifle did. Surprisingly, once the first few sore steps had worn off, he was sounder than before I flexed it - odd?
I rode him and he felt sound, and he looked about 98% from the floor. I think most people would call him sound. If it's debris in the joint then it was out of the way today. I am considering putting him back on the Devil's Claw, but he seems to be doing very well without it, so I will wait a while yet. It is anti-inflammatory and it is the inflammation that produces the cure, so I think it may be counter-productive. He is still on Cortflex and will be on it for life, as will Caddy in view of his over-training while still a baby.
Talking of Caddy, we had our first disagreement today. He had done some lovely walk and learnt a step or two of travers at first time of asking. I got some superb trot on the left rein after 15-20 minutes. Then I turned for trot on the right rein and got something horrible and set. I couldn't keep him to the track on the far side away from the door - he kept drifting out. And on the side with the door, he kept grinding down to a halt. I finally realised he was telling me he wanted to stop and trying to get to the door, or stay there if we passed it :-) I promised him he could stop if he gave me a circuit of good trot on the right rein, but it took quite a while, with quite a few flicks of the whip to get it. And a lot of flexing his neck to the inside and outside. But he did do it in the end, and when he did it was truly superb. He is going to be a very, very nice ride when he is more balanced :-) :-) :-) And what a star, eh, lateral work and decent transitions and a long and low self-carriage already. I must get Superhub to do me a video so I can see how pretty he looks for myself.
I'm so glad I went shoeless. With the money I save (£600 per horse per year) I can afford to keep a third and have spare change. So I get to have three superb horses at the moment, lucky old me!
Talking of feet, Caddy has now lost the excessive concavity that he used to have. I thought that it was unnatural and I'm not surprised it's gone. His feet are now nicely concave and slightly shovel shaped instead of saucer shaped as they were.
C
posted by cptrayes @ 3:41 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Tia's courage made up for your uncertainty. That's exactly what you wanted in an event horse.
Good for Caddy. While the disobedience certainly needed correction, it was a good sign of both some spirit and a strong will. He'll need that sense of "self" to be a good competitor.
Tetley is a puzzle. Then again, considering my own knees, where nothing is "floating about," sometimes they are fine and sometimes I just use them a little wrong and they hurt. Could be only the partial fusing at work? Wish I could be of more help.
So, when you hit the gas station canopy, which one won? The canopy or the lorry?
I'd be interested to see some pics of Caddy's feet now.
Re Tetley (sorry it's long as ever)
It does sound like a fragment of bone is a possibility if he is so sound one day and so unsound the next. It's beginning to sound less like spavin but what form does the lameness take? Is it bilateral or more one leg than the other? Does it improve after 10mins of walking for example or no improvement? Reluctant to trot on it when sore or not bothered about trying but lame once in trot? Does he swing it out to the side or hoik it from the hip?
Robin had an operation in October to remove a bone fragment on each hock. The specialist at Newmarket told me that a bone chip is normally either an OCD fragment that occurs as a yearling or the result of trauma to the hock (or whichever joint). If it's the former then very often they remain passive for years and years. The fragment basically gets trapped in a pocket of scar tissue and doesn't cause any problems but the problems start to occur when the fragment works its way out of that pocket and starts aggravating the joint. As the fragment is now effectively free floating it is sometimes in the wrong place and sometimes in a place that the horse isn't affected by it. But the fact it is now free floating means its aggravating the joint which causes irritation and creates 'debris'. The debris continues to build up and as the irritation continues, and gets greater over time (therefore you'd see more lame days than sound days eventually). A bone chip can usually be diagnosed by xrays and then it's a case of an arthroscopy under GA (so not intrusive and if that's what it is many horses return to full working life within a fortnight or so). When they go in to remove the chip they tend to take the opportunity to clean the joint up and remove the debris.
So although I can understand not wanting to spend a fortune on an uninsured horse with no guarantees it may be worth considering the xrays, as if it is a bone fragment the possibility of a full recovery is quite good.
Well done with Tia!
Yay to Tia, she proved us right then, she was just a bit gobsmacked before and needed more chances to show her mum that she's a clever girl. I know you're not sure about her, but when you're ready to part with her, someone will love her to bits.
I often trot round a corner if the footing is unsure - did it in shoes too. Better safe than sorry.
Well done :o) Tracey B
I've got no befores Mandeigh but I'll try to oblige you with some afters!
It was an honourable draw Jean, the canopy fell apart and my lorry roof was peeled! Superhubby rebuilt it with a sloping forehead, it looked better that way anyway!! The insurers wouldn't pay the garage because the canopy was totally unsigned, no chevrons or height markers of any kind, so I didn't even lose my no claims bonus.
Thanks for the explanation about bone fragments (Cassie???) My vet says that at this point in the disease it is probably more likely to be shreds of disintegrated cartilage that are causing the occasional off day. Cartilage doesn't show on an xray so if it's that it won't help. And the trouble is once you start down the xray route you are on £200 a time or more and before you know it you've spent £1000 tracking the progress of a disease that usually cures itself anyway. And if we were to go for a general anaesthetic for a joint hoover job, the starting fee is £500 from my vet's operating theatre and the final bill would be in the thousands. That's what vets cost around here. My friend paid £600 for a routine castration of an adult horse last year.
If this makes me sound too mean to pay to get Tetley right, I'm afraid that is close to the truth. I have lost too many horses in the past to things that couldn't be cured - kidney failure, heart failure, blindness. I know that I could spend thousands, get him right, and then have him break a leg in the field and lose him anyway. And hard as it sounds, I know there is another horse out there that I could love if I lose him. Just like he made up for Basil, Basil made up for Finnegan and Tia and Caddy are making up for Smartie.
My vet tells me that this is just normal and I won't have an answer as to permanent soundness until next year. I know he'd be happy to spend lots of my money for me doing all sorts of investigations (he told me so :-), but he says this is just following the textbooks at the moment, and he is happy for me not to do anything yet but wait and see.
When I did the interval work on Wednesday, Tetley slipped once behind on his bad leg. I thought nothing of it, but in retrospect it's very likely to have been the cause of Thursday's problem. He's bouncing again now, anyway.
To answer your question, when he's off, he's extremely happy to trot, he's just not sound. It gets better the longer you ride for, and uphill is sound all the time after half an hour out. It's always been more on one leg than the other and that leg has more bone formation than the other. He hoiks it from the hip, but I'm told by observers that even when I can feel it a lot, it doesn't show much. I may even be hypersensitive and feeling stuff other people wouldn't necessarily even notice.
From Jean's suggestion, I have an alternative proposition for what is happening - perhaps partial fusion has taken place, then I do something more difficult than usual (interval train on a slope) and break it open again. For a day or so it is sore, then it reseals and he's OK again??? This diary is invaluable. I will try spotting what he did the day before a bad day, and see if that fits. It does this time, but I don't remember anything last time - though he could have been a total pillock in the field and I wouldn't have known if I wasn't around :-)
Please keep the suggestions coming Cassie, and everyone. At some stage I will need to do something else, and I might need prompting to realise that it is time I stop waiting and do something more active. My vet is a human, he could be wrong.
I've been out today, so done nothing. Tia starts work towards Standish on the 3rd Sept tomorrow. I think it's time we took the dressage seriously!
C.
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