… “it’s always SOMETHING!”
I probably jinxed my horses’ ongoing welfare when lamenting the rocks at last Saturday’s ride and miserably noting the likelihood that someone would get a stone bruise.
While he finished absolutely sound, Ace was dead lame on Tuesday morning. There is nothing quite like trying to do a lay-horseperson’s lameness diagnosis on a horse with absolutely no sense of stoic. Whose barn name is “Twitchy.”
[On an aside, this horse got a rope burn during an unfortunate hi-tie incident at a CTR last season. Of course, being a nurturer and a guilt-ridden former Catholic who allowed this incident to occur, I wanted to keep the wound clean and gooped up with any one of seventeen soothing ointments. Ace, entirely uninterested in my foibles, was absolutely adamant that I.Should.Not.Touch.His.Pastern.
I would not believe this story if someone relayed it about their own horse, but I swear that if I looked at his pastern, if I dared as to so much pause during grooming and bend over to gaze at its crusty ugliness, he would hold it up as though my gaze had elicited stabbing pain to the wound. Then limp off, crippled.
I finally made a pact with Ace that I would not look at the wound, much less clean or dress it, and he would not limp. I continued to condition him through mud and allowed him to be turned out in all matter of disgusting horse-related slop, and the wound healed absolutely unventfully.
I vow that I will one day own a horse who does not qualify for Special Needs status.]
Okay, so Tuesday morning, I began Semi-Competent Equine Lameness Analysis.
Easy enough to pick the leg. Right front.
Some general slight fill and heat from knee to fetlock, but also some fill in the pastern.
General unwillingness to weight the heels — so was it a heel bruise or a ligament/tendon injury?
Pick up the leg, flex the toe back toward the elbow to “test” the suspensory. Flinch.
Pinch the tendons/ligaments along the back of the cannon. High up? Flinch. Lower down the cannon? Flinch. Suspensory branches? Flinch, flinch.
With a hoof pick, and then my thumbs, test for sensitivity on the sole. Actually, this was negative. Who knew? Exhausted from flinching, is what I surmise.
Inside heel bulb? Flinch. Outside heel bulb? Flinch.
Repeat all of the above. Similar results.
Bang head against wall in cross tie area.
Cold hose the leg. Apply Surpass. Shake head in frustration. Feed a bunch of hay in the sacrifice paddock to limit any silly galloping up and down to the big pasture. (Locking Ace in a stall would result in him climbing said stall walls. Not typically considered therapeutic.) Head out of town for an overnight trip, asking husband to keep up the same regimen with Ace.
Our farrier was scheduled to be out yesterday afternoon, so I hoped we’d find a smoking gun. Like me, he got the same reactions on the leg, but when he pressed on the outside heel bulb (flinch), poof, a little bubble of pus squirted out at the hairline. Eureka!
Epsom soak salt, wrapped Ace in an ichthammol slathered diaper/duct tape boot for the night, and this morning, he is sound, sound, sound! Hooray! The abscess point looks clean, but that heel bulb is still definitely tender to the touch.
So Twitchy gets a little more vacation time on R&R so we can make sure there’s nothing else going on. And I’m slathering Surpass on those tendons/ligaments just in case.
Three weeks until the VT 100 CTR! 🙂