The lame horse?

From my previous post, you may be wondering, "Lame horse? But I thought he was cured from the EPM...?"

Well, so did I. And he was. The vet came out to give him another neuro exam and give me the all clear to go back to riding. He passed his exam with flying colors, but he looked the slightest touch off behind when he was trotted.

Really, horse?!?!

I was told to start him back lightly back under saddle, and perhaps this was a muscling issue or a remnant from the EPM that might resolve itself with conditioning. I rode him at the walk for 5-10 minutes several days in a row, and on the fifth day put him on the lunge to evaluate.

He was definitely off in back, the right worse than the left but to my eye it looked like both. He cross-fired a lot at canter. I sighed, and made arrangements to haul him over to the clinic.

After doing flex tests, we pinpointed the problem as his hocks. X-rays were taken, and there was some nice arthritis already percolating in both hocks.

For athletic soundness, he would need to be injected in the upper and lower joint of both hocks.

He's only five years old.
How does he get arthritis this bad when he hasn't even done anything?!
He's only five years old...

"How many times can you inject hocks? I mean, he's only five..."

"Well, you can't really say, it depends on the horse. Some horses can get a year or two out of an injection, some may need them every 6 months to stay comfortable. When the point comes that the injections don't help, then he's finished."

I looked at my boy, who had jumped out successfully from his field just four or five short weeks before.

I hypothesize that he both overtaxed his hock joints trying to maintain his balance while he had the EPM, and that there might also just be something about the condition and the inflammatory processes that caused this arthritis. When I've mentioned it to other people with young horses who'd had EPM, I found out quite a few of them had arthritis onset at that time, too.

So what do I do with a youngster that needs invasive intra articular injections to be useful, but would be pretty useless (and uncomfortable) without them? He would be exposed to possible joint infection every time you went in, and it might get him only 7 or 8 years anyway.

I thought on a quote that I had heard attributed to Bruce Davidson, which was something along the lines of your horse may get injured in the course of tough jobs like eventing or field hunting, but they also can hurt themselves badly out in the field being a horse. You might as well use them while you've got them.

Every time I go out of town, he goes off exploring. This horse likes having a JOB more than most; he has a lot of ability.

And he was the only one I had, or could afford.   

I had the vet inject his hocks, Cappy had his 3 day rest period, and I saddled him up. We were supposed to be still walking, since he hadn't been in any consistent work for five months, but Cappy did not care.

I FEEL GREAT!! 
I am so so STRONG! 
I am ALL POWERFUL!

Yeah, yeah, buddy. I guess you are ready to get back to work.

I called Crazy But Lotta Fun Farm and secured a boarding stall starting the 1st of the month.

It was time to get Cappy in shape to be a working event horse.