Oh, Buggles-ation!
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♥Apr. 7th, 2016 // 07:35 pm♥
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Bugs has been intermittently slightly lame for a few weeks now, and after the second cut-short riding lesson in a row I thought "Sod this" and called the vet: GB was due for a blood test anyway, so it made sense to combine the two.
I was slightly worried that today might be one of the days when he was fine, but the vet saw it straight away, and said "I think I know what it is, let's do a flexion test." That involves holding the leg up in the air for a minute and then immediately having the horse trot. We did the non-lame leg first, and she said "hmm, not right on that side", and then we did the lame leg, and he decided to rear instead of trotting. On principle, I made him trot anyway after he'd come back down, and she could still see whatever she was looking for even with a pause before the trot.
Her working theory is that he has arthritis in both hocks, worse on one side than on the other. AKA bone spavins, a fine old fashioned horsey term that didn't once pass the lips of our lovely young vet. What she wants to do is a full on investigation, with x-rays and nerve blocks, at c£350 per leg. What we're actually going to do is two weeks off with pony ibuprofen and then have another look: if he's better, it's something else. After which we're probably going to end up with the investigation, given how certain she was of the diagnosis.
If she's right, he'll never compete again (but he wasn't going to anyway) and he'll be in pain until such time as the bones of the joint fuse together, after which he'll be a bit stiff but otherwise fine. Probably.
(And bucking on the canter transition is a symptom....) |
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