Vet Orders 6 Month Stall Rest After Suspensory Ligament Injury
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I’m sitting here watching my horse graze, wondering how we got here. There’s a layer of fog resting over the field, and the birds are singing their morning songs. The air is crisp. He swishes his tail at a few flies as I drift back into time.
It’s September 2011. He was just another horse in the barn. A couple of my friends had been riding him, but my trainer made the decision to sell him. There wasn’t enough stalls, and he was too green to be a lesson horse. That’s when she asked me to start riding him, and keep him exercised until he was sold. She couldn’t find a buyer for him, so he went off to another farm so they could try and sell him. He ended up not working out there either, so he came back.
I didn’t realize how much I had missed riding him until he came back. I started riding him again, trying to help my trainer sell him. At first, he was just another horse for me to ride. But there came a point when I didn’t want him to be sold. If someone bought him, it meant I wouldn’t be able to ride him anymore. I would be worried about him, wondering how he was doing. That’s when I knew he had to become my “Beau.”
It’s December now. I wasn’t exactly horse shopping when the idea popped into my head. My trainer had me try out a horse just for fun, because she loved it and thought I would too. I ended up not liking the horse at all, but it got ideas rolling around in my head. Even though I had been leasing a horse to show for almost two years, I wanted to move on from him and have something to call my own.
I came up with a general idea of what I wanted in my new horse. I wanted a bay gelding with little chrome(because cleaning white socks is the most tedious thing in the world), a horse with a great personality and a project I could work with. Price was also a factor, but I didn’t think it would be too much of a problem since most project horses aren’t too expensive. My dad was a little hard to convince that we needed to buy a new horse, but with the help of my trainer we got through to him.
What I never realized was that he was there the whole time. He was a bay gelding with a star, he was green, and had the best personality in the barn. We didn’t click when I first started riding him, but after about a month it was clear that we were meant to be.
In the few weeks before we bought him, I would say I was definitely infatuated with him. Anytime someone would say his name, I would start giggling. My trainer would joke around that he was my boyfriend (and of course he still is). I ended up giving him a full body clip just because I wanted him to look extra pretty. I think it started to seal the deal that he was going to be mine. One day, I was riding him and my trainer asked, “Wouldn’t it be funny if you asked your dad to buy him?” The funny thing was, I already had the night before! So, after a few days of convincing my mom it was a good idea, we decided to get him vet checked. He checked out sound and we were ready to buy him!
On January 26, 2012, we bought Beau. I couldn’t have been happier with our decision. Two days later, we went to our first show together. He hadn’t showed in months and had never shown at 2’6”, so he was a little up. I ended up leaning at him to one of the jumps and he added a short stride in before the jump, and then I fell off. It was one of my most ridiculous falls, but we were both okay and I was laughing about it after.
Our next show was a little better... I managed to stay on the whole time! We still had a lot to work on though, so we decided to wait a month until I showed again and just improve on things at home. For our next show, we went to the Virginia Intermont Classic. We just did a 2’3” division and a 2’6” division the next day, but it was his first “big boy” show with me(a rated show). He was so well behaved and was jumping better than usual, but we still had mistakes in our courses which kept us out of the ribbons in the large divisions. However, we got 3rd in the hack in really good company! I was very proud of him that day.
We continued showing in the 2’6” divisions at shows and I was getting a little bored. On May 7th, we were at a local show, but they had a medal class at 3’. My trainer made a deal with me that if we kept all the rails up in the 2’6” she would let me do the medal. Beau has a problem with keeping rails up sometimes because he doesn’t really care where his feet are. So luckily, we kept the rails up and got to do the medal and ended up 3rd! We also got our first Reserve Champion at that show in the 2’6”.
Our next big show was the Upperville Colt & Horse Show. We were going to go in the Back From the Track Hack. But, about a week before Upperville, he lost a shoe and came in lame. We thought he had twisted his ankle or something. So two days before I was supposed to show, he was sound. I hacked him lightly and he was good to show! We ended up 8th in the class out of a lot and I couldn’t have been happier.
Shortly after Upperville was the Loudoun Benefit Horse Show. He was so good there and so quiet! The only problem was... I didn’t know how to ride him when he was that quiet! We didn’t end up placing well that day, but it was okay.
A few weeks later, on July 3rd, I was having a lesson. Same old, same old. We were just trotting around, then he tripped (nothing unusual, he trips a lot) but he suddenly came up really lame. We left him in for about a week, but the lameness stayed the same. We decided to take him to our vet. He said he had arthritis in his knee and the tripping just made it flare up. So, it was injected about a week later and was supposed to be better in a couple of days. However, the lameness was still the same. My trainer told us to ask if there could be any chance of it being the suspensory. He told us there was no chance. Since he was still lame, and our other vet happened to be out at the barn that day, so we had her look at him. Right off the bat she thought it was a soft tissue problem. Sure enough, she pulled out the ultrasound and he had torn his suspensory. It had only been 6 months that I had owned him.
So now he’s on stall rest for the next 6 months. That will be about until the end of January. He’s getting Shockwave Therapy and a procedure called PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) done to help the healing process. It’s going to be a long six months, but I’m hoping our bond and lots of treats will make it seem faster! |
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Starlight Farm
Sorry to hear about his lameness. Glad you've gotten so far with him though. He sounds like he was a very good boy to go from green to big shows in a relatively short time period. He's very cute :D Please post some shots over bigger jumps if you happen to get some, I'd like to see what he's doing with his legs over a bigger jump :)
Sorry to hear about his lameness. Glad you've gotten so far with him though. He sounds like he was a very good boy to go from green to big shows in a relatively short time period. He's very cute :D Please post some shots over bigger jumps if you happen to get some, I'd like to see what he's doing with his legs over a bigger jump :)
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Aug 20, 2012
• 6,679 views
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IggyPogo
Oh, he's such a beautiful and talented horse. I hope he gets better soon!
Oh, he's such a beautiful and talented horse. I hope he gets better soon!
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Aug 20, 2012
• 6,567 views
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C H O S E N
Feel better soon, Beau :)
Feel better soon, Beau :)
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Aug 21, 2012
• 6,954 views
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Double Spur Ranch
Very beautiful horse! I hope he get's better to where you can ride him again :)
Very beautiful horse! I hope he get's better to where you can ride him again :)
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Aug 24, 2012
• 6,594 views
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Breezing Hill
Hang in there and keep having patience.
A side story, I owned my mare for 2yrs and after much turmoil, blood, sweat and tears we finally moved up to Training Level in eventing when she started behaving oddly and ended up dragging her right hind, that was in November of 2009. It was misdiagnosed as a stifle problem, injected twice over a two month period, hill work 7days a week for 2 months, then pasture rest for a month, then light walk rides for 2 months, then finally slowly some ring work at the trot. We changed up her shoes, kept up strengthening her hind end and thought we were in the clear. By that point it was August 2010, when she lost that right hind shoe (twisted it off) and was REALLY lame. Did a bone scan late that month, found that she had a stress fracture with a possible suspensory injury, she was put on stall rest until February of 2011, it had not healed even with Shockwave therapy and PRP, so they did an MRI and found out both her R and L hind had a high suspensory
Hang in there and keep having patience.
A side story, I owned my mare for 2yrs and after much turmoil, blood, sweat and tears we finally moved up to Training Level in eventing when she started behaving oddly and ended up dragging her right hind, that was in November of 2009. It was misdiagnosed as a stifle problem, injected twice over a two month period, hill work 7days a week for 2 months, then pasture rest for a month, then light walk rides for 2 months, then finally slowly some ring work at the trot. We changed up her shoes, kept up strengthening her hind end and thought we were in the clear. By that point it was August 2010, when she lost that right hind shoe (twisted it off) and was REALLY lame. Did a bone scan late that month, found that she had a stress fracture with a possible suspensory injury, she was put on stall rest until February of 2011, it had not healed even with Shockwave therapy and PRP, so they did an MRI and found out both her R and L hind had a high suspensory injury and the stress fracture was still present in the R hind. They decided the best thing was to do surgery. They cut the split the tendon, cut the nerve and cut the fascia that enclosed the tendon in both hind legs, they then drilled 3 holes into her right hock where the fracture was. She was put on stall rest another 2 months then by April we were hand walking her and by May walking her undersaddle. It was a LONG process but my November 2011 she was 100% sound. I didnt even mention the vet who is the leading expert in high suspensory injuries in the US gave her a 40% of being sound, and that did not mean sound enough to compete. She however in May 2012 competed her first Horse Trails back without taking a wrong step.
It can be done!! So keep thinking positive and dont give up. I know 6 months seems like a long time but it will be worth it in the end once she is given enough time to heal. Good luck!!
P.S. to help ease the stall rest, I found buying holiday decorations and decorating the stall worked wonders! Like those blow up animals/people or pin wheels, ribbons, anything that keeps them active. They also have those horse treats you can use to get them thinking.
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Sep 3, 2012
• 6,750 views
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ponybox01
hope he is better now :)
hope he is better now :)
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Jul 6, 2013
• 6,526 views
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