Sunday, February 03, 2013



As of yesterday evening, I see barely a head bob to indicate that she's gimpy.  Did she heal over the winter?  Does she like her hooves overgrown?  Is it just because she hasn't done anything in a while?  I have no idea!  This is frustrating.  Hopeful, but I'm kind of afraid to be hopeful.  I'm going to keep playing with her and see what we end up with...


7 comments:

Unknown said...

Gosh she is a nice looking mare.
I don't see much in the way of head bobbing either.
A certain amount of hopefulness is in order I think.

froglander said...

Looked pretty good and she's such a pretty girl :) Hope she'll stay sound for you!!

Kara said...

So, when she was head bobbing before, which foot was the "head up" on? Would you describe her head bobbing as popping "up" higher than normal, or bobbing "down" lower than she normally carries it. Head "up" might mean she is off on that leg. Head down, might mean she is actually off on the hind leg that is contacting the ground at that moment...now, she had surgery for locking stifles? Was it both hinds?

Kara said...

I can't see any definitive lameness in this video.

Andrea -Mustang Saga said...

Kara,
I don't remember - I've always been bad at telling which one it is. I just thought it was the right front because it was much worse on a circle toward the right, and I had a vet tell me she didn't think it was a hind leg. But she was admittedly not a lameness expert (only does dentistry now). But now that you mention it, maybe the head bob was down.

She had surgery on both hinds. One was worse than the other though. I want to say it was the right but it's been so long now. I could go back on the blog and figure it out but it would take some time.

Kara said...

Hind legs are sneaky...they can mimic front leg lameness. I learned this recently with evaluating a horse for a friend...I showed video to one of our equine orthopedic surgeons and she we watched it over and over and she concluded that she thought it might be in the hind, but that we needed more video, especially trotting on a straight line away to be able to tell...and I had been thinking that it was an obvious front limb lameness because it seems so correlated to the right front. I was so confused though because we could't find anything wrong with her front leg/foot and even hoof testers found nothing. And her foot looked completely normal, good angles and everything. However, her hind hooves, especially that right hind, showed marked assymmetry in the direction the frog was growing, as though she twisted her hoof everytime she walks which is consistent with hock soreness...she's been a barrel horse in a previous life so it made total sense.

And then last week when I was riding with a vet, we evaluated a lame horse and it was exactly the same thing...everyone thought it was the left front leg (there was also a little fluid on the knee too), but it turns out it was actually stemming from the left hind leg and that knee fluid was just coincidental. And that vet explained how to tell the difference between the head bob for the front end and the head bob for the hind end. Front end will be head "up" higher than normal on the sore foot...thus "down on the sound" leg. Hind limb will be head "down" when that sore leg is on the ground to throw the weight forward off that leg. And it is hard to see...you have to stare at the hind end separately for a while to try to detect any asymetry in the gait while you are also aware of the head bob. And evaluate the front end separately too. Otherwise it just looks obviously correlated to the front end (at the trot) and you might miss the hind. Next time she seems off...take a ton of videos of her trotting on cirlces each direction, but then also trotting away from the camera on a straight line...that is often the best view to detect differences in the hip height due to a hind leg lameness.

Andrea -Mustang Saga said...

Wow, thanks for all the info! I will check her out more closely next time. I don't think there is a difference in hip height, at least working on a circle. I have watched for that. I haven't been able to watch her on a straight line very much, but the little that I have done surprised me a bit. She does throw the hoof outward in the front end, especially on her right front, at the trot. Never noticed that before.