A short vet saga

As I alluded to in my last post, Henry and I have been struggling with a few vet matters. 

During my last two dressage testes, Henry was really struggling to collect in the walk and his walk changed from a clear 4 beat to a two beat pace. That is obviously not normal, and so off to the vet we went. Other than the walk he felt great. Maybe struggling to push from behind as I asked for more collection, but feeling great for the majority of our riding, which is mostly on the trails! 

Prior to our issues!

Our appointment was scheduled for just before Christmas and on the day we were supposed to go, the practice rang and rescheduled as they had some emergencies come in and only one vet on. So we changed the appointment NYE and in the mean time I rode Henry lightly and took him to the beach. 

He felt fine, but I noticed after the beach his condition declined significantly very quickly. The day after the beach I went to ride, and he clearly told me no. He didn't want to walk up the paddock with me, didn't come and say hi, was just very off. Usually he comes right up to me to see what's happening and is eager to head up to be tacked up. I listened to him and walked away that day, noting his topline looked sunken and that putting a saddle on was not in his best interests even if he had been willing to be ridden. 

Two days later on Christmas Day, I had a close look at him, and he looked ok. His topline seemed fine, he maybe looked a little thin, but generally there was nothing ring alarm bells. He was also willing to be ridden and happy to be tacked up and we went out for a short ride. I had been feeling that his saddles hadn't been fitting as well, so I put shims in  to correct what I was seeing and off we went. Henry felt fine during our ride, but as soon as I got the saddle off, he had oedema where the pressure points had been. I felt terrible, he gave no indication there was a problem and decided not to ride again until after his saddles had been fitted. The fitter was already booked to come out the day before we went to the vet. 

Dressed up for our Christmas Day ride

By the time we saw the saddle fitter, I had a horse who looked like a racehorse. He was thin, had very little topline and looked terrible. He was being fed a lot of food, eating everything, had access to feed 24/7, and nothing had changed in his day to day management. The saddle fitter couldn't do anything with my saddles (I knew that before we went) but I wanted her advice on how to shim my saddles once I could get back on after we had resolved the issues we clearly had. 

His condition on 6/1/25, not the worst he looked, but the first time I decided to document

NYE rolled around and I was very nervous. I had a hunch as to what was going on but didn't have a good feeling about any of it. During the initial trot up, the horse looked quite sound, but the more we worked him up, the more we could see a lameness in the left hind. It was very low grade, but consistent and flexion tests exacerbated it. We nerve blocked the fetlock and saw no improvement, but he came sound on the left when we blocked the hock and lame on the right after too. I was unsurprised by that, and the vet felt that hock arthritis is what we were dealing with. when she put the block in, quite a lot of fluid came out of the joint which is a good indication of here being an issue. 

The radiographs were nothing special, no nasty surprises, so I decided to inject with Arthramid, having previously had a lot of success with it in Henrys coffin joint. We scheduled the injections and a gastroscope for the following week. 

11/1/25, 5 days later!

Surprisingly his gastroscope was clear. No ulcers! I was very pleased as I manage him quite a lot to help keep his tummy happy. But that didn't help with why he had lost so much condition. The vets took a blood test, and did a faecal egg count. The bloods came back clear and the FEC was slightly elevated but nothing too crazy. So basically, I think he got very stressed at the beach, maybe combined with a bit of pain from his hocks and stressed off 30kg. Horses are fun. 

15/1/25

Since going to the vet, Henry is starting to look like himself again. He has put most of the weight back on and generally his topline looks ok. He has been to the dentist and had the physio. The Physio said his muscles feel good but his fascia were where he was sore. He now has a pilates program to help rebuild his topline and hopefully get him back to feeling 100%. I have been walking him over poles in hand too, so I have to add the exercises the physio gave me into the hand walking. 

25/1/25

He is currently quite bored in the paddock, and ready for a job. This week has been too hot for anything, so once it cools down I will get on with the business of rehabbing him and getting back on track. 

25/1/25, He pestered me so much to be ridden, so we did 20 minutes of walking. He was thrilled, though doesn't look it in the picture!