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Re: [RC] Light riding question - Lysane Cree


Hi, 

I had a 13 year old gelding with bone spavin. His
hocks were so stiff that it was a lot of trouble to
shoe/trim his hind feet. He wasn't mean about it, but
it hurt him to bend his hind leg that much and keep it
there. I could clean his hind feet with no problem as
long as I didn't raise his foot very high off the
ground. His knees had started to "crack" too - for the
first 15-20 minutes of a ride, you could hear
crackling noises (sort of like when you crack your
knuckles) coming from his knees, until he was warmed
up. 
Despite this, I had him for four years and it was only
in the last year that he started showing some
lameness. This coincided though with my growing
interest in endurance and competitive trail. I had
begun conditioning him and when training rides started
to consist of mostly trotting for several hours at a
time (didn't have all my trails measured out at the
time, but probably was around 10 miles), he would end
up lame by that evening or the next day. And I did
take a long time to build him up to that. His muscles
were willing, but his joints were not. He never had a
huge limp, but you could see he was off a little. The
vet said to give him bute, but I had a problem with
giving him bute regularly and also masking the pain. I
figure that he is limping for a reason and riding him
on bute will only aggravate the problem since he won't
feel the pain. I ended up selling him to a woman who
only does occasional trail rides at a walk and the
rest of the time he is on pasture. This was fine for
him and he wasn't lame.  When I was riding him too, I
could walk for hours and hours, its the trotting that
got to him. 
Good luck with your horse, 
Lysane

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