My horse developed a swelling in his right hind hock over a week
ago. When he takes his weight off his leg, this swelling
disappears. He is not favouring his back end at all. My
vet had a look at it, and called it a bog spavin. He said that
this can happen when a horse puts a lot of strain on his hind quarter and
pushes. This also could have been caused from doing too much
too soon. We figure that my horse must have gotten this from our
ride the previous day when we went up a very steep hill during our
training ride. It was a slow ride that day, 3 hours of walking, and
we got off the horses and walked them up this steep hill. The day
before we had gone 3 hours with quite a bit of trotting and basically let
the horses set their own pace.
Well anyway, my vet suggested that I try cooling it with cold water,
or liniment and give him a rest and said that it would come down in
a few days.
Both horses are in good condition and both are eager to go. My
vet commented on how good they look, and other than this bog on
his hock were in very good shape for this season's riding. He
suggested that I keep a very close eye on this area as it might cause a
problem further down the road during competition. He
recommended that because of the sport we're in, we might
want to have it drained and cortisone injected in it, especially if
it continues to get inflamed over the riding
season.
Well....it's been over a week, and the swelling
hasn't changed at all. In fact, it is still as swollen as
it was the day the vet saw it last Monday. Yet still no limping
or favouring his hind end at all. In fact, he has been
galloping around the field today and yesterday tail up and
eager to run a fifty!
Now the vet suggests that he should come back, drain the
swelling, and inject this steroid. He said that my horse will be as
good as new in a couple days, and that he should be free of a
similar recurrence for at least six months.
If someone has an alternative method to make it go away, and
STAY away... please let me know.
Also....if I choose not to have this treatment done, can I ride
him anyway and continue my training without risk of worsening
his injury? Or should I wait it out and not ride for however
long it takes for this to clear up on it's own? Or will this
treatment of minor surgery with cortisone fix the problem, so that I can
get on with our training?
I don't want to do something unnecessary, but I also don't want to
jeopardize my mount's health or soundness.