Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

About four weeks ago, I posted the following query:

> During the ride, I noticed that she was "knuckling
> over" in the back more than I was comfortable with...
> ...East Bay was her third 50 and had quite a bit more
> continuous flat(ish) trotting that we're used to...
> ...I noticed...she seemed very sore in her stifle area...

As an update, Zini has been diagnosed with "upward fixation
of the patella" - basically, locking stifles. Since Mouse was
due to go to the vet for her suspensory recheck a couple of
weeks ago, I ended up taking Zini along for him to take a look
as well.

Right away he said he was able to see that her stifles were
locking and kind of spasming (once I knew that they weren't
supposed to do that, it became somewhat obvious). I explained
about the knuckling over and the soreness - he reached out to
touch her stifle, she tried to kick him... fair enough. The
main trouble was she was never specifically lame with this
problem, so it was hard to demonstrate. After watching her lunge
(athletically, with no problem) and listening to my explanation
of her symptoms, he x-rayed both stifles to make sure there was
no degeneration. The x-rays were clean, but you could see a flat
spot on the bottom edge of her femur which corresponded with a
flat area on the patella which you could imagine hooking against
each other.

He said the problem can be caused by lack of strength - typically,
the quads and gluts are weak and need building up (it took me a
while to figure out where the quads are on a horse, and, nope, she
doesn't really have any)(I later read that these are the last muscles
in the group to develop, so in her case, it has been another example
of operator error where I did too much, too soon before her body was
ready for it). Even though we do quite a bit of hillwork, in Zini's
case (apart from her physiology) I think the primary cause of her
recent flare up was the continuous somewhat flat trotting at East Bay,
which we don't train for too much (not much of it around - I'll now
be seeking it out <g>).

So I came away with the instruction to do lots of long trotting
to strengthen that area and to do lots of walking up hills. She's
also to get a 2 degree wedge in her rear shoes, to speed up her
breakover and get her past this current inflammation. And lastly,
and perhaps most curiously, she's getting regular estrogen shots
for a few weeks - the idea being that the estrogen will mimic the
relaxing of the tendons/ligaments ready for "that baby to pop out"
and will hopefully change how her stifles fit together (luckily,
it doesn't seem to making her any more witchy than she already is
<phew>). Oh, and I'm to rub "Surpass" (topical non-steroidal anti-
inflammatory) on her stifles as well about half an hour before
riding her to help her out.

My vet considered this treatment to be a less aggressive way to
start. He said this will fix some horses, but more often than not,
it doesn't. :(  Assuming her condition doesn't improve, he talked
about going a step further by blistering the ligaments with iodine
to cause them to tighten up (?). We discussed the treatment that
many people opt for, where the ligaments are cut, but he said
although this sorts a horse out in the short term, more often than
not, he sees the horse back in his clinic a few year later suffering
from arthritis. So that's useful to  know. The blistering apparently
does a similar job, but without the side effects.

With the nights drawing in, getting Zini the conditioning she
needs to get past this problem is going to be hard, particularly
as Mouse also needs regular riding to continue strengthening her
suspensory, so I'm not hopeful that Zini will pull out of this
on conditioning alone. But we'll see.


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Lucy Chaplin Trumbull
elsietee AT foothill DOT net
Repotted english person in the Sierra foothills, California
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