Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Hoping someone can help me with my Polish gelding.? We have been doing a number of moderate to steep hill training/conditioning rides fairly recently, done every weekend, and my horse does great up and down the hills.? He has a very nice rear end and does well.?  For the past 3-4 rides however, I've noticed he is bringing up each rear leg and then kicking up and out.? He does have a lower leg fungus, a bunch of scabbies, that we're starting to treat him for -- with these he is biting at them quite a bit as well as the kicking out thing.? I just thought it was the scabbies causing this, but when the farrier came out we couldn't hardly pick up one rear leg at all and she thought he might be having stifle problems.? He seemed to relax when I massaged his rear legs in the stifle region and then we were able to pick his rear foot.? 

Any suggestions on what might be causing this?? Could he have been worked too much on hills and I need to go back to flat work for a little while?? If so, for how long (approximately)?? I do realize alot is based on "it depends" but I'm trying to learn here as to what to do for him and how to bring him back around to where we can do some more LDs without risking injury as a result.

Thanks again...this is a great forum!
Val