Accident in the paddock

We were very happy with his training and progress, and then he had his accident…

Slightly uneven in walk on right side;
head came up from stretch on right side when right front hit the ground. 

Unfortunately the winter in Sweden had been very mild this time round. There was minimal amount of snow and the ground was wet, soft and unusually uneven in the paddock. Nonetheless the horses needed to have their winter studs on, since it was slippery from ice. And one day in January our boy came in with two stud wounds on both of his hind legs. They appeared on almost exactly the same spot (one just above the hoof and the other just about across the coronary band) and we concluded that he must have wanted to move backwards, but got stuck with hind legs and therefore stepped on them with front legs. Oh joys… Well, he was uneven and we stopped exercising him and tended to the wounds. Luckily they were nothing more than a bit of grazed skin. Even the graze across the coronary band was not too bad. They seemed to heal ok. We popped some hoof boots on to protect the wounds and that was it. Then when they looked ok, we took the boots of, but the same day he came in from the paddock with another wound just beside the previous one… so boots on again… and it happened yet once more… So, boots stayed on now. It seemed to us that he was finding the footing outside so bad that he just kept on stepping on himself. And most likely, as our excellent farrier pointed out, his studs were the problem in such soft and uneven ground: his hooves could not slip, so he got stuck easily and therefore stepped on his feet.

As soon as the snow and ice were gone, we unscrewed the studs… and there our problems with wounds ended. However, once everything looked perfectly healed and we started to work on him more, he still was uneven and furthermore refused to yield to us with his right shoulder. I thought that this was a disciplinary problem. After all, he had not been worked for a couple weeks, just walked around. And so I did quite a lot of ground work. Buck Brannaman and Monty Roberts –style that is. Join-up and half a circle yield exercises. He found it tough, but yielded a bit better and now was even easier to handle… ;)

Here far more obvious. Head up when right front hit the ground. 

However, next day he was very uneven! Basically lame on bends on the right. But nothing on left. We started truly wondering about this… and realised that there was nothing wrong with his hind end nor back, but the problem seemed to be on his right front. We filmed our lameness exam and sent it to Will as an update. And yes, he had pulled one of his right side shoulder muscles, most likely when doing that awkward first movement with both front legs on hind legs…
Oh, did I feel stupid on disciplining him! :( And on the other hand, we may never have realised what was wrong without the session… We may have gone on the whole spring wondering about his stiffness and unlevelness – after all it was very mild. Now at least we could work on it to rehabilitate it properly. At first we gave it a bit over a week and tried to work on it ourselves. We just walked and did a bit of trotting on left in the school. Well, it didn’t get worse, but it also did not get better. So, we booked a vet visit. Very happily the vet agreed on our home-diagnosis… that was also a relief. His feet and joints were perfect! That was good news. And the only problem he could think of was indeed muscle damage on the right shoulder. We got some anti-inflammatory medication for him and advice to only walk in straight lines and not go to the school for 4 weeks. So, that is where we went wrong. We did a bit too much in a bit too small area with him.

In all bad things there is some good maybe… and the good thing about this was that we got to train hacking! We have been so keen to train, that we didn’t really hack for months… On the other hand, autumn is dark, and was wet and so on… good excuses were always to be found! :) 

But now we had to go out to the wild. I made a rope halter for our boy and that was such a good idea! A lot easier to control him outside. So, we did lots of walking… around the hay field round and round… and to the forest through the small village. He loves the forest! But hates cars coming from behind… Luckily the village is very sedate and we met only a couple cars the whole time. And he got better and better with other exciting things such as fences, big rocks, new hedgeplantings and little humans on bikes… Although cars remain his Achilles-heel. Tracktors and quads fine, cars evil! Oh well.

We started riding as well – only in walk of course. Had a lungeline clipped on his bit as a ‘safety line’ through the village and then unclipped him in the forest where nothing was scary. That way everyone stayed calm and happy, and if something would have happened, then the person on foot would have been able to discipline him hopefully without him spinning around. Luckily nothing ever happened! :D 

Palpitation pinpointed the area...