V.E.T

So I'm sure we all remember that in April last year Butchly was lame and it turned out he had a shadow in his x-ray over his pedal bone that we took to be a haematoma. In the Spring when he came back to work he was pretty good, though took some lame steps as he got close to needing new shoes. When he got new shoes he would improve again. He is a very oddly shaped horse who moves oddly and has  quite thin soles so it's not unheard of for him to get muscle sore from correct work and to just take the odd uneven steps.

Still as the season wore on and the ground got harder he started taking uneven steps sooner after his new shoes- 4 weeks instead of 5 etc and with the switch to eventing and more trot work it started to become more apparent. The amount of galloping in eventing probably doesn't help. Anyway I thought it would be related to that haematoma and I was curious to actually see what was going on in that foot,

So off for my basically annual visit to Southern Rangitikei Veterinary Services. I love these guys and can't recommend them highly enough. The equine vets compete as well so they get it. Anyway, so blocked his heels and he was sound after initially being a 1/5 on the straight, a 2/5 circling left and a 3/5 circling right on concrete. Last time we had to block from the fetlock down to get him sound. So anyway we did a full set of foot x-rays. The happy news is that his foot is really very balanced especially considering the shoes were six weeks old. His sole depth is over 1/2 an inch so I can no longer consider them thin!  On the x-rays his legs showed some conformational deviations but in other happy news there is no side bone, no osteoarthritis, and his navicular bone is perfect perfect perfect. The site of the other injury from last year shows bone remodeling so it looks slightly different but the bone density is good and the vet was really happy with it.

The bad news is that there is no apparent issue which of course makes it harder to treat. So he has had a diagnostic shot of corticosteriods into his coffin joint. If he has issues with his cartilage or his impar ligament this shot will help and I should see an improvement in a week maybe 10 days. However long the improvement lasts will help show what the issue is. If it doesn't help then we start looking for bruised heels though this seems unlikely as I always ride him in bell boots and he hardly hustles around the paddocks. He only walks and grazes.  So that is where we are at the moment. I had some vague hopes of qualifying for the national 3day event but that is fading into the distance a little, though if he responds well we have a chance!

ETA when the needle was in his joint space a lot of joint fluid flowed out which is apparently a sign that something is going on in the joint and the joint tries to protect itself by producing more fluid.