Timehop decided to remind me that its been four years since we diagnosed May’s weirdest injury ever. All of the below happened back in 2015… about 3 months after I bought May. It is worth noting that she was barefoot at the time.
08/31 – Rode May. Sound and happy.
9/2 – Farrier Visit
9/3 – Grade 4 lame on the left front. Worked lightly for 10 minutes to evaluate and get a baseline. Horse put away. No heat, swelling, or other symptoms.
9/5 – Grade 2 lame on left front. Only worked for 15 minutes with limited turning.
9/6 – Grade 1 lame on left front. Rode horse in boots for 20 minutes. (Pics of boots below… these are STILL going strong!)
9/10 – Grade 2 lame on left front. Rode in boots but more consistently lame than previously. I was convinced that her toe felt a bit soft. Began soaking and wrapping foot. (assumed diagnosis at this point is abscess or stone bruise)
9/12 – Grade 2 lame. Continuing to soak and wrap. Buuuuut the hoof no longer felt soft.
9/13 – Grade 2 lame.
9/16 – Grade 2 lame. Coronary band swollen. Now thinking it might be an abscess that will pop through coronary band. (could explain the VERY Lame, less lame, more lame pattern)
9/18 – Grade 2 lame. Vet visit with x-rays.
Final diagnosis? May had a piece of gravel jammed up into her white line. Given the size and location, we decided not to extract it.
Instead, we continued to soak and wrap until I was convinced her foot was going to disintegrate. At that point, I stopped the soaking and let the hoof harden back up. By that point, the gravel had disintegrated on its own, and we went back to riding as if nothing had ever happened.
Oh so… are you all wondering by now how I had such detailed info FOUR YEARS after the event? I was the crazy lady that had a post-it note going with all this info.
What about you? What’s the strangest injury your horse has ever had?
Yeah, that’s definitely a weird one! I’m actually surprised it didn’t abscess.
I did have a weird one with Rio once. We thought abscess as he was VERY lame. Vet went digging a bit, but nothing really came out. Next day, PROUD FLESH coming out of the hole the vet dug. It was awful. He was in so much pain he looked like he was foundering. Lots of special shoes later it eventually healed back up. That was definitely weird.
Omg like what horses? Lol why would they do this to us??
Gwyn got bitten by a rattlesnake on her face. That was an ordeal. I have a timeline only because I was taking pictures and documenting the WHOLE healing process. It’s pretty amazing how well she healed and now you can barely tell that half her face fell off.
and here i was thinking my horse was the one who always had bizarre shitty things happen to his feet haha! that’s crazy tho – i’ve never heard of that happening…
probably my horse’s strangest / most annoying injury was when he persistently had a puffy weepy eye last christmas, and after blowing $400 on vet appts and diagnostics, we figured out it was bc he was somehow managing to bash his eye repeatedly into the hook hanging his water bucket. like… wtf sir, could you not? we have (obvi) since changed how the bucket is hung….
Bahahaha like come on dude. It’s not that complicated
Ramone stuck a nail through his face once. His face was so swollen it looked like he had broken his nose. Luckily he was the most patient type and I was able to clear it with squeezing the infection out multiple times a day, cleaning and antiobiotic ointment.
Omg. One of my old trainers had a 2 yr old that broke out of his stall and sliced open an artery in his face one night. The barn looked like a trashy 80s horror flick
I laughed at the post-it note, but I have the exact same thing in my Notes app about P’s weirdest injury, which was hands down The Foot Hole. More gross than weird, I guess, but I’ve never seen a half-chopped off hoof so everything about it was weird to me.
Horses…
Like do we really need to make things this interesting? Horses aren’t boring… they dont need injuries to keep our attention.