It’s been a while since I last put out a Horse Lover post. Partly it’s because I’ve been working on other writing projects. Partly it’s because, measured against the usual ups and downs of a horse’s life, Larry has been through a tough few months.

When Larry was diagnosed with kissing spine and neck arthritis a year and a half ago, I expected I would have to ride him on a long rein for the rest of his life. But my new coach impressed on me this was the worst thing to do. Larry needed to go in a frame that rounded his back in order to keep his spinous processes from rubbing together (see my earlier post, Larry’s middle Story). He also needed to reach for the contact in order to stretch his neck. These sound like the goals of every dressage rider, but apparently it wasn’t how I was riding.

There comes a time when every rider with a desire to improve must face the unvarnished truth about their riding. This was my moment of truth. Despite decades of riding lessons from good people, I was riding from “front to back”, not “back to front”. Instead of moving my horse forward into a soft, giving hand, I was holding my horse’s head “in a frame”, and then using all my strength to push him forward against the obstruction of my hands and the tension in my body, both of which were signalling him to stop.

For years I got away with it on my long-suffering Warmblood, Gandalf. But Larry, a sensitive Thoroughbred, spent the first year and a half of our relationship trying to tell me he wasn’t happy. He would balk. He would snake his head around and try to bite my foot in the stirrup. He would fling his head in the air and bolt. He would buck through transitions. In the ups and downs of a horse’s life, this was definitely a down time for Larry, until I finally realized I had to learn a new way of riding.

Learn, I did. I learned to relax my core so I wouldn’t obstruct Larry’s forward movement. I imagined the reins as two light rods connecting my hands to the bit with a constant tension. “Don’t pull back and don’t let go,” my coach would tell me, again and again. Using this approach, I got Larry to reach for the contact on a long rein.

Then I shortened the reins while maintaining the “reaching” sensation. Using lateral exercises (shoulder in, leg yield and half pass) at walk and trot, I activated Larry’s hind end so he could flex his hocks and round his back. Before long, Larry was offering some very good walk, trot and canter.

One day, I was able to get him to lengthen and shorten his trot by relaxing or tightening my core – no leg! He was light and responsive and happy. In the ups and downs of a horse’s life, this was a definite up!

A different kind of trouble was brewing, though. In September, he occasionally started swinging his quarters to the inside and balking. I was able to ride through it; I’d move his shoulders in front of his quarters and then he’d go forward. But more and more frequently, he would stumble on his right front foot at the walk. When I would check him on the lunge, he seemed perfectly sound. Then, at the end of a lesson in early November, he refused to trot. In the weeks that followed, the only way I could get him to trot was on a loose rein, with his nose dragging on the ground. Eventually he was dragging his nose even at the walk. And on the lunge line, it wasn’t much different. His happy place was with his nose around his ankles.

My vet couldn’t find anything wrong.

In an attempt to diagnose a potential underlying lameness, we interrupted Larry’s regular anti-inflammatory previcox, which he was taking to support his hocks, and put him on a short course of another anti-inflammatory, phenylbutazone, to see if he would improve. The good news was, on Day 2 he seemed more willing to trot. The bad news was, by Day 3, he was showing signs of ulcers, one of bute’s potential side-effects. The question was, were they new ulcers, or were they underlying ulcers exacerbated by the bute? Reluctance to go forward can be a symptom of ulcers. Maybe he’d had low-grade ulcers all along? I put Larry on a month of omeprazole for gastric ulcers, followed by Jeremiah’s Ulcer Repulser in case he had hindgut ulcers. He started looking perkier. Would he be willing to trot?

No. By mid-January, over two months had passed since Larry refused to trot. I wasn’t riding anymore, if you could call sitting in the saddle and walking Larry around on a long rein, riding. On the lunge, I was letting Larry decide what he wanted to do, and he was choosing to walk. This was definitely not normal behaviour for a Thoroughbred that hadn’t had any real exercise since early November. In the ups and downs of a horse’s life, this was really down. It was time for another vet visit.

This time there was a tentative diagnosis: sore in both front feet. I was astonished. Neither I nor anyone else had seen any soreness. To be honest, with my untrained eye, I still couldn’t see it. But as instructed, once again I took Larry off his previcox. Two weeks later, when the vet returned, Larry’s discomfort was more evident. A heel block confirmed it: lame in both front feet. In the ups and downs of a horse’s life, this was really, really down. The next step was either radiographs – x-rays – or an MRI.

I opted for MRI, which would be able to reveal soft tissue changes that would not show up on x-rays. So at 8:30 am on Valentine’s Day, the coldest morning of the winter – my car thermometer read minus 24°C – Larry was in a trailer on his way to the MRI clinic. One of the advantages of living in the heart of horse country is that the clinic was only a 10-minute trailer ride away.

The following day, my vet called me from a wedding she was attending to give me the results: “mild bilateral navicular lesions, mild coffin joint arthritis in the RF, and bone edema/inflammation in the lateral wing of the LF coffin bone”. I’ve created the diagram below to show what this meant. The most important word in all this was “mild” – not serious. In the ups and downs of a horse’s life, the fact that I now knew exactly what the problem was meant this down was starting on its way up.

The recommended treatments were: 2-3 months of “rest and rehabilitation”, with at least a month of it as stall rest; shoeing to support the heels and improve breakover; and injection of a bisphosphonate drug called Osphos.

Fortunately Larry was already being shod as per the recommendations. I went ahead with the Osphos injection. If you’re interested in knowing more about this drug, click here and scroll down to the manufacturer’s educational videos. As for stall rest, I agreed to it reluctantly. I hate the idea of confining any horse unless the situation is ultra-serious. Within a week, Larry was so stressed that he was running around his stall throughout the day, and he was starting to weave. So I decided he’d be better off turned out in a small pen. He’s been happier and calmer with that arrangement, and has just started Month 2 of “not-stall rest”. In light of the current COVID-19 barn restrictions that don’t allow owners to visit their horses, I suppose the timing couldn’t be better. In the ups and downs of a horse’s life, this was definitely heading up.

So now, it’s “hurry up and wait”. In case Larry is limited to light riding after this, I’ve bought a couple of books on ground exercises for horses. Riding doesn’t have to be the only way to enjoy a relationship with my horse.

In the end, there will always be ups and downs in a horse’s life. It’s all about finding the silver lining. The happily-ever-after may end up being as simple as feeling Larry’s whiskers tickling my cheek as his warm breath puffs across my face. With all the craziness going on in the world right now, I’d settle for that.