Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Update on Sam

We have improvement. On Friday and Saturday we had a fair bit of rain so the ground is nice and soft at the moment. Sunday morning I put him on the lunge but the ground was too slippery to get a good idea. I trotted him out on the road and he seemed improved. By the afternoon the ground had dried out a fair bit so I lunged him over in the reserve in the arena I have created over there. He had a lovely time kicking up his heels and trotted out nicely both directions. I trotted him on the road again and there was still a small amount of lameness to the right.

Monday night I rode him. He was full of beans but went well. I was even able to ride a 15m circle on the soft ground. Tuesday I think he must have woken up on the wrong side of the stable as he was extremely grumpy so I didn't ride. This afternoon we went for a long 40min walk where he strided out well the whole time. He was feeling very fresh, tried to break into a trot a few times but came to a walk without too much fuss. We did two 10minute sessions in the arena with a 3 minute walk break in between. He worked well, very forward but seemed sound.

Townsville Vets have already destroyed Sam's x-rays. They only need to keep them for two years they tell me. I spoke to Brad Dowling the vet who worked with Sam a lot while we were up there and our conversation went a lot like this:

Me: Hi Brad, we are having a few lameness issues with Sam and having a little difficulty in pin pointing exactly where it is.

Vet: So the Pedal Ostitis is finally showing

Me: Oh, they were throwing that around but not to sure.

Vet: I am surprised you have gotten this long out of him

Me: Any suggestions on how to treat it

Vet: Not a lot you can do, he is only going to give you a lot of heart ache being lame on and off.

Me: Thanks Brad

I spoke to Hadley my vet here and relayed what was said. She seems to think his pasterns are playing a part as well and would like to do some more tests. Because I will now have to float Sam into town to be shod (the new farrier refuses to travel out to me) they will test him then. I am to keep him in work and monitor how he goes. In about 4 weeks I will take him in and see how we go. From there we can work out a pain management plan. If the pasterns are playing a part she thinks she can help with this with some injections. I guess we will have to wait and see.

3 comments:

SprinklerBandit said...

Yikes, sounds serious. Hope you can get some answers. Poor Sam.

Wolfie said...

How frustrating! I hope that between the vet and the farrier that they are able to pinpoint what the best course of action is to make Sam comfortable. Fingers are crossed!

Anonymous said...

Wow, what a compassionate vet. I hope that you get some answers soon!