HairyCob
24th Jan 2003, 08:45 PM
Hi all,
This is a sad story with a question at the end- don't read it if you are easily upset or feeling fragile:(
A girl at my yard bought a young-ish (4 or 5 i think) TB about 3 months ago- he was apparantley bred for eventing but had a hock injury due to a kick in the field and although sound to hack, would never be sound enough to compete, so she bought him fairly cheaply to hack out on.
Unfortunatley, a couple of weeks later the girl was involved in an accident and hurt her back quite badly and was told she couldn't ride for at least 6 months.
Because the horse would not be excersised and would have no turnout at our yard (the muddy paddock only being suitable for 'hardier' types) she decided that the kindest thing to do would be to put him out on loan for 6 months until her back was healed.
She found a really nice person to take him and the place he went had some turnout and all seemed to be going well until early this week when she had a call to say he was lame due to being kicked again.
Apparantley, it was a different leg, and the vet said it may or may not heal- then on Wednesday we were told that unfortunatley it had turned out to be tendonitis and the horse had had to be shot.
This was obviously a huge shock to all of us and I didn't feel it was appropriate to ask too many questions but...
Can anyone tell me what tendonitis is? And is it really so bad that a horse would just have to be shot like that? It feels like it all happened really quickly and that may have been totally necessary, but I can't help feeling that maybe there was something else that could have been done/tried.
I know it is too late for this particular horse, but would appreciate any comments for future reference.
Many thanks,
H.C.'s Mum
This is a sad story with a question at the end- don't read it if you are easily upset or feeling fragile:(
A girl at my yard bought a young-ish (4 or 5 i think) TB about 3 months ago- he was apparantley bred for eventing but had a hock injury due to a kick in the field and although sound to hack, would never be sound enough to compete, so she bought him fairly cheaply to hack out on.
Unfortunatley, a couple of weeks later the girl was involved in an accident and hurt her back quite badly and was told she couldn't ride for at least 6 months.
Because the horse would not be excersised and would have no turnout at our yard (the muddy paddock only being suitable for 'hardier' types) she decided that the kindest thing to do would be to put him out on loan for 6 months until her back was healed.
She found a really nice person to take him and the place he went had some turnout and all seemed to be going well until early this week when she had a call to say he was lame due to being kicked again.
Apparantley, it was a different leg, and the vet said it may or may not heal- then on Wednesday we were told that unfortunatley it had turned out to be tendonitis and the horse had had to be shot.
This was obviously a huge shock to all of us and I didn't feel it was appropriate to ask too many questions but...
Can anyone tell me what tendonitis is? And is it really so bad that a horse would just have to be shot like that? It feels like it all happened really quickly and that may have been totally necessary, but I can't help feeling that maybe there was something else that could have been done/tried.
I know it is too late for this particular horse, but would appreciate any comments for future reference.
Many thanks,
H.C.'s Mum