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Annular ligament injuries?
My best friend's horse has injured her annular ligament, and although no one is saying anything to her face, people have been throwing around all sorts of suggestions, from the probable "she can't compete anymore and should be a happy hacker" to the more serious "find her a pasture" to "Put her down now."
Based from your experiences, I would like to know which of these three scenarios is most likely? I am not looking for a diagnosis, but I want to have the right attitude to provide the best support possible to my friend without getting her hopes up too high nor sounding like a downer.
Some information to help base your opinion on: this mare used to be a show jumper and I've seen her jump 1m50, her previous owners were crap to put it mildly, so she has an old injury which flared up a couple of months ago and ended up being this annular ligament injury.
It is a bulge at the fetlock (forelimb) and she has had it drained. She was put on bute for sometime but wasn't sound even on bute so its been stall rest and hand walking for her over these past weeks. Recently she had an ultrasound and they are considering a surgical operation seeing as there is little improvement.
Would you say it is likely that they would have to put her down? Bear in mind that these are people willing to spend a huge amount of time and money to get her better, I'm pretty sure they would go to the length of getting her a prosthetic limb if necessary.
What do you say?
4 Answers
- Missy BLv 76 years ago
None of us are vets and we aren't looking right at the horse. But I had a TB with an old DDFT injury, midway up the cannon, and he stayed quite sound until he was pushing 20. He got the injury at 7. In his teenage years he dropped down from the 3' level to 2', and then just hunter hack (flat with 2 fences) and Xrail classes. But he still loved to show and didn't require drugs to keep him sound. Though he did develop some serious arthritis and needed supplements in the winter for that.
I wouldn't think this horse will be a 3' horse anymore. Depending on how bad the injury is, though, she could possibly be a 2'3 horse, an Xrail horse, a low level dressage horse, trail horse or "happy hacker" as you put it.
I doubt euthanasia is really needed. But again I'm not looking at a 3 legged horse in my mind.
Surgery... is tricky. Often the risk of the damages done by surgery is greater than the known injury all ready. I'd be reluctant to have a surgery done.
The best thing you can do for your friend is just be a listener. Just be a shoulder to cry on. You're not going to change the situation. Just let her know she has a friend and maybe offer to let her ride your horse, or pay for a lesson on a different horse for her, so she can still enjoy riding right now.
- gale hawkLv 56 years ago
Yes, Google is your friend for an injury like this. The prognosis is all over the place BTW.
Here are some stories about that type of injury. Looks like a LOOoooong recovery.
- partly cloudyLv 76 years ago
I always like to google: prognosis for recovery from annular ligament injury. Given some luck, and the right care horses can recover from a lot of injuries. I am not familiar with this injury. ps. ijust googeled it and read a lot of peoples posts on dif. sites stating that once they had the surgery done the horse recovered well. they also say that non surgical options wasted a lot of time and did nothing.
