17/11/2024
This is so true 😔 many horses I've met that are a little or a lot "not quite right" physically or behaviourally have issues that appear on xray 🐎😢
You Got an X-ray of That?
Kathleen Beckham
One of my horsemanship mentors taught me that a horse’s training issues can actually be caused by physical issues and/or pain. His ethic was that he wasn’t going to try to train pain out of a horse. Once I learned that, and saw that, I continued to study that. It’s a more mainstream idea now than it was back then.
Now, of course, this can lead to a worm hole, because once we start down that worm hole, it can become a cluster pretty quickly. It can be an expensive cluster, and sometimes, no matter the diagnostics performed, we still don’t have an answer. I get it. I live it. It sucks. But we can’t use that as an excuse to not ask the question in the first place.
So this question, “You got an x-ray of that?” I don’t know how many times I’ve said that in the past few years. Mis-shapen joints, bumps where they shouldn’t be, hollows where they shouldn’t be… “You got an x-ray of that?” I mean, aren’t you curious?
Diagnostics are their own worm hole. I struggled with this for a long time, and still do. This is kind of where I’ve ended up for now. I’m always learning more, so this could change. But the way I look at it is that the basic framework of the horse is his bones. If there is something very wrong at that level, we need to know that. The next level is soft tissue, and lots can be wrong there too. But I try to stay organized in my thoughts. Start big, then progress to little. Big to little. Over and over.
That’s why I ask about x-rays. That’s a big view. Problems with bones/joints can cause a cascade of other problems. If that’s what’s happening, treating the “small” things we see and not addressing the “big” won’t actually help the horse that much. I’ve seen this a lot over the years. Big to little. Little comes last.
Now, I’m not saying x-rays will tell the whole story, because they won’t. But it’s information, either way. And yes, horses can work completely happily with horrible x-rays. That’s not a debate, that’s absolutely true.
Over the past few years, I’ve seen a few horses who have really driven this message home for me. My own 11-year-old horse, he was not quite right for a few years. No one could put their finger on it. Vet looked at him, farrier looked at him, trimmer looked at him, body worker looked at him, dentist looked at him. No one had the “magic bullet.” On a whim, I asked for front feet x-rays. Well, I’ll be damned, he’s rotated in both front feet! That begged the question, “Why would this otherwise healthy 11-year-old horse be rotated?” Many blood and genetic tests later, we discovered that he’s Pre-Cushings and EPSSM1 positive. All that started with a set of x-rays I ASKED for.
And just because a horse is young, and hasn’t done anything, that doesn’t mean they’re “sound” and that their x-rays are “probably clean.” Over the past few years, x-rays have helped us figure out what was going on with: a five-year-old appendix, a three-year-old Warmblood, a four-year-old AQHA, a three-year-old AQHA a two-year-old AQHA. Some of these horses had never seen a vet yet, and some had, and were rubber-stamped as “sound.” Most of them had never been ridden or been in any kind of “work.”
One of those youngsters was a long two-year-old that I sold to a friend. That horse went lame as soon as she started doing anything with him, and x-rays revealed what appeared to be a previously broken hock and cysts in many of his other joints. I had no idea. Many folks would think that x-raying a two-year-old that hasn’t worked to be a waste of money, but in all the cases I’ve mentioned here (and others), x-rays were the key to figuring out what we were seeing in the horse (everything from actual lameness, to resting one hind foot more than the other, to a lack of forward).
If we’re suspicious, and we do x-rays and don’t see anything that explains the issues we’re experiencing with a horse, then we’re down a whole different worm hole. The further down THIS worm hole we go, the more expensive and the more complex things get. And frankly, many of us don’t have deep enough pockets to do this level of diagnostics. I’ve got a young horse right now who x-rayed great and is 6-panel clean who is spending a year turned out to see what happens. I don’t have $5,000-$10,000 to put into further diagnostics. So we wait.
I guess I don’t know why we WOULDN’T want an x-ray of something. Before I started the horse I’m riding now, I had him x-rayed (front feet, hocks and stifles), just to make sure it was worth doing all that work. I just wanted to know what was in there. The added benefit to doing it that way is that we now have a set of x-rays of him from his three-year-old year, which we can use in the future for comparison if we need to. “Is that new, or old?” Well, we can’t tell unless we have baseline diagnostics. I’ll do the same thing with our next youngster, who is coming three. We’ll do x-rays on her before she goes into any kind of work, just so we know.
I will likely soon require a PPE-like exam for horses who come here for training. Doing this on the front-side will save our clients a lot of time and money. Sometimes, we could have two months of training into a horse before we start to suspect physical issues (especially with the unstarted youngsters who have never worked before).
When I talk with people about this, I’m sometimes amazed and confused. I’ve talked with people who have spent thousands on custom saddles, many different complimentary therapies, lights, magnets, feed supplements, special foot care, you name it. But they won’t spend $500 on some x-rays. All I can say is, “Aren’t you curious?”
Again, I get it. X-rays won’t tell us everything we need to know every time. But why not? It’s information.
A couple other things I’ve learned, while we’re at it, in hopes that it could help some horses out there:
Develop a relationship with a vet. Large animal vets are already rare enough, and things look to only get worse in the future. For your horses’ sakes, develop a relationship with a vet. Have them do your annual shots and Coggins and fecals. Buy your supplies from them. Don’t be stingy. Develop a relationship, so when you need something, they see you as a “regular customer” and not a stranger calling them out of the blue.
Your vet should be willing to take any x-ray you ask for. If you are willing to pay for it, they should be willing to take it. They may try to talk you out of x-raying something that “looks fine,” and this is where the relationship I talked about above comes in to play.
X-rays are part of a bigger picture. What legs does a horse at rest carry more or less weight on? What does the horse’s muscle development look like? Overdeveloped places? Atrophied places? Are any joints bumpy or mis-shapen? Are any of the spinus processes bumpy or irregular? Does the horse exhibit any gross asymmetry? Ask your trimmer or farrier if they notice any consistent wear patterns. Watch how your horse stands while he’s at rest. What lead does he use the most in the pasture? Does your horse cross-canter often? Does your horse need constant complimentary therapies or supplements? Any of these things might point me toward trying some x-rays.
X-rays are fickle. Depending on who takes them, and the conditions they’re taken in, they can vary in quality. Get the best x-rays you can, and ask if your vet has someone they can consult with if they find anything confusing. Ask for a second opinion. Ask for another set from a different vet. You can spend lots of money trying to save money. My local vet will send us to the University Vet Hospital in the area if he feels we need more powerful diagnostics, and it’s money well-spent.
Remember that you own the x-rays that you pay for, and they should stay on file with that veterinarian should you want to access them in the future. You can also ask for digital copies for your own records.
And no, you don’t ride the x-rays, you ride the horse. I get that. But I’ve had too many cases of lumps and bumps leading to quite tragic diagnoses that I just can’t poo-poo it. For the sake of the horse, it’s just better to know.
