Pea Sees The Vet....again!

Oh the joys of horse ownership! I popped Pea on the list for the monthly vet visit to have a look at his front end seeing as that's where my instructor reckoned there could be a problem. I kind of expected Alex, my vet, to trot Pea up and declare there not be much of a problem. However, we ended up spending about 2 hours doing various tests, etc!

We started off by trotting him up and then doing a flexion test on each hind leg before popping Pea on the lunge. As expected, Pea was fine on the lunge and went into each gait on each rein as good as gold. After a brief chat with Alex where I said that he does tend to be fine on the lunge and that it is mainly just ridden that I have the issues, he decided to see me ride him. 

After tacking Pea up, Alex said to keep a long rein and as soon as we were in the arena we were to head off into trot. Typically, Pea decided to be as good as gold and willingly trotted off as if to say 'I don't know what that crazy person on board is on about'!. He did have one mini napping episode towards another horse but other than that, he was quite well behaved. We then had a little canter on a long rein and whilst he behaved, he did still break into trot regularly. Alex then said to gather the reins and school him more, so do more circles, etc on a shorter rein so that he could see the difference. We did a few circles and puddle dodging before finishing off. 

Alex agreed that he is definitely uncomfortable under the saddle compared to what he was on the lunge and asked if I was happy for his back to be x-rayed. Seeing as I want to get to the bottom of Pea's 7 month bucking stint, I decided to agree and luckily he had the portable x-ray machine with him as he was x-raying another horse on the yard. Pea was as good as gold to be x-rayed this time and didn't need any sedation. He had three pictures taken along his back, two of his left hock and one of his left stifle. His hock and stifle were fine but his back showed a couple of vertebrae that were slightly closer together than normal. Although it's minor and not kissing spine, Alex suggested trying some steroid injections as it could be that causing the issue. Pea does have a bit of a low pain threshold (he tries to kick over me cleaning a little cut!) so I'm hoping that maybe this is the answer. The x-ray also showed an old wither injury that I had no idea he had, although it's nothing to be concerned about. 

Now Alex has been doing Pea for 7 and a half years and knows what a little monster he can be...however, he decided that it would be perfectly fine to inject Pea with just a twitch being used and no sedation. I don't think it went quite as well as Alex predicted seeing as he had to dodge a hind leg coming at him once or twice and I had to try and avoid being knocked out by the twitch as well as try and keep Pea still! However, he had all four injections and unfortunately for Pea had to stay in for the day. He didn't seem too fussed returning to a stable with a large haynet in though! 

Pea's allowed out tomorrow and I'm to lunge him until Monday. We're lunging with no tack tomorrow and Saturday and then with side reins Friday and Sunday. He's also got the physio next week which Alex has suggested we keep so I'll let you know next week what Etti says. 

I'm really hoping that this works and gives some answers! 

Thanks for reading,
Laura xx