Intermittent Lameness

From the very first time I ever rode Lil I had this feeling that if I pushed her really hard (the way I push Dingo), then she would buck me off.  Or at least put in a really solid pigroot.

Now many trainers think I am just chicken.  But I'm not.  I know I am not.  And when I have a gut feeling there is a reason for it.  Finding the reason is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

So I rode Lil with some suspicion and care until one day I went for a trail ride and she pulled up lame.  I couldn't see anything wrong with her leg, but gave her a break.  After four weeks she was sill "stiff" but not lame, and I started riding her again.  But she felt "stiff".  I had trouble doing a 20m circle on her.

Then, after more intensive riding, the lameness returned.  Six weeks break and the lameness was dimished but not totally gone.  You could see the head nodding in trot on the right rein.

Finally I called out the chiropractor.  He adjusted her spine in one spot, and then touched her rib cage just where the girth goes.

"And here is the source of your lameness" he said, as Lil almost ripped his head off.

"There?!!", I gasped thinking he was crazy.  I had expected the spine, the shoulder, the joints, but not the rib cage.  Mind you, if this really is the problem, then it would explain why Lil hates the saddle, and the girth, so much.

"Yep.  There is a muscle here, and if it gets injured it never heals.  You need to treat it with a Faradic machine. Three treatments of 15 minutes each, on three consicutive days should do it.  I've had a 100% success rate so far, and it never re-occurs."

Apparently, the said injury causes different issues in different horses - such as rushing forward, bucking, pigrooting and head tossing.  And a lot of vets fail to find it.

So we made the dates to fix the problem.  I shifted all my other plans so that Lilly's treatment could go ahead, and continued to wonder how many other horses are out there with the same problem, sending their owners mad and possibly broke in the process.  And, how many instructors are there telling their pupils to just "push" the horse through it?