Ace's First Trip & Some Nasty Thrush

It’s been an interesting few weeks for Ace and I. He’s been displaying signs of lameness since mid-June. Initially I thought it was a stifle issue, so we did lots of conditioning work and he got marginally better. A few weeks ago I had the vet out to do a Coggins, float Ace’s teeth, and check over that stiff right hind.

After feeling all over his leg, and using the hoof testers and flexion tests with no results, we did a nerve block. Because the vet agreed that it seemed the problem was higher in Ace’s leg, he did the first nerve block above his fetlock instead of starting with his hoof. To our surprise, Ace was nearly sound with his lower leg blocked. The vet took xrays to rule out arthritis or other bone damage. Much to my relief, they were clean.

The next step was to trailer Ace to the vet clinic for an ultrasound, to confirm the vet’s belief that it was a suspensory branch injury and determine the extent. The vet recommended proceeding with that diagnosis for now and putting him on strict stall rest with a little handwalking. Definitely not Ace’s favorite thing!

We finally got to head down to the vet for the ultrasound today, which was actually a bit of a fun experience. It was my first time taking Ace anywhere, and not only was he a total star with the trailer, he was a star about being in a new place and for all of the things the vet did with him. He got off the trailer calmly, took a look around, and quickly settled into his usual self. I was thrilled about that!

The first thing the vet did was have me trot Ace out to see if he was moving any better. I didn’t get a good look since I was huffing and puffing next to my horse, but I don’t think it was any better. He next put his hands on Ace’s fetlock, and discovered that he had a strong digital pulse that he didn’t have before. That got him thinking maybe it was in the hoof after all. The vet used the hoof testers on him, and Ace did react to the pressure around his heels.

The second step was to do a nerve block of just Ace’s hoof. He stood quietly while the vet cleaned the area and stuck him with several needles. After giving it 15 minutes to kick in, I trotted Ace out and lunged him a bit. He wasn’t sound, but he was a lot better.

Better enough to rule out a suspensory and start looking at that hoof.

Xrays were third on the docket. After taking one shot, the vet decided to grab a hoof knife and clean up some excess tissue on Ace’s frog before he got more shots. He found the source of our problem almost immediately. Ace had a pretty nasty infection that was inside his frog, eating away at the soft tissue. Because it had started under the frog, it wasn’t visible (or smell-able) until he trimmed off some of the excess tissue. The vet took off all of the bad, gunky tissue, packed it with antibiotic and wrapped it back up.

He said that the infection was caused by moisture and dirt getting trapped in his hoof. He also said that Ace had “redundant frog” that helped create conditions where junk could get trapped. When I asked him if there was a technical term for what Ace had, the vet said if he had to call it something he’d call it thrush.

It was exacerbated by Ace being on stall rest, during which he walks constantly and gets lots of crap packed in his feet despite having them and his stall cleaned multiple times a day.I don’t like that it got worse over the last week, but it also finally gave us the signs we needed to find and fix it.

I have to redo the packing and wrapping daily for the next week, and see if his movement gets better. I’m to call the vet in a week with a report, and we’ll go from there. The worst should be behind us. The dead tissue has been removed, and packed with antiobiotic it should heal quickly. If it got worse, all that would happen is it would abscess.

Because it’s often chronic, the vet said to keep close tabs on his feet and consider regular treatments with Coppertox.

Ace should heal up and start growing frog in the next few weeks, and then we should be able to start riding!

I will definitely take even some nasty thrush over arthritis or a suspensory injury. I will be seeing lots of vet wrap and duct tape over the next week!