Rider Stag
HUGE muscles – in chest, legs and shoulders.?
This is a question from someone else – asked of me. I thought it would be a good one for people to get their teeth into.
The horse is a 16.2 hh seven-eighths thoroughbred x Clydesdale gelding. He has BIG muscles in his chest, thighs on all four legs and and behind his left shoulder blade. He’s a bit hard to get into right canter and doesn’t like picking up his left hind leg. He used to jump like a stag but has been bucking on landing.There’s no sign of bone problems on an x-ray of left hind (foot, fetlock and hockl) – but flexion tests show him to be sore. Vet thinks stifle – maybe.
Also he’s a bit heavy footed – tends to punch the ground which is not how he used to move. He stands under a bit with both front and back legs and is a little inside high on the hinds (about 1 cm) which the farrier says is just the way he’s built. The rider’s instructor says he’s on the forehand and stiff and to just work him through it.
Any ideas?
Thought about the implications of the unbalanced hind feet? If he’s standing under in front and behind as well – chances are he’s got pain in the heels. If he hasn’t got balanced feet, he hasn’t got a balanced skeleton and without a balanced skeleton he’s relying on muscle power to stay upright all the time – which might explain the overdeveloped muscles in the chest, legs etc.
I’d be looking at the RF / LH diagonal – the overdeveloped muscle behind the shoulder blade on the left may indicate he’s compensating for a weakness on the right.
Just a thought.
I always start at the ground level when asessing lameness / M-S problems. The stifle may be implicated but you have to think – is it because of the foot imbalance, or has the foot imbalance resulted from the stifle problem. As the imbalance is on both hinds and he’s standing under as well, my money’s on the feet as the root cause.
I’m surprised that so few people have answered this one.
Rough Rider stag handled knives