Where I last left off, things were flowing nicely. We were optimistically heading into our first out of province competition after a positive time at a local competition.
What happened instead was a three month education on hoof abscesses and a subsequent coffin bone infection.
It was a long few months with many spirals (mostly on my end). Odys recovered from the first abscess well, and then a few weeks later abscessed again. Both times were deep, out the coronet band experiences. The second one was long lasting, long draining and Odys ended up on stall rest for most of September due to wet conditions and ongoing drainage. After the abscess itself seemed to clear out, he was still observably ouchy on the foot which brought us finally to the diagnosis of a coffin bone infection, likely from the depth of the original abscesses.
After 5 weeks on antibiotics, I am happy to report Odys is now infection free and ready to get moving again. Thankfully, rehabbing movement is my specialty so after months of feeling pretty stagnant (unfortunate pun) we are jolting back into our happy places.
The next few posts will document my process, our process, in rehabbing Odys’s movement and fitness. Much of our relationship so far has been focused on this. He is a complex horse with a complex history. He comes complete with a complex pelvis and hind end. We suspect there was likely a pelvis injury somewhere in his youth as when I first met him he was uneven, narrow and lacked the ability to really connect to true hind end function. While he’d never been unsound or uncomfortable, it was clear many compensations made up his movement: Over a couple years, until this recent stint of minimal movement, we had him at a point where he was pretty functional, evening out and beginning to widen in his hind end, engage his core/back well and open through the shoulders. 3 months of not doing much reversed a lot of the fitness behind this, so we begin again on top of (I hope) a well built foundation in motor awareness.
During the past month or so since we diagnosed the coffin bone infection and began antibiotics, the vet cleared me to continue doing walk work and in hand work as he seemed comfortable with lower impact. A few times a week this is what we did. 15-20min of intentional walking and in hand work to his tolerance simply with the goals of keeping him moving, supporting circulation and soft tissue health, and keeping whatever compensation free movement patterns possible alive and well in prep for more direct progressions back to work.
These are my notes from our first week progressing back to work:
We are on the lunge, just bridle with no tack yet. After 3months off I want to be sure to recondition him progressively, including his top line and core before bringing tack back in and eventually mounted work.
Our primary focus this week was on intentional evening of the hind striding while lengthening his body forwards from sacrum to nose (thru poll). His right hind tends to under track, left tends to over track at present. Through the week Odys improved at lengthening through body and poll and by our third session he was releasing nicely through his chest, wither, back and becoming more consistent in the hind end evenness at the walk and trot. Tracking right he demonstrates more tension in his back, neck and struggles to maintain a forward pace at the trot however by the third session of the week he was finding nice releases and carrying a more relaxed frame with more back engagement (on the right he has more atrophy interestingly enough through the top line).
We also used walking and trot poles in our second and third sessions to encourage appropriate tracking, range of motion in the hind and footwork. This seemed very helpful as a kinaesthetic guide for him to lengthen or shorten his respective sides through the poles and continue rebuilding his body awareness.
On day three we utilized walk-trot transitions as he was demonstrating the ability to maintain higher quality core and back engagement at each gait. These seemed to trigger some good releases, coughing, snorting, licking and chewing, passing gas- significantly to the right after a few minutes in the trot.
In hand pillar work with a focus on hind end range of motion was also routinely used to support hip range of motion and stability, core strength and shoulder mobility.
Sessions averaged about 30-40min of direct movement based work, maybe 50% of that at the walk or in hand, mobility work, and the rest or a bit less at the trot inclusive of transition work.
Cardiovascular rehab is also a focus point with transitions and breaks at the trot given as needed based on tolerance and quality of movement observed.
The Bemer was used before and or after each session for general circulation and tissue recovery. On day one and three he seemed to have quite a few significant releases while on the Bemer. Lots of licking and chewing.
Looking forwards to next week the first couple sessions will likely look similar to the first week.. working on intentional movement and fitness building. He is scheduled to see his body worker mid week, and after that tack may come back in as well.
I’m very grateful for all I’ve learned from him and others over the past few years building him up. The foundation we already have is proving to be very useful for this process too. Having my background in movement science and rehab is very helpful too, even if my specialty is generally the human patients!
I’ll write more as I go next week!