Well, I originally had a whole post drafted about Presto’s vet visit last week.

My vet did a thorough lameness exam, flexed a bunch of stuff, palpated him from top to bottom, and even uploaded some jog video into an app that analyzes the evenness of the gait. The findings? Nada. Joints felt good, flexions were good, and the app said he looked about as perfectly even as they get. Superb news. Fantastic. Wonderful. He got a chiro adjustment just because it had been a while, we got the seal of approval to continue, and away we went to make a plan.

And then.

And then the horse fucking horsed, man.

On Friday he was galloping around his turnout like an idiot (He does that sometimes. Ok he does it a lot.) and when I went to get him he had pulled a shoe. He was already looking footsore walking up to the barn so I magic cushioned it, wrapped it, and kept him inside for the rest of the day and overnight.

The next morning he was quite lame. Like lame enough for me to call one of the local clinics that has weekend ambulatory vets. I felt like it was most likely a hoof bruise but the fact that he had been running around so much made me nervous about the soft tissue and bone… I wanted to make sure he hadn’t really DAMAGE damaged it. Three-legged is not something anyone likes.

The vet that came out didn’t have an xray machine in her truck, but given where he reacted to the hooftesters (medial, front quarter) she was less worried about structural damage. Still, she said if he didn’t look improved in 4-5 days, have someone come back and xray it.

If possible, the next day he looked even worse. He was 110% convinced his footie was majorly broken, and he felt really sorry for himself. Monday was basically the same. I didn’t love it. I didn’t love it at all. I texted our regular vet to see if she had time to come look at him and xray it, and she came yesterday (so now we’re at Wednesday) morning.

He did seem improved yesterday morning, in that he was weight bearing again and only had a moderately horrifying limp on a flat surface in a straight line. He was definitely better with a hoof boot on now. The thing I noticed most is that turning left (so when he would weight the inside of that toe) was when he went really gimpy, which did point to that same area of concern the ambulatory vet had found on Saturday.

My vet immediately noticed that he did seem more subdued in his personality than normal, which is never a great sign with him (if he’s not being A Scene, it’s cause for concern). He had a really strong pulse down to that foot, and hooftesters were positive to the same area – medial toward the toe. We opted to take xrays just to make very sure he hadn’t Fucked It, and luckily everything was clean.

It is indeed a nasty bruise, which may or may not turn into an abscess. We just have to wait and see. The vet said it could be 2 weeks until he’s improved enough to start riding a little bit again, or it could be 2 months. It just depends on what the foot does and how quickly it heals. I personally cannot deal with Presto on stall rest for much longer, so yesterday afternoon we fashioned him a mini-pen inside of a smaller paddock up top, and put him in the pen and Henry in the paddock. As long as he stays quiet he can go out there for at least a few hours a day in his boot.

So with that, our fall season is over. A bummer for sure, but I’m glad the damage doesn’t appear to be any worse. The vet thinks it will prob be January at best before he’s back competing. Honestly, that’s fine. He was gonna get a vacation in December anyway, so I guess he just… pushed it up a bit. We’ll regroup when he’s ready. Plus I just spent a whole season’s worth of entry fees on vet bills instead, so… yay.

Fucking horses.