That horse you don't want to give up on. That horse who doesn't want to give up.
William's Jockey Club name is Ziskel. He was born in 1999. I met him in 2013 and thought he was a pretty good mover. He has some natural suspension in his trot and an uphill canter. He could also "hunker down" and gallop fast. He was very touchy to ride, a horse with an opinion, a sense of humor, and intensity; all things I like. He had been put out to pasture a couple times in his life mostly because of his behavior. His past riders were all competent and talented and they shared their stories about him with me. I'm glad that I was already committed to him when I heard these stories.
He came out of retirement at about 13 years old and he was doing ok. He was leased to a student of mine by a three day eventer. I purchased him just a few months into his 6 month lease and took possession when the lease was finished. This was enough time to uncover his inability to stay sound and maintain muscle mass in the context of conventional training. Locking stifles started a few months before the lease ended. His tirades were frequent. At the end of the lease, I owned a lame, skinny and intense horse with OA in the stifle, navicular disease and an old sesamoid fracture in a hind limb.
After a lameness exam that suggested the OA in the stifle was the culprit, my vet offered to inject stifles on a regular basis. I already had this discussion with my own orthopedic surgeon regarding my shoulder years earlier. It's a long story, here's the short: I was chasing points superbike racing. My shoulder was getting worse making it dangerous. The pain and weakness made it difficult to fling the bike into a turn at speed. If I miss, I could die. I won't take that risk, so I'll go too slow to place, so why bother. I asked for a joint injection and the Doc told me no. He told me that it is invasive and carries risk, does nothing to heal the joint, and mine wasn't bad enough to warrant taking that risk. He prescribed oral steroids and so I could survive the last couple of races and collect my points. With this as my reference experience, the thought of masking my horses pain while providing no healing benefit did not sit right with me. I wanted to find a way to help him move without pain.
William's rehabilitation required him to learn high balance control. I had to encourage him to lift the trunk between the shoulder blades a lot more than he was accustomed to. He was resistant at first, but there was no other option. Any time he was allowed to move with the back coordination that he was accustomed to, he would be lame. He had an inverted spinal rotation, his lumbar region was hollow and his hind limbs were engaging too deeply with not enough pelvic rotation. With the high trunk posture, the inverted spinal rotation would diminish and his limb placement was improved. In this coordination, he did not complain and it did not make him lame. He learned collected trot and eventually piaffe. One really important element of his rehabilitation is that with any weight in my hands, he was inverting his spinal rotation. His habit is to push on the right hand and put too much weight on his left fore. He could only correct this without sustained tension in the reins.
