By: Diane Condon

I have met a lot of people who are thinking that if no changes can be seen from

outside of fetlock, there can't be any problems. Their opinion is that always should be some fetlock swelling before any problem can occur.

This way of thinking is quite common also when talking about some other leg problems, like knee and hock problems.

Unfortunately the truth is different.

A horse can walk without looking lame, but if you are observing his movements on trotting, you can see more easy the problem.

Also, when this kind of problem stays longer time, the muscles from this leg start to disappear. How can you find out that? Read about this at the end of this article.

"Unfortunately" a horse has four legs, he can manage with three legs, he can "forget" one. It means, if a horse has some pain in one leg, he does not need to use it 100%, and he still can moving forward very easy.

Like my vet told, everything would be more easy if a horse has only two legs, then

could more easy see these minor horse fetlock problems before they growing worse.

Let's take an example, it is more easy to explain:
If a horse starts to have fetlock problems, with right front leg. He can't use the leg 100%, and starts to push himself to the right, and you must use the left rein more than the right to get him going straight where you wanted him to go.

Why he is pushing to the right?
He must help the right front leg with his body to go forward enough. Because there is pain in the fetlock, the step of this leg is more short comparing to the left leg, and by that if you let the horse go head straight forward, he starts to go more to the right.

Like you self, if you walk and taking shorter steps with your right leg, and continuing that, you start to go more to the right and start to go a circle. The situation is same with a horse.

And, because the horse can't use his right leg normally because of the pain in the fetlock, he starts to lose muscles from that leg.

Another example: If we compare two men, an athletic and ordinary very slim guy.

Which one is looking more trained and have more muscles? Of course the athletic one. He is using his muscles everyday, but the slim guy does not, so you can see he don´t have so good muscles.

If we make a new man from these two guys, taking the left part of the body from the athletic, and the right part from the slim guy, we can see the difference very clear.

Left side of the body has much more muscles than the right side.

By comparing left and right you can see the same changes on a horse, too.

If you go to my website and download the free report, you can get some hints how to do it properly. You must do certain things first before you can compare.
If a horse has bad enough fetlock problems, he can lose quite much muscles in 2 weeks.

But to regain the muscle mass, can, and will, take much longer time, and it does not help if you just heal the fetlock, but you must give the horse right kind of work to get the muscles back.

Perhaps you should put more heavy shoe to that hoof to give the leg more work and by that increase muscle mass.

Before start to work the muscles back, the fetlock must be healed. If the fetlock problem is like this, only a vet can help by injecting the fetlock. You can use blister,

but I think they are not good enough when the fetlock problem has gone that far.

How to prevent fetlock problems

I think there are many opinions on how to prevent fetlock problems. I am telling here now what I am doing.

First, when I take the horse out from his box, if he has stayed the night in the stable, I check his legs with eyes and hands. By doing that I will get to know the legs and if

some changes like swelling, wounds, will occur, I will notice them right away and can do something to help the horse.

If I just close my eyes and think: "Ok, it is nothing, horse is pretending with that

limping, because he is so lazy. He does not want to work."

My opinion is that horses do not pretend any kind of lameness: fetlock problems, or whatever. It is just people who do not want to admit there can be something wrong with their horses, if the problem is not visible. Or they don't just understand anything about horses. If nothing can be seen from outside, can't be any problems.

I also use my vet in regular basis, because he is much better to see and feel with his experienced (magical) fingers (he is the professional one)if there is something wrong with my horse.

There are different kind of chemicals available, but nothing can compete ice. The advantage of the ice is its natural way of melting. It does not hurt the skin, like some chemicals easy do.

I am using ice every day if have some problems, like fetlock problems. After every training pass, after washing the horse, I first hose the legs with cold water, then wrap ice on the legs, and after the horse is dry, I put him to pasture or paddock.

Why I want to put him out?
The horse can walk out the stress from his body, it is like a second cooling down

period.

Good, long warm up before the work and long cooling down period after the training are also preventing tools for fetlock problems ~ Sasha Laws-King on Bint Shah Dara (photo by Sue Crockett)

..., as the ideal ground where we are working with the horse. Too hard ground causes fetlock problems, and too soft ground causes other kind of problems.

To keep a horse in good health: own preventing, care taking and co-operation with a good vet.

How to check muscle balance on a horse? Click the home link on the top left corner of this page and download the free report.

Diane Condon rides horses for pleasure and has done so for all her life. She grew up with horses and cattle on the property in Queensland and started riding when she was three years old.