Well sort of. I took Miss Moneypenny into UC Davis on Wednesday for her recheck with Dr. Jack Snyder. I was thinking the news would be bad because she still hasn't been looking sound when we trot her out at home. But there's no swelling in the ligament and she hasn't been sore to the touch so it was unclear why she still wasn't quite sound.
After a trot out and lunging, it was apparent that the lameness had in fact improved but was still there. Dr. Snyder decided to reevaluate where the lameness might be coming from so he blocked her front feet and was planning to move up the legs from there.
For my non horsey friends, "blocking" means blocking the nerve receptors so the horse is essentially numb in a localized area. When you block an area and the horse then goes "sound" (is no longer expressing pain) you can centralize the area causing pain and identify the root of the problem. Very effective since horses can't tell us where it hurts.
With the feet blocked, MP went sound both on the straight and the lunge. Yippee! So the prescribed course of action was steroid injections into the coffin bones followed by two weeks of daily walking for 15 mins and trotting for 5. After two weeks if she is improving, we will bump up her trot work to ten minutes. If we stay on this course and she remains sound she should be back up to full training by November!!! Stay tuned!!
