Paddy and perversity

After what seems like the biggest rollercoaster ride of them all, Paddy is going home tomorrow.

Regular blog readers will know that he arrived in bar shoes way back in August and made good progress over his first few weeks.   He had had a recurrent DDFT injury which was the most serious problem and a nasty abscess in July had blown a chunk out of his LF.

Both of these took some time to improve, of course, but by the end of October his owner and I were feeling quite pleased with his progress.  He was scheduled to go home when - literally days before he was due to get on the lorry and head back to Suffolk - he was rushed into our local equine hospital and had colic surgery to remove a tumour which had wrapped itself round a section of his intestine.

The good vibes and support from the blog readers here were fantastic and I am sure contributed to Paddy's remarkable recovery over the next 8 weeks.  Unfortunately the surgery meant he was confined to his box for most of that time and although he was hand-walked out to graze several times a day his feet were not getting much stimulation and he was certainly not allowed to do more than a short amble out to grass.

Inevitably this meant that we had to start with only the most gentle exercise when he came back into work at the beginning of this month and it soon became apparent that instead of coming out of box-rest more or less as sound as he had gone into it, he'd developed a bizarre new lameness.

Its particularly bizarre because its totally unlike any other lameness I've seen before.  When he arrived he landed badly and this rapidly improved, and he is still landing heel first today, as you can see below, so it seems unlikely that his original DDFT injury is still causing problems.  The lameness shows up very clearly on a gradient and is specific to his LF but is invisible on a level surface and he is also able to trot evenly on the roads.  You would automatically think it was a recurrence of a collateral ligament injury except that he didn't have one when he was MRI-ed earlier this year.

The vet and I are mystified and to be honest it seems very unfair after all Paddy and Debbie have been through :-(  The only thing different about Paddy's rehabilitation is the weeks of box rest he had after surgery and at the moment all I can think is that an adhesion  might have formed while he was on such restricted movement and that he tweaked it once he came off box rest.

Obviously we have been careful to try and restrict him from wild hooleying but with the best will in the world he will have the odd trot and canter, not to mention the odd rear and spin when he is with his mates on the track.

Anyway, I need more good vibes now that he is off home, please, to try and ensure he makes a rapid recovery from this latest setback - I know I can count on you lot :-)