Jupiter’s great red spot, as it were, is a slight hitch in his step that we first noticed when restarting him under saddle. In our efforts to better represent our riding horses as we move them into the ‘adoptable’ category, we had our vets out to evaluate Jupiter’s movement to give us a better idea of what he has going on, soundness-wise.
The long and short of it is, an initial assessment revealed that the source of Jupiter’s mild lameness stems from his hind end, particularly his right hind. We did shoot radiographs of both his right hock and right stifle, as those were where he flexed slightly positive, but no abnormalities were noted on the X‑rays. The gameplan our vets set us up with was to try him on Equioxx to see if it might improve his mobility. And so far, so good! He has been on Equioxx for about a month now, and it does seem to be helping. As he was never tremendously unsound to begin with, the extra bit of medicinal padding is meant to keep him more comfortable during working sessions.
Below is a video of his motion on hard and soft ground before any treatment was started.
Additional routes of exploration would be to block the right hind to localize the source, but as he is comfortable now, we will see if he can maintain and consider delving deeper down the line.
Trotting on hard ground, there was some mild right hind lameness, on both the straightaways and on circles to the left and the right. Trotting on soft ground, results were much the same, with a mild front right lameness that was also present while circling to the left on hard ground. He also had some mild sensitivity to hoof testers, which might see him in shoes down the line.
Jupiter was a very good boy for the exam, and sure looked cute in that little lameness locator hat!
