health & wellbeing
‘Incurable’ hind suspensories heal and Championship win results!
Purchasing ProJo as a four-year- old in 2010, Barbie Clarkson, from Elrington near Hexham in Northumberland, rode him twice before prolonged snow forced a lay off, but back into work, he was always a little inconsistent and so began a six year journey that was to encompass both the despair of a very poor prognosis and finally, the elation of qualification for the BE100 Misubishi Motors Cup at Badminton and a team win in the Pony Club Eventing Championships. By ProSet, the eyecatching and athletic 17hh gelding ProJo is known as Joe and Barbie shares the ups and downs of their story in her own words... Joe seemed always to be a little bit ‘on and off’, never nasty or difficult, but a bit nappy or grumpy, although we couldn’t work it out and thought perhaps that as a rising five-year-old coming back into work he was testing our patience. However he progressed to ‘planting’, so we started to think about pain, but still weren’t sure; was he just being a bit difficult? We thought about gastric ulcers and he was affected, so treated, after which we expected his behaviour to improve, which it did a little. So we got going and even did a little bit of eventing. He was always happy to jump, but on the flat found it difficult to produce power. When he was six in 2013, we had started novice level eventing, were doing novice level dressage and had even done a few elementary tests, but he never progressed as expected and things ‘sneaked up’ on us
Georgina Clarkson and ProJo clearly enjoying the cross country phase of the Pony Club Eventing Championships as member of the winning South Northumberland Pony Club Team
over time. It was the following year, in 2014, that we didn’t get a good start to the eventing season. I had planned that we’d do three BE100s, then go novice, but events were cancelled because of bad weather. Our first run ended up being novice level, at which the show jumping was on long, lush, wet grass and he said ‘no’ for the first time, resulting in us being eliminated. We came home and two days later had a session with my dressage trainer. She eventually said - “he’s not sound behind”, but I couldn’t feel it. She said
she’d watched him many times in training and had thought there was ‘something’ for a while, but couldn’t pinpoint it. Our vets nerve blocked him and confirmed lameness in both hind legs. So he had around eight weeks off, because there was no obvious sign of anything wrong. At that time I really didn’t want to know my very lovely horse was lame and maybe would be written off like others before him!
The rest didn’t work and back in work, he was quite difficult, so we did a ‘bute test and he was fine, which confirmed a
Georgina Clarkson and ProJo competing at Pony Club Elite level riding the British Dressage Medium 73 test to finish in an amazing 5th place
pain issue and the investigations became more serious. An MRI scan revealed a problem with his suspensory ligaments, high up in both hind legs, where the ligaments attached onto the hock, but without external swelling or heat. Conformation was not the reason, treatment options were limited and he ended up having the whole of his seven-year-old year off. Veterinary options were shock wave treatment or surgery, but success was unlikely. We talked about ArcEquine as we’d got to the point where there were no other options, and started using an ArcEquine unit during a 10- week period of box rest. Walking him out started at week two – initially for 10 minutes a day – but Joe was terrifying and eventually I started to ride my daughter’s pony and lead him on a chifney, which worked because whenever Joe misbehaved, the pony would bite him, which gave me control! We broadly followed the ArcEquine rehabilitation plan and built the walking up to 30 minutes daily before I got back on. He has benefited from use of the ArcEquine unit ever since and fortunately we have never looked back and not had another major injury. The following season as an eight- year-old we did only flatwork and dressage, progressing massively at that point. He was hacked out at home and we were really careful and paranoid about everything to do with his limbs; he became a proper diva! When you’re on that ‘last chance’ kind of thing, it was all about keeping him properly fit, getting him to
Equine Page 26
www.theequinesite.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
