my youngest horse was started at 5-6 on barrels and never really ran until she was 7, she is 9 in May now, my vet flexed her and trotted her off and says she needs her Hocks injected - I am NOT against injections, I started injecting  my gelding when he was 8 and he’s 16 now doing great.... however I like to X-ray mine before I inject so I know exactly what’s going on, some say I’m wasting my money but I have found nothing to be wrong before after xrays, and I found one at 4 years old who was bone on bone.  

Im not a huge injection person unless they really need it, don’t hock joints make their own  synovial fluid and HA... when do they and why do they dry up?  And are we just masking the issue? 

I always do, but then again I UBER trust my vet and if she thinks they need it , they need it. 

There are several joints that make up a hock---without an X-Ray the vet will not know where best to inject.

This is exactly my point!   

I am in this debate also. My gelding has other issues but I believe needs his hocks examined. I think I would feel much more comfortable getting him x-rayed first to know what is needed. I also think it is nice to see progression.

The main point behind joint injections isnt to replenish the HA in the joint or put synovial fluid in.  The main point is to reduce the inflammation with use of corticosteroids.  HA is put in joint injections but the effects are very short lived, like days. Just an FYI. The steroid is what lasts for a few months and blocks inflammatory mediators and treats the clinical signs of joint pain/arthritis. IRAP is an autologous anti-inflammatory thats harvested from the blood. But it does not provide any regenerative properties. 

Other causes of joint pain aside from actual arthritis are distension of the joint capsule and pressure on the joint from increased joint fluid that accumulates when a joint is inflamed.  Joints don't really "dry up"... thats kind of a misnomer. In fact, many times healthy joints won't give you a ton of fluid when you stick a needle in there, when inflamed joints often times do. That's not a rule by any means, there's always exceptions... you dont always get fluid back when you hit a joint regardless of the amount of inflammation... in fact, sometimes the synovium proliferates so much it makes it almost impossible to get fluid from an obviously distended joint. 

Yes/no on the masking issue- without x rays at minimum, you dont know what your issue is.  If your issue is osteoarthritis, there's no cure for that anyway. Just symptom relief and slowing disease progression. If your issue is something developmental like an OCD or subchondral bone cyst, then yes injecting with corticosteroids (not stanozolol) could be masking the issue. But there's also a lot of gray area on that subject as well- cost to benefit of actually doing surgery on something like an OCD versus treating the pain and leaving the joint alone, surgery risk, anesthesia risk, etc..

I personally like to always x ray first so I know exactly what I'm dealing with. 

I'd dang sure hope to get my money's worth and get both the DIT and TMT injected on every trip until there's a reason not to do both- like one has already completely fused.  Other than those two joints in the hock, if you are having to inject the tibiotarsal joint you definitely have a problem thats more than just the normal run of the mill hock soreness. IMO.