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Member
Posts: 21
| Wondering if anyone has any experience/input on doing this surgery for a club foot. I just spent $800 in blocks and x-rays on my colt who came up slightly lame this year on his mildly clubbed foot (only when turning into it). The x-rays showed no rotation. Only abnormality was a weird line showing up in the foot x-rays. He definitely improved when he blocked the foot though. 100% sound. Did test mildly positive with hood testers. Unfortunately, we already tried to inject the coffin joint earlier this spring, with zero results. Vet reccomends cutting the check ligament in hopes that it will relax the tendon a little. He says they have a 80% success rate on the surgery on mature horses. Just not sure if I'm ready to go that far. I've never even tried padded shoes or anything. Hoping a few of you can give me your thoughts/opinions. Is there anything else I can try? I've had him for 2 years and he hasn't taken a lame step until this Spring. Super nice, athletic colt and I want to do right by him. Thanks!! |
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  Veteran
Posts: 241
| I would check for a collateral ligament injury via ultrasound or possibly MRI, my mare has a mild club foot and was lame but only slightly on a circle to the left, after much diagnostics and trying different things we ultrasounded her medial collateral ligament and found the tear. We did shockwave and a special shoe and she was off for a year, has been fine since then and I have been running her for over a year now! Just something to think about, it is a commonly under diagnosed condition as it is not always easy to find. Luckily for me her tear was high enough that we could see it on ultrasound but if it is farther down in the foot you have to do an MRI. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1526
 
Location: Texas | Did you try injecting the navicular bursa? Did the vet not think it could be corrected by shoeing? |
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 Tough Patooty
Posts: 2615
Location: Sperry, OK | shany5 - 2014-11-10 8:13 PM Wondering if anyone has any experience/input on doing this surgery for a club foot. I just spent $800 in blocks and x-rays on my colt who came up slightly lame this year on his mildly clubbed foot (only when turning into it). The x-rays showed no rotation. Only abnormality was a weird line showing up in the foot x-rays. He definitely improved when he blocked the foot though. 100% sound. Did test mildly positive with hood testers. Unfortunately, we already tried to inject the coffin joint earlier this spring, with zero results. Vet reccomends cutting the check ligament in hopes that it will relax the tendon a little. He says they have a 80% success rate on the surgery on mature horses. Just not sure if I'm ready to go that far. I've never even tried padded shoes or anything. Hoping a few of you can give me your thoughts/opinions. Is there anything else I can try? I've had him for 2 years and he hasn't taken a lame step until this Spring. Super nice, athletic colt and I want to do right by him. Thanks!!
I have done it on one of my own, she needed both front legs done.. and have assisted with MANY as a vet tech! I have seen great results with them all. The thing is, if you don't correct this problem, the more he grows the worse it will get. That tendon is attached to the bottom of the P3 bone and will eventually start to rotate the bone and cause the hoof wall to start growing straight down out of the coronet band, instead of at the 45 (or so) degrees. Once you start having these issues, it is harder to get complete results on correcting it.
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 Livin in the Dinosaur Age
Posts: 1993
Location: the other T-town, Oklahoma | Had it done on both fronts on a 4 month cold, was lame walking into the vet, never a lame step since. She is a 3 year old now. Wasn't too expensive, easy recovery and little post op care. I would do it again. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1379
Location: Coffeyville KS | I had it done on a 4 year old mare and it worked wonderful....no lameness...... |
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 Not Afraid to Work
Posts: 4717
| My horse had check ligament surgery done as a 2 year old prior to getting him. He would have had pretty severe club feet had he never had it done. His fixed themselves a little but he is still very upright in his pasterns. He ended up having a strain of injuries (tearing the scar tissue, over tending tendons, etc) and we finally put him in a 2 degree natural balance wedge shoe (aluminum). So far, knock on wood... 2 and a half seasons and hes running better than ever.
I guess I was under the impression the check ligament surgery allowed them not to be contracted and it would help with the confirmation of his foot. Mine was done as a 2 year old and I feel it would have corrected more had it been done earlier. With this theory in mind, I feel it may be more beneficial to try corrective shoes first.
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Expert
Posts: 1695
Location: Willows, CA | I did this on a yearling with great results. Later in life you could not tell which side had been done when looking at the foot. No experience on a more mature horse though. I would think that the younger the better. I know this is not much help, except that the procedure does work. |
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 Cyber World Challenged
Posts: 2526
Location: My Own Little World | I would have total confidence if I REALLY trusted my vet. Luckily I have a couple of VERY good vets that I can fuly rely on. Where are you in the country?
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