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Toe Dragging
Topic Started: Jan 14 2007, 09:54 AM (1,522 Views)
Bugs-n-Frodo
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Weanling
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I asked this on COTH a little while ago, but I am going to ask here. My young horse, Frodo, has been dragging his hind feet. I noticed this last month and my farrier suggested that he needed more impulsion. His feet are fine, not high in the heel, not long in the toe, infact, I do not think it is his feet that are the problem. Here's the lastest thing. Yesterday when I longed him, I noticed that he is dragging one side, his right side, more than the other. If I pused him forward, he would not drag the left, but still the right and he does not look like he is reaching as far with the right side. I did talk to my vet alread and he suggested that it may be caused by longeing, so, I am not longeing him AS MUCH, or EVERYDAY, just a few minutes now and then on days where he is particularly spooky. If I do circles with him, I try to keep them large, VERY large, but I try to ride on a straight line most of the time. The footing in our ring is Permaflex and not deep footing. The footing at my old barn, which I moved from in Nov was VERY deep and a sand mixed with shingles. (Not great, nor was it even, it was... YUCK!) The things that have changed recently are: New footing in the ring, he is now in at night and out all day instead of out most of the time, he was changed from sweet feed to pellets and more hay, less grain, The turnout he is in is slightly larger than what he was in before we moved, but not as flat.

I have had all kinds of things suggested to me, one of which was growth stages, as well as the balance and shape of his feet (which my farrier is very anal about), but I am getting worried about this. When I look at his hind feet now after the latest farrier visit (2 weeks ago), his left hind looks ok, but his right hind is squaring off. :sigh: Any suggestions? :huh:
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cindeye
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Hey BnF...tell us a bit more.

  • How old is the horse?
  • How long has he been in work?
  • What has he been working on?
  • Breeding?
  • Any conformation issues?
  • Have a pic to post of him trotting or standing up for confo?

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Bugs-n-Frodo
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cindeye
Jan 14 2007, 09:17 AM
Hey BnF...tell us a bit more.


  • How old is the horse?

  • How long has he been in work?

  • What has he been working on?

  • Breeding?

  • Any conformation issues?

  • Have a pic to post of him trotting or standing up for confo?


*Frodo is rising four, will be four on April 10th.
*He was started last April and has been ridden 3-4 days a week on average.
*He is working on walk and trot, not much cantering, some stretching (when he offers), some change of direction, simple transitions, ground poles (not everyday, once or twice a week) and other simple things.
*He is an Anglo Trakehner
*Here are a couple of confo photos taken recently:


Posted Image
Posted Image
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Lord Helpus
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Amy,

I haven't read the COTH replies, so I may very well be repeating them, but there are several things that automatically come to mind, some of which are a knee jerk reaction to dragging toes:

hocks
stifles.

Having gotten those out of the way, we will now dismiss the other COTH knee jerk reactions:

Does his saddle fit? :P
Have you had his teeth floated recently? :psycho: :psycho: :psycho:

Moving right along to some intelligent help :)

It is impossible to even try to give you input without more information.

Does the toe dragging get worse making small circles in one direction v. the other?
If you spiral in and back out, does the toe dragging get better as the circles get bigger?
What about changing diagonals as you trot in a straight line?
Is it worse under tack than it is lunging?
Have you put him in a Pessoa rig where he is really asked to come underneath himself? If so, does the toe dragging get a lot worse?
Is he still growing? Is he currently going through a growth spurt? Was he going through a growth spurt when you first noticed this?
Is he turned out alone or with another horse(s)?
When this started had he just lost or twisted a shoe?
Have you ever had his hocks and/or stifles x-rayed?
Have you done ANY hill work with him? Has anything changed in front? Shoeing? Soundness? Splint? Stone bruise?
Have you asked him to collect more and come under himself more in the last 2 months?

Is there anything else which is niggling in the back of your mind that MIGHT have contributed, no matter how silly?

Let's start there as a beginning.

PS: He is gorgeous. :) We WILL get to the bottom of this.
PPS: How is life treating you?
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Bugs-n-Frodo
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Pam , thank you! I am so proud of him. Petey looks great too!

As far as training, I have used nothing more than the occasional side reins while longeing. He is barefoot and has ben since... forever. :lol: The toe dragging is consistent and is mostly the right hind. It is about the same under tack as it is while longeing, but I feel like I can push him forward more under tack, even while going more forward, he'll drag that toe. I have not done much hill work with him because I ride by myself most of the time and I do not want to ride "out" by myself. When I have someone to ride with me, I will ride out, but that is rare now that we are dealing with winter and shorter days. He is turned out with one other horse, and it is VERY possible that he could be going through a spurt, he has changed a lot in the past 7 months, but, has not gained that much in height, maybe a 1/2 - 1 inch. For a while, I was doing more circles than normal because he was spooky, I did it to keep his focus on me and not give him so much time to find something to spook at which is what he will do on the long side of the ring. I have not asked for collection, purposely, yet. Recently I have been asking for more transitions, but simple ones, once again, to keep his attention. I am wondering if it is because of sore stifles from longeing, or, perhaps from the footing in the ring being less deep that he was used to. I am also trying to keep him going forward rather than collecting him for now. I am trying to take things slowly with him as I want him to be solid and confident.
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OnyxThePony
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Similar problem with a similar horse at our barn... turned into locking stifle on L (near)side. Not sure if it started with toe dragging before the stifle was locking, b/c he wasn't at the barn at that time.
Major problem as of a few months ago was locking stifle, secondary is dragging toe, tertiary problem is major lack of condition along topline.
I asked the owner to up his training regime. She was taking it too easy on him, figuring he was young, didn't want to push him etc. She has since started to work him more in a 'frame' (now we know we're NOT on TOB so I trust that statement to be taken intelligently) and ask him to get that hind end under and working better. More exercisies, more polework. Locking stifle has decreased 99%, toe dragging has decreased according to how well she rides him (ie, lazy warmup= dragging toe, active working ride = no dragging toe), condition has built significantly.

IMHO.... IMHO... we are in general not working developing horses well enough. I am ALL for taking it slow and easy, believe me, I go slow and easy, no shortcuts and wait for the horse, and no kidding. But there is such a thing as 'too' easy when what you really want to do is build up the correct muscles to tone and condition. Too easy and you never will work the correct muscle tone..makes horse lazy and evasive to using self correctly.. then a big number of problems that can become significant.
So what is slow and easy? In some cases, I have a horse working w/t/c lateral work and jumping in two weeks. In other cases, same thing might take half a year. When I have all that, then I can tune the horse's body better. Now we're looking at anywhere from two weeks to two months for the horse to *begin* to start building up proper muscles/properly working. For a young unbroken horse like yours, I'd expect closer to two weeks. Then I either maintain or push further, depending on the horse, at each stage it's a decision based on the horse wethr I take him to a next level or try to maintainhim along where he is.

But IMHO, and of course never having seen you guys go, it doesn't sound like his workload is helping him any. And PS, I"m flabbergasted anyone would suggest that longe is hurting him unless you are a pretty baaaaaaaaad pathetic longe-er :point:
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nhwr
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I don't think this is necessarily a big deal and can be a fairly common thing in young horses. When I was in Germany, I noticed that several young Rubinstein offspring tended to do this until they developed some connection and got strong through their backs.

If you are really concerned about it, this is what I would suggest. Bute him for a couple of days and see if that makes any difference. If it does, he could be sore somewhere. If it doesn't make a difference, it is likely that he is just a developing young horse, IMO.

He looks great, BTW.

PS I didn't see OtP post before I wrote mine. But I largely agree with it.

Wanted to something about lunging;

One of the nicest horses I have ever had I got as coming 3 year old TB intact colt. He had not been started when I got him and was extremely hot and sensitive. I could not have ever done any work with him without lunging him, though sometimes it was more like flying a kite in a pattern that occasionally resembled a circle :lol: The net result of this horse's behavior and my ability and nerve (or lack thereof) as a rider was that this horse had the crap lunged out of him in his younger years. I worried about it a lot because he was young and I had heard it could be damaging. But it was a safety issue.

It did him no harm in the short or long term. Your mileage may vary but I am a lot les concerned about lunging these days.
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Bugs-n-Frodo
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Thank you nhwr! I think he is maturing nicely and am happy with how he has turned out so far.

You guys are thinking it may be his stifles? I know hills help that, but also, besides ground poles, what other excersizes will help that as well?
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Yaksmom
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Can you post a pic of his butt? From behind with both legs even, not one in front - square. OK, got thatout of the way.

Like Pam, I think hock, stifle, AND SI.

I know Pessoa rig was suggested, but what about ground driving? It really helps to package them and lift their tush.

More, but after the ass shot.
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cindeye
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Bugs-n-Frodo
Jan 14 2007, 05:31 PM
Thank you nhwr! I think he is maturing nicely and am happy with how he has turned out so far.

You guys are thinking it may be his stifles? I know hills help that, but also, besides ground poles, what other excersizes will help that as well?

Poles. And, oh yeah...poles. Have I mentioned poles? Trotting poles...trotting poles...trotting raised poles...trotting poles on an arc. Oh, and trotting poles!

Vanex is frantically packing for Thermal, I'll see if I can get her to tell me exactly how she sets her exercises and I'll post them here. Yaksmom...do you have some BnF could set?

Have I mentioned trotting poles?

Has your boy had a chiro work-up?
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Lord Helpus
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Amy,

If we zero in on the stifles, I think you would notice if they were locking. Once of the reasons I asked about a growth spurt is that young horses often go through phases when they have loose stifles -- and that may be Frodo's problem now.

As you are going through the list of anatomical structures which a horse needs to use to be able to lift a hind leg and then pull it forward and put it back down, you need to consider the muscles in the back and loins, the joints (hip, stifle and hock) and don't forget the abs and glutes down the back of the gaskin. That was George's problem area and it was the last place we considered -- only after exhaustively investigating everything else.

Raised cavaletti is a great exercise.

I can tell that Yak's Mom is thinking of a displaced pelvis. :P
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KaliTude
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B-N-F,
Interesting, I asked this very same question in the schooling forum, so go over there. Of course I got very different answers there.

My coming 5 year old mare does the exact SAME thing. It is very very common from what I hear. As I posted in the other thread as well, I watched the 4th level horse at the barn schooling the other day and he was dragging his hind toes about the same as GG does. My mare doesn't really drag her toes at all on hard ground except when turning sharply in the cross ties, she just drag them in the arena.

I have had her saddle checked as well as had the vet watch her. She has zero back soreness. But like you, she is just really starting real work. As far as the comments about getting your horse to step under him/herself, my mare steps WAY under herself at all 3 gaits. She has low stifles and overtracks several inches at the walk, and naturally overtracks at even the slowest trot, sometimes I wonder if the slight toe dragging she exhibits is because she is so much under herself and it's just her conformation.

Anyway, I know how hard it is to not worry worry worry all the time. There's so much emotional turmoil with the love and investment of time with our youngsters. But sometimes I think we need to take a deep breath and just continue on and realize that there will be these little things along the way.

BTW Frodo is a hunk!
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Black Tack
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yes, he really is a hunk :one:

I found this interesting since my 16 year old ottb tends to catch his hind toe while I'm riding him as well. He was laid off for a year due to front foot problems and then he has been back to work for the past 14 months or so. Of course I am also taking it easy with him, always worrying and watching even though his front end soundness has been fine. However in December I started wondering about the catching the back toe so much and took him to the vet. He felt that his stifles were loose so I am also working on hills and pole work. He is bum high and also overtracks very easily so I think it's easy not to get his hind end working effectively. Sounds like your mare Kalitude. So now that's THE focus, even more than before and he's starting to work! :cheer:
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KaliTude
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So I thought I would post an update since my little mare was definite;y NQR yesterday on the lunge, and I had someone else ride her Monday so I could watch and she also looked NQR on her RH, exactly like Frodo's symptoms. The gal that rode her (a pretty experienced dressage rider through 3rd level) agred with me that you cannot feel anything odd behind, in fact she feels fantastic, but I am afraid there's something going on even if it is growing pains or newly in work pains. Anyway, she has a chiro appointment Saturday and a local vet appointment Tuesday just to get some outside opinions and baselines.

Anyone else that has any input it would be great to hear. I am also going to try to con Fish Cheeks into taking a video this Saturday so I can evaluate her gaits a little more (gotta love slow motion video!).
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Yaksmom
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Is there any muscle atrophy in her butt?

Look at her straight on from behind. Make sure she is standing square.

Amy,

still waiting on that butt shot! :nyah:
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