Day 58

Horses get hurt. That is a fact of life in the horseracing game. It is the hardest part of the sport for me because they are flesh and blood just like us. We as trainers are responsible for their care and well being and as such must make decisions all the time about how far we can push them. If we don't push them to some degree they will never get fit enough to be competitive at the races. If we push them too far we injure them. There is a fine line between too much and not enough. The reason that I am talking about this is that I have a horse that came out of his work pretty lame today. The puzzling thing is that while I can tell what limb is bothering him, it isn't apparent what the problem is. His feet are cold and don't react to hoof testers. His knees and ankles are also cold, have no signs of swelling and flex fine. His suspensory ligaments and tendons all appear to be normal. His shoulder also seems to stretch out and flex well. There isn't much else other than that. We took X rays and found nothing. The quandary is that the horse is not a really valuable horse and the owners probably don't want to spend the $3000 or so to send him to the clinic especially since there is no guarantee that they will find anymore than we have, which is nothing. And if he remains lame we eventually will figure out what is wrong. The problem lies in his recovery. If he is to improve with rest and goes back to being sound, that unknown lameness will always be in the back of my mind and I will wonder if what ever was wrong is fully healed.