Warning: If you are a man, you may want to stop reading now. There’s nothing about the way I can explain this particular horsey problem without making you squirm. We decided to leave Skid keep his private parts this year, but now I think we may have to revisit that decision. Seems like his private parts might be causing a problem.
Before he went on vacation, Skid pulled up lame behind after a gallop on the fibersand. He walked off the track fine, but on the way home, his back leg slipped a bit, and all of a sudden he was on three legs. I hopped off, hand-walked him home (luckily not far away) and called a vet to come straight away, because I was afraid something might actually be fractured. By the time the vet came a little over an hour later, the horse was fine. Trotted out fine. Flexion test fine. Absolutely no sign of a problem. I thought, well, fine, we’ll turn him out for a bit over winter anyway, and see what comes back. He seemed perfectly sound since he’s been back, but last week, he walked out of the box with a funny step behind, and after about 10 minutes it completely went away. Hmmm, I thought, maybe we need the osteopath; maybe he’s knocked something out of whack rolling in his box. We were puzzling over this when Jean-Yves asked if we had taken a close look at his testicles. I admitted I hadn’t, except to notice that he had them, there were two and they seemed in the right place. Funny thing, though. When you pick up a back leg, the corresponding reproductive organ slips right back up into the abdomen. Ouch. That explains everything. A false move behind, or too high a movement, or stress while galloping can send that little puppy right up where it doesn’t belong. Now the question is what to do about it. I hate to stop for a full castration just when we’re only a month or so from a race, but there’s no point in carrying on if this is going to be a recurring problem. I will speak with my panel of testicular experts (meaning vets and anyone else who has experience with this problem) this week to see what must be done.
Ouch…best of luck with this one – to you AND Skid!
That is the first time I have seen ‘…that little puppy’, used in reference to a horse. Don’t show this post to Skid; he might sulk for weeks…
We’ve had several horses that we gelded because of that sort of physical issue — testicles got in the way and were jolted while the horse was racing, etc. In every case it turned out to be the right decision. Of course, we didn’t have anything with a stallion pedigree, so that wasn’t an issue.
Off they go! We had the exact same problem with a Proud Citizen colt, very uncomfortable but nothing we could figure out. We finally performed “brain surgery” as my wife likes to call it, and voila a new attitude-a new horse!
He doesn’t miss them. Most men wouldn’t (vasectomy) either.