Race Horse With Multiple Issues

Five year old race horse Green Agenda had been having multiple problems in hind and fore limbs. He came up lame behind on a number of occasions but problems seem more apparent on the near hind. MRI investigation had proven inconclusive and the next stage was Scintigraphy.  Left fore suffered with a seedy toe and was treated by the farrier three weeks ago. Owner and trainer  (Derek Shaw & Chris Hamilton) had hoped that this was the cause of the pain and they could move forward in training but other issues have persisted. The team were finding it  very difficult to isolate the primary concern as it was very non-specific. Performance is being heavily affected as horse has become jarred up on a number of occasions.

Medication: Two sachets of Bute had been administered on the day of testing

THERMOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION: hypothermic asymmetry is seen in the lower left leg which may indicate a vascular insufficiency or possibly a neurological dysfunction. An exercise stress test produces a loss of normal frog coolness with localised inflammation at the heel (next thermograms). This would be consistent with a deep structure injury or pathology in the region of navicular. X-rays were warrented from this image.

We struggled to even get a thermogram of the left hind before exercise. The response we saw after stress testing was completely different and we needed to make sure this was down to weight distribution and not a deep structure change.

An exercise stress test produces a loss of normal frog coolness with localised inflammation at the heel. This would be consistent with a deep structure injury or pathology in the region of navicular. 

There is significant inflammation in the front right fetlock which appears joint related. Once correlated with veterinarian X-ray found a chip fracture in fetlock.