Texas - Oklahoma - Louisiana
Equine Dentistry

We often see front end lameness’ that relate to dental problems. We thought we had one of these situations the other day. The lady presented a horse that was stumbling often, and sometimes to the point the horse would almost fall down with her. The acupuncture exam revealed there might could be some dental problems causing the condition, so we did a full mouth exam and dental on the horse. The horse had some dental problems, but none that were really major issues. We asked the lady to try her horse again in a few days. She did, and the horse still had the problem. 

On our initial exam, we could see the horse had some long toes. So the next step was to x-ray his feet to check for breakover point and proper angles, or any other lameness issues. We found no major problems with the horse’s feet. However, during the acupuncture exam, my wife noticed some white spots just behind the horse’s shoulder blades. These had gone unnoticed because the horse was light gray, and the white hairs were hard to see. She mentioned to the lady that she might want to talk to a master saddle fitter and get his opinion on her saddle fit. 

We went back about 3 weeks later and the lady ran up to Mindy and I, gave us a big hug, and said thank you…thank you…thank you!! She had done what Mindy suggested and called a saddle fitter to evaluate her horse and saddle. Come to find out, her saddle was pinching the horse’s shoulders, thus causing the severe stumbling. Once this was fixed, the problem was gone!