02 September 2008 15:33
My horse is very reluctant to pick up his hindlegs and often lashes out as if he’s in discomfort. I had the vet out a couple of months ago to treat swelling in his back legs, but the vet said draught horses are prone to it and not to worry. He’s still reluctant to pick up his legs. Is he just having me on, or is there something more sinister going on?
Answer
By Your Horse
Vet Gil Riley replies:
I think we can be confident from your description that your horse is a ‘shiverer’.
Shivering is a common syndrome in draught horses. It’s quite poorly understood, but we believe it to be due to some imbalance in the nervous tone to the hindlimbs.
Apart from reluctance to pick up one or both hindlimbs – and often trembling as they do it – affected horses are sometimes unable to back up. They also greatly resent banging to the sole of the foot of the affected limb, which is why the syndrome is often first picked up by the farrier.
The good news is that shivering will not lead to unsoundness and, for the most part, is simply an inconvenience. However, shivering does tend to get worse with time
and, therefore, shoeing behind may eventually become quite difficult to do.