# Worst Horse Injuries?



## PaintedHeart (May 24, 2011)

My gelding decided to earn his title of 'Horse' a couple of weeks ago and injure his hip (he got spooked during a thunderstorm and ran into the shelter in his pasture... at least from what we can tell), so he's a pasture ornament for a month aside from daily cold showers (or use of a large cold pack), daily Bute for a week, and Adequan once a week for 4 weeks. But it got me thinking; it's a pretty mild injury compared to what he could have done. 

So, what's the worst injury your horse has had?


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## Sunny (Mar 26, 2010)

My girl got hung up on something unknown and tore a huge chunk out of her neck. An inch or so deep with the skin tag still in tact. I was out of town, and by the time her caretakers saw it, it was too late for the vet to stitch. 
It had to be rinsed daily with water and then betadine, then an ointment applied. She also got an antibiotic from the vet that we had to give her for a month.
It healed nicely with minimal scaring, thankfully.

My girl is _very_ accident prone, but all of her injuries are pretty minor. No shortage of cuts and bruises with Sunny!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Silvera (Apr 27, 2010)

My guys Storm, I've had him since he was 6 weeks old (we bought him and his mom together) and he has had a few injuries. There are 3, yes 3, that stand out the most.

1st) Storm was about 6mths old, he was boarded at an old cattle barn with pipe stalls with kick boards attached for safety. The end stall had a bit that came out from the wall, a round piece a tube went through and then the door to the stall with another round piece a tube went through. The round pieces lined up so you put the tube through to keep the door shut. Anyway, this particular stall had a little bit wider opening then the others, not so big that a full grown horse could do anything but just big enough that Storm was able to get his head stuck between the bit that came from the wall and the door. He must have reared up in the stall, got his head in the opening and then wasn't able to touch the ground with his front feet. I was out on a ride and there where other boarders in the barn. They went up to the house, and called 911. The fire department came, along with some police. We ended up riding back from the trails to see 2 fire trucks and 2 police cars (we where hoping for a car accident, but it wasn't to be). It turned out that the fire department decided, in their wisdom, to try and cut the bars around my horse with a saws all or a rotary saw or something like that. Anyway, the saw bounced off the bar and promptly cut open my horses front leg just under his knee. Suffice to say Storm then reared up and was able to get free. They called the vet but by the time I got there, blood was spurting (they cut a minor artery) from his leg, we put wonder dust on it to stop the bleeding. The vet came, checked him out and he was fine but the spot where he was cut will not grow hair back.

2nd) Again Storm. We got Storm gelded but it was a little early in the season and still a little cold out. He ended up getting over clotted so the vet had to come out to re-open the incision and pull out all of the clots. He was out with his herd and his play buddy (who the two of them used to play fight, rear at each other, etc.) wanted to play with him but Storm wasn't moving very well. Anyway the other horse ran him into the hay feeder and Storm gouged out a huge chunk of flesh out of his back leg in the muscly/fatty part of his leg. That one was nasty cuz we couldn't wrap it.

3rd) It's Storm's first show day, he's on the trailer by himself (which he was fine with) and we where on the way to pick up another horse. We went through an area with horse and buggys and one went by the trailer. He had a little freak out, reared up, flipped his head up (thank good otherwise he would have hit his pole) and poked a hole in his forehead where his star would be. He ripped his head open from the hole up to his forelock. We didn't find this out until we got to the other barn and went to open the trailer and saw that his hay net was down. I then took him off to discover the blood dripping down his head and that you could, literally, open his skin up to reveal the muscle underneath. Anyway, we had to put him BACK on the trailer and take him home to his barn so the vet could see him. He went on like a champ and was given 14 stitches to close up his head.

Out of all of these things, none of them scared except the one on his front leg, but that one only doesn't really grow hair.

The joys of horses lol


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## pintophile (May 18, 2011)

There are two...the first was more asthetically horrific, and the other is actually lameness-wise severe.

Years ago one of my dad's old Percheron mares (we don't have her anymore) hurt her leg pretty bad. I think she got it caught in wire? I don't know, it was a long time ago. I still remember that pussing, oozing, swollen purple and yellow wound on her back leg. It took a good few months and lots of antibiotics and such to heal up. Wonder Dust was our best friend for a while there. It healed alright, but she always had a big bump on her leg.

My younger mare blew her shoulder out being chased by the alpha mare (at the time). She was off for a year or more lame.

There have been lots of injuries besides that, but I consider myself lucky those are the worst.


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## Beauseant (Oct 22, 2010)

For us, nothing catastrophic.

Epona is not accident prone. She doesn't move much so that tends to keep her from injuring herself.:lol:

Beau, our rambunctious OTTB, however is never ever still....he is always on the move.

At his last barn where he was staying for a few weeks until a spot opened up at the barn where we kept Epona.... we got a call one evening...he'd gotten a scratch on his neck we were told. They had no idea HOW>.....ummm.....could it be that barbed wire you use in the paddocks, hmmmm??? :twisted:

Well, his "scratch" turned out looking like this:










Not a horrific deep laceration to be sure, but not quite what I deem a "scratch" either.

Vet came out and gave him a tetnus shot, told us to keep up the good work keeping it super duper clean and to watch for wound and systemic signs of infection. 

That was our worst injury, thank God.


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## Stillstandin (Nov 10, 2009)

My barrel horse Storm (must be the name ^) had a wreck with a fly sheet and waterer. Not sure exactly what happened but when we found her it looked like a leg strap had hung up on the waterer and in her struggle to get free she stripped all the skin and muscle from her hind leg from above her hock to below her fetlock. The tendons were also torn and dragging on the ground. All that was there was bone. She had lost so much blood that it took four of us to get her out of the pen and into the barn. Three vets came and all agreed that she would never be rideable again, if she could even recover enough to walk. IV fluids, changing bandages for eight months, over a year to finally heal over. I never took pictures, it was too gruesome. The leg did heal up, including the tendons reattaching. Storm never gave up and she beat the odds. The wreck happened in 2003 and she ran barrels again in 2005, 2006 and 2007....then a car accident in December 2007 took her life. 
This is her competing in 2007.


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## Travellersmom88 (Jun 24, 2011)

I havent had any big issues with my horse thank god, but i did have a friend a few weeks ago have her horse attacked by a rotty & dalmation & pit mix. i have nothing against the breeds it was the owner who had trained them to be attack/protecter dogs. he was a hateful man that would shoot any animal that came in his yard- no matter the size. (it was fenced in so no horses were shot thank god.) anyways they jumped on her horse like a tiger on a zebra and ripped a huge chunk out of her neck, it became infected and horrible oders, after about 5mnths of antibotices, bute etc she was healed and now has a chunk missing out of her neck, its in the shape of a moon. she hadnt named her yet but we all thought moon was perfect for her.


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## ~*~anebel~*~ (Aug 21, 2008)

One of our horses had his withers crushed by another horse. Because the shoulders were not involved we decided to do surgery. The first one removed about 4 litres of pooled blood, puss and bone fragments. Then they had to lay him down to remove a large part of bone wedged between two vertebrae pressing on the spinal cord. After those two initial surgeries there were a few others to remove dead tissue and debride and drain the wound. He had an open hole in his back for 18 to 20 months and various scary infections (flesh eating disease for one) but healed up fine and was able to be ridden again with no issues except not having withers lol.
Same horse also had a devastating abscess in his hoof that required removal of over 50% of his hoof tissue and resulted in mild founder. He wasn't the same after that one.
Another horse ended up with a tooth abscess that worked its way into her sinus and facial bones that required drastic facial surgery to remove the infected bone and sinus tissue.

We've also healed various "to the bone" leg injuries with minimal scarring. And of course dealing with lameness and arthritis.

Yep.. horses are walking vet bills!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## PaintedHeart (May 24, 2011)

~*~anebel~*~ said:


> Yep.. horses are walking vet bills!
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Isn't that the truth  I'm just glad that this time Romeo's injury was as minor as it was; aside from the Adequan, the only real bill we had this time was the vet coming out to check on him, no surgery or stitches or anything.


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## kim_angel (Oct 16, 2007)

Probably this one...

The entire thread about this wound is here:
http://www.horseforum.com/horse-health/comanches-wound-graphic-pics-beware-71174/


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## PaintedFury (Aug 18, 2010)

I would have to say the worst one that I've dealt with on one of my personal horses was back in 2005, when my mare Lady tried to paw a horse in a neighboring pasture and the wire cut through her foot, from the middle of the bulb in the back, over the top and all the way down through the coronary band. The vet came out and gave her a tet. shot, and left me a 10 day supply of antibiotics. Then I had to do weeks and weeks of wound care. If I was on my desk top, I would post pics, but I'm on my laptop, so I can't. I was lucky enough that no tendon damage was done, but because of the location it could not be stitched up, so when she walked it would open and close. It was very disgusting to watch. But it healed up quite nicely, no lameness from it. The hair does not grow over the scar, but that's fine as long as she's sound.

That injury did teach me one thing. I've always been told that if you have one of a horse's feet picked up that they can not pick up another one. She can, she managed to graze the top of my head with her back leg, while kicking at flies, one day while I was cleaning the wound on her front foot. Luckily it wasn't a very hard kick, but she did manage to make my scalp peel for a couple of days afterwards.


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## PaintedFury (Aug 18, 2010)

Kim_Angel I just looked through the tread you done on that injury. That was really amazing, and you done such a wonderful job taking care of him, and keeping the thread updated to boot. My compliments to you and your little man, I'm glad everything turned out so wonderfully for both of you.


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## MHFoundation Quarters (Feb 23, 2011)

A few come to mind from over the years. 

We had a big grulla mare when I was a kid that caught her nostril on something (never did figure out what) and ripped the outside part off her left nostril completely off. She was kinda ugly to begin with but that definitely added to her "beauty". 

My sister's quarter pony gelding got himself in a pickle at a showgrounds once. He had managed to get a hind foot between the rebar on the portable stall. He was only 13 h, so his hoof was above his back level hung up. A few pulled sore muscles, nothing broken amazingly. With some time off, massge & chiro work the little turd was back in the arena 2 weeks later. 

Had a mare sent out to be bred, she got sliced on broken metal siding on the outside of their barn & sliced clean through her forearm to the bone. Lots of stitches & care, she healed with a very faint scar & never had any problem from it. 

The worst I've ever seen (not mine thank goodness!) was a friend of my gpa's. They had picked up a new mare, were bringing her home. She went through the trailer floor with her fronts. She was tied short & couldn't move to get her feet on another spot in the floor. When they stopped her 2 hooves that went through were virtually gone. She had to be put down. Because of seeing that as a teenager I will never tie a horse in a trailer.


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## CanyonCowboy (Apr 30, 2010)

I must say I opened this thread carefully. Didn't want to really see a string of gore. I have three:

When I was young my first 2 year old gelding put his right hind through pig wire and got hung up. He ended up cutting most of the ligaments in his foot right around the fetlock. Took months to close and heal. Ended up with a club foot on that side, but lived to be 31 years old, and rodeo'ed with me in High School (when he was 12).

Our American Saddler mare managed to poke a stick into her eye on 640 acres. When she wouldn't come in for feeding that night, we spent hours searching the property until we found her standing with her gelding friend. He was trying to show her where to walk, but she wouldn't cross the creek. Her eye had a big dipple in the middle for about a month. Got her sight back on day 3.

Last was a mare that foundered on pig feed. Discovered her standing staked out in the pasture. Spent many, many hours doctoring. This was when DMSO was first becoming available and we used it extensively (I can still taste the almonds). The mare would go on her own each night and stand in the stock pond to cool her feet. Took about 4 months until she was moving well and years for the foundering rings to grow out of her hooves. She was about 10 at the time, and lived to 34 years old.


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

I have been very fortunate over the years. Only one horse had an injury that required stitches (when my brother, who was like 7 at the time, told Buck to walk in a direction that neither of them knew led to a barbed wire fence). Other than that, the occasional abscess or wire cut, and a few scrapes from fights is pretty much all we've had. 

My old guy, Denny, fell in the pasture a few years ago and fractured his tail in 2 different places, along with tearing some muscles in his left buttock. He lost the use of his tail for about a year or so and still doesn't have full use of it, but he can at least swish away flies a bit now. He broke it once about mid-way down the dock and the other break was up on his butt just above the dock.

Here you can see back in the day when his butt was normal.









And this is what it looks like now, you can kinda see the little dipped in place about 2-3 inches above the dock of his tail and how the base of his tail seems to kinda stick straight out from his butt.


















Here is a thread that I followed rather closely while it was going on. I don't know if it was the worst for her horse, but I thought it was pretty darn bad.
http://www.horseforum.com/horse-health/phoenix-had-accident-graphic-contents-66017/


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## Prinella (Jul 12, 2011)

These are the worst 2 I can think of:

1st 
We brought a gorgeous appy from the sales seemed like hed make an amazing school horse. We sent him off with a truckie we've used many times as has a close friend who was heavily involved in a major rescue organization. He loaded this quiet boy on first and as it was cup weekend was going to drop him off the Wednesday. This was Friday. When he took the other horses off the truck our appy freaked and cut his head open on a bolt. At this point it was a minor wound we were told, he called us and was told to get a vet if needed he thought it would be ok so treated it with wound spray over the next few days. 

Being a very busy weekend he only saw him at night until he went to load him Wednesday morning. He called us and said it's gonna need a vet but he'll travel ok it would be easier to bring him home. When he got off the float you could see skull about the size of a mans hand. The wound was crawling with maggots and oh the smell! Having been treated with blue spray did not help the appearance of the wound.

We called ahead, got supplies together and headed off to the horse hospital at werribee. 3 hours of cleaning demaggoting and the head vet coming in on his day off to take photos he was bandaged and stalled. Over the next few weeks stitches were put in and tightened to close the hole. 3 weeks later he came home and we all learnt how to bandage heads. 3 months later we rode him for the first time and within 4 months of that he's become one of our best school horses. 

Our magic remedy is equaide now proud aid. The only scarring he has is a small patch where the hair just won't grow about 3cm long

The 2nd was my own Ella 
End of january this year just after the major cyclone yasi hit queensland we had major storms at the tail end.
We had had for months orange plastic bollards and flags roping off a section of a paddock. Ella had figured out that the electric fence wasn't working that well and had escaped her paddock and gotten in with the other agistees. They were low in staff at this point and had no one experienced enough to handle Ella (she tends to try to bite/kick anyone thats not me). It was decided to leave her out with the others rather then put her back in a non electrified paddock stressing as the others hooned around her. Somehow she got tangled in the flags that had been there for over a year without incident so she bolted with 10ms of flags and bollards chasing her then there was a fence she saw too late. One of the girls was sitting out having a smoke and saw it happen thankfully I was on my out after finishing at my other job and only 10 mins off. Vet was called at midnight and then I had a good look. The extensor tendon was split down the middle and the leg down to the bone on one side the other shed just shaved all skin off from the knee to fetlock.

She's just out of bandages for a couple of weeks to let the dermatitis clear up then theyre back on to eliminate scarring. Thankfully shes showig no signs of lameness.

Sorry for the essay and typos I'm still working out this iPad


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## sierrams1123 (Jul 8, 2011)

My mare got a nasty cut last september and I was sick when I got to her I though she would never recover, I could care less if she could ever run barrels again but I just could not believe with what I was looking at that she would ever be "normal" again.

She was staying at a friends place for a little while and at this point I do not even know why but anyways she was there and what we think happened is she had her head hanging over the fence and the bolt was to her left when another mare came up to get a drink of water at the water trough that was to my mares right and the other mare kicked at my mare to get her to get out of her space so my mare went to swing to the left to either defend herself or get the heck out of there when she caught hold of the bolt she lodge it in just so that she got hung up on it and the other mare just kept kicking (I know this because on her right side she had kick marks) my mare ended up with over twenty some stiches and 3 months out. There is more to the injury that the pictures and video do not show, where the bolt stabbed into her there was damage under the skin it created air pockets and that is why the vet stiched her up. Of course not two weeks later my mare had them out but all in all I would say it healed nicely  all thanks to Vetericyn that stuff is amazing!!
















 





























She is as good as new now  running better then ever before  So thankful for all who helped during her "hurt"  my dad-for paying the bill and rushing me to the vet after hours, amber-for letting me use her round pen panels to make a little pen area, Wendi-for picking up extra meds, and The Bakers-most of all yall! thanks to yall my mare is back to her old self I love yall!


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