Navicular in a 2 year old!!!!???????

[runnin' roan]

I took my colt to the vet today to have him X-rayed. He had been a bit off in his left front for several weeks. We got horrible news!!! He is in the first stages of navicular! How could this have happend??? We give our horses the best care. They are properly trimmed by a very experienced farrier.
When we bought this colt he was malnourished and had never had any hoof care.He was 17 months old. He will be 2 next month. He has the best care since we bought him. I have always thought navicular was from hard riding, stress, or poor trimming/shoeing. I have never heard of it in a 2 year old that has never been ridden. Has anyone ever heard of this?

[surprisewind]

Unfortunately this does happen, and you have my deepest sympathies. At best, you can call the navic. ideopathic and at worst genetic. I'd go with ideopathic... sounds better.
With proper care, and some extra $$ outlayed for said care, he can lead a somewhat normal life, though certainly less rigourous. Think kids horse or something along those lines.

My first glimpse of early onset navic. was many moons ago and rather shocking. I rode for a local (in CA) roping horse trainer/horse trader of good rather than ill repute. Hopped on a very well-started bee-yoo-tiful appy gelding. Sweet nature, nicely put together, expensive price tag. but I SWORE that he felt off on the front left. JUST a bit, JUST a feeling I had and NOT AT ALL visible while watching him move. I asked the guy about it... was told on the sly that the horse had navic, and read the vet report. So sad... he was being sold without declaration of the problem, too... I found reasons to avoid riding for him anymore.

So YOU, with your CARING, can do good things.
Good luck!

[krysha_n_helga]

[Dawn]

Navicular can probably occur on any horse at any time. Navicular can mean several different things, is is more of a term to describe pain in the back quarter of the horse's internal hoof structures (coffin bone, navicular bone and deep digital flexor tendon)

As the navicular bone runs up and down on the DDFT it goes under the backside of the coffin bone. So essentially navicular can refer to damage to any of the three culprits or can also occur simutaneously in more than one place.

The best thing to do is to get x-rays of the horse's hoof and see if changing the heel angle can alleviate the stress of the three structures involved. If the stress can be relieved, the horse can usually perform quite soundly (albeit sometimes at a slightly lower level) for a long period of time. If there is significant changes in density to the coffin bone or navicular bone these things can be more difficult to recover from as the bone density does not come back.

If there is damage to the tendon, this usually is not discernable on X-Ray, but can sometimes be seen with ultrasound.

What is interesting to me is the role researchers are finding with silicon in the development/formation of bone tissue and it makes me seriously wonder if some horse's are more prone to bone damage in this area because they were possibly malnourished or did not get adequate silicon during their developmental stages. I have yet to see any research which correlates this data, but it would be an interesting case of study.

Good Luck