Is this acceptable?

Does anyone think that this is an acceptable way to release a horse from hospital? with dried blood on his back which is now two days old? I took off some yesterday, too, this is not all of it. Am I making a fuss about nothing here, or is this simply not acceptable when I have paid nearly £40 a day livery?

On the plus side, he is home and moving incredibly. When he puts his head down to eat, the whole of his back is arching upwards in a very pronounced curve. He has most definitely never been able to do that in his life.

Now, onto the rehab. What a shambles. The full notes, verbatim, are as follows, with my own comments in italic bold so you can differentiate them.

- 3 weeks box rest with in hand walking. Start at 15 minutes daily for first 7 days then increase gradually up to 30 minutes daily at the end of 3 weeks.  The rehab notes from the hospital where this operation was pioneered say one hour a day in hand from day one. Why the big difference?

- 3 weeks small pen/yard turnout with lunging in a pessoa starting at 10 minutes daily increasing by 10 minutes per week.


- Consider resuming ridden exercise at 6 weeks post op depending on back comfort.  4 weeks hacking in walk, 4 weeks walk and trot, followed by 4 weeks walk trot and canter. Continue intermittent lunging throughout.

- Once back in full work consider return to normal turnout - try to keep restricted until that point.   I'm sorry? Can you run that by me again?  You want me at six weeks to put twelve stone of rider and tack onto the newly operated on back of a horse which you don't think is fit for full turnout until twelve weeks later? Are you out of your  mind?


The rehab program makes no sense to me at all. We have a horse whose back was tied in knots which we have cut out, and now they want him confined and not to move too much. What has been cut, we do not want to heal together again, that's the whole point of this exercise.

And if a horse is fit to carry a rider on its back at six weeks, it's fit to canter in the field on its own. I would not dream of riding a horse whose back was not fit fot him to run around in a field.

I can't talk about this with anyone. The surgeon has gone and  I don't have his number. The vet will stick by what the surgeon has said. The whole thing smacks to me not of what is best for the horse, but of massive back-protection so that no-one can be blamed if it does not work.

Thankfully, I have broad shoulders. I will do what I think is right for Ace at the time. Right now, he's in the barn where he can move freely, and Radar is in the field. There is a gate that they can talk over, which  has been extended and fortified by SH so that no-one can decide to jump it or put a foot through it.  Things will stay that way until we think it is safe to let them be together, and then Radar will go in with Ace overnight.

Meanwhile, he has the most extraordinary volume of penicillin to be given - 45 ml twice a day, twice what I have ever given any other horse, the poor pincushion. And he is on a small amount of bute. How much that is contributing to the enormous increase in his back movement remains to be seen, but the signs are extremely promising right now.

C