This is Jack my lovely 15.3hh 11year old unregistered Connemara x TB who I have owned since 2011.
He came home with me in Aug 2011 as a 5yr old with the intention of becoming an eventer having been used in a riding school in his early ridden years.
To begin with things were going well and we won lots of show jumping, Dressage and WH classes and even one our first ever mini ODE but sadly after numerous problems he was finally diagnosed as having a Kissing Spine in July 2014
We started out with steroid injections in his affected spinal processes and then found arthritis in his hocks too which were also given steroid injections.
Sadly despite my best efforts to rehabilitate him following the injections Jack deteriorated quickly and after another visit to Oakham Equine Vet hospital I was given 3 choices:
1) Retire
2) Bute for the rest of his life
3) Surgery
After a lot of soul searching I opted for surgery, he was too young to retire and a life on bute would mean giving up my eventing dream. The vets were encouraging of my choice and optimistic of Jack making a full recovery and return to eventing.
In Feb 2015 he had his surgery reshaping 4 dorsal processes and cutting the ligaments to a further 7. The day of the surgery was the longest of my life but it all went well and his recovery was pretty straight forward.
He began rehab in April 15 and successfully returned to competition in Dec 15 coming 2nd with a double clear in an eventer trial. He went from strength to strength and we finally returned to full eventing in Sept 16.
Sadly since his recovery he has been super unlucky and had 2 further injuries unrelated to his kissing spine but we hope to event again in 2017 and beyond.
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