OK horse people, I need your help. I'm looking for a horse injury that fits the following criteria.
1) It must be an acute injury, rather than an illness or an issue related to poor long-term care.
2) The injury is sustained in an attempt to throw a rider in an arena environment (Think rodeo bronco). It could also be sustained in a related activity (i.e. trying to jump into the stands after the rider is thrown).
3) It's serious enough that euthanasia may be considered, but not so bad that it's the only option.
4) The horse's temperament and ability to stay calm during treatment will greatly influence whether the owners choose to treat the injury or euthanize.
Anyone have the perfect solution?
Horses can do all sorts of crazy injuries to themselves, you could have a break/fracture - doesn't have the be the leg.
You could have a deep would (from falling or kicking itself) that leads to infection - had a horses develop a really bad joint infection following a leg wound. Not pleasant and seriously considered putting him down - the vet actually advised it several times.
The horse could fall - I've known a couple of horses to knock themselves out stone cold from a bad fall/injury. It's pretty scary because it can take days before they have any sort of balance and working out the damage can be hard, and long term you just don't know what's going to happen.
Impaling on something - broken fence etc, can cause a really bad wound that can become infected very very quickly.
Some fractures in an adult horse are okay for survival (but not always return to soundness), or breaking a small non weight bearing piece of bone. If you look at a horse and see a broken leg you better have over a million dollars for just the first month and the horse better have better luck than Barbaro.
I didn't know that broken legs weren't a death sentence anymore. That's awesome!
The horse I have now broke his back leg about six years ago. Three different vets said to put him down, one took one look at the fracture and said it was clean and should heal okay. He said if it was the front leg he wouldn't even consider it. But after 2 months of box rest (not fun for a horse used to living out) and then another two months of in hand walking, he was allowed back in the field - of course, despite the sedation, he went buck daft and spent twenty minutes letting off steam.
Long story short, within a couple of months he was riding again and by the end of the year he was competing at riding club again. Now he's getting older I notice that he's a little stiffer in that leg and he needs more warming up and stretching, but generally you would never know he'd had such an injury.
I should note that this horse is known locally as something of a captain scarlett - he's the same horse who had the joint infection, and he's contracted just about every disease known, and been stitiched up and put back together more often than I can count.
The year he broke his leg my vet bill came to just under £12,000 - thank god for insurance.