My family has a 5 year old AQHA mare who is mostly trained in Western Pleasure but is started in the all-around stuff (Horsemanship, Showmanship, Equitation, and Hunter Under Saddle). She’s a super nice mare and has/had pretty decent movement. She was also a very nice pleasure horse as a 4 year old.
In October (2008), she spooked, bolted, and tried to jump the pasture gate during turnout. She somersaulted over it (taking it down with her) and injured her right front knee pretty badly–a huge gash that tore muscles, covered an area about a handwidth in size just above/on the knee and circled almost all the way around her knee. Obviously we got the vet out immediately and started treatment. After months of wrapping, medicating, and otherwise treating her, the wound healed. She has some swelling in that knee that will probably never go down. The cut is still obvious, but it is closed now (no gaping wounds) and is just a scar.
The problem is that she’s not completely sound, which limits her performance. She is able to be ridden; the vet actually indicated that exercise was good, and she does actually work out of it a little–the more she’s ridden, the less she limps. She was started back to work this past spring and was actually sound a lot of the time with occasional off days. The vet did a thorough exam before we started her back to work and said she had some arthritis in that knee but was okay to work–exercise was good. We had her injected once, which helped a lot, but injections are expensive and have to be repeated–it’s not a one time deal that lasts forever. We put shoes on her front feet (she had been barefoot since the injury since she was off all winter) thinking that might help, but if anything, she’s gotten worse–now, she’s lame more often than not (used to be pretty sound with the occasional lame day). We’re going to leave her barefoot once these shoes come off and see if she improves again. She was on a joint supplement and we just started her on a new (supposedly better) one. She’s stretched (as per the vet’s instructions) each day and her knee is massaged with DMSO gel daily.
My question is whether anyone had experience with a particular supplement or treatment that was successful in maintaining a horse with an old injury, arthritis, or some other chronic lameness. This is a super nice and still very young show horse–when we can’t guarantee her sound, it’s hard to show her successfully (and makes her almost worthless to sell, except as a broodmare). The injections so far have worked the best, but again, if there’s something else that works that’s less expensive, that would be fantastic. Hopefully, once she’s barefoot again, she’ll go back to being sound more often than she is lame, but it would be nice to have some sort of routine that would maintain her better in the long run.
And yes, the vet is aware of everything, has given her the okay to be worked and shown in all of her regular classes, etc. We’re not abusing her by riding her 
. We’d just like to hear some other experiences with particular products that we may not have tried.
Stormy – you obviously didn’t read everything! She’s been to the vet on a regular basis since she was first injured. The vet said she NEEDS to be worked, because that helps loosen her up. We know exactly what’s wrong with her, we’re just looking for some new ideas to keep her as sound as possible during the show season.
Thanks for the answers so far. I can’t remember exactly what supplement she’s on now (she’s my sister’s horse and I rarely ride her or prepare her feed)–but I do know she had MSM and glucosamine. She did not have an infection–she was given antibiotics (per the vet’s orders) immediately following the accident to prevent infection. I will look into some of the other supplements/treatments that were mentioned. She is a One Hot Krymsun baby, so it’s going to be a disappointment if she can’t be consistently shown. Her bloodlines, conformation, and performance (before injury) are good enough that she’d make a nice broodmare, but we’re not interested in breeding (and raising a foal!) ourselves, so we’d have to sell for very little. The vet seems to think that riding is the best thing for her–in fact, she’s most sound when she’s ridden regularly and/or for a long time. She is stretched and massaged daily, which does help. She doesn’t do well turned out with other horses.
She colicked the last time she was on bute, so the vet recommended giving her banamine instead to help control the pain, so we use that when she’s most lame or really needs to be sound . The oral glucosamine sounds interesting–I’m guessing it might be more effective than the glucosamine in supplements? Definitely something we can talk to our vet about. Our farrier is great (and like I said, she was doing pretty well before we put shoes on thinking that would help more), so we’ll have him work on her feet and pull these shoes and try to at least restore the soundness we had before.
Granny–I’m sorry to hear about your horse as well. My gelding (a Zippos Old Gold baby) had a tendon injury last fall and needed several months recuperation–fortunately, he’s sound and showing well now, but I was afraid of a similar situation as yours (which we’re obviously facing now with this mare). Sometimes I think the nicer the horse, the more likely they are to get hurt! 
Barefoottrimmer – She is turned out alone in a small paddock during the day and stalled at night. She cannot be turned out with other horses and needs to be stalled part time (but she has an extra large stall and an attached run–she’s not completely immobile). When she colicked due to the bute, she wasn’t under stress (this was an earlier incident). She’s on a supplement with HA now. All three vets we’ve used have cleared her for the show ring–she’s not in major pain, she just doesn’t have the great movement she used to have (but some days she does–for instance, today at the trainer she was back to her old way of going–which was great). She’s already won several pleasure classes this summer on the days she is completely sound. Retiring her would be pointless as she’s perfectly suited to showing. We just want to keep her as sound as possible since she does have the arthritis which could cause future problems as well.