01/14/2026
⭐️Early Season Distal Limb Soreness⭐️
We have been seeing a pattern year after year; horses are coming up sore after just one or two weeks of competing.
🎯 What signs should you look out for as a horse owner?
🎯 Why does this happen?
🎯 When should you call your vet?
🎯 What can you do to help prevent it from happening?
✨Common Signs of Soreness✨
Often, owners may see: changes in their horse’s behavior, changes in gait, reluctance to work, and poor performance.
✨But why do horse’s get sore?✨
📍Many horses are not conditioned for the work they will be doing when competing.
- Horses only being jumped two or three times per week at home, but competing four to six times per week, many times they are in multiple classes every day!
📍We frequently see horses that have been shod too close to heavy work.
- Sore feet from trimming or hot nails
📍Some horses may get lunged in the morning, then hacked by the assistant or rider before even making it to the show ring for their class(es) for the day.
✨Things to be on the lookout for!✨
📍One sided lameness often presents itself in the front feet.
📍Heat, swelling, or sensitivity to palpation of the distal limbs
📍Increased digital pulse
- Normal is a faint or hardly noticeable pulse, but will become obvious or bounding when a problem arises.
- The most common digital pulse point can be found just above the fetlock on the medial (inside) and lateral (outside) of the leg.
✨Prevention is key!✨
📍Make a conditioning plan leading up to your next show
- Hill work, cavaletti and pole work are all great ways to strengthen your horse’s musculoskeletal system (Brown et al., 2014)(Takahashi et al., 2010)
📍Post-class care is very important for the structures of the distal limbs!
- Take off your horse’s boots ASAP to begin cooling down the tendons and ligaments in their legs (Brock and Spooner, 2021)
📍 Ice their legs when they get back to their stall (Zahn et al., 2025)
- Avoid standing wraps—can significantly increase the temperature of the SDFT and DDFT (McCarthy et al., 2025)
📍Know what is ‘normal’ for your horse
- What is normal for one horse, can be abnormal for another. Each horse is an individual!
