[gizpeptig]

I have posted several threads about my pony Gizmo.. well he has another problem. Over the past like maybe 9 months? Gizmo has been fidgety when he is saddled. Well this past summer we found a girl to ride him (I am sadly too big & have two other horses). He was always really fidgety when she saddled him but recently he is ALOT worse. Its mostly when she is tightening the girth. He moves around alot and then looks like he spooks when she pulls up on the girth (or should I say CINCH, it's a western saddle). You know how horses throw all four feet out when the see something that makes him spook? That's what he does. Then when I tried to saddle him about a week ago, he put his front legs out in front of him and put all his weight on his back and acted like he was going to fall. He also seems like he wants to bite. He will reach his head around towards you and put his ears back, which he has NEVER done.

I rubbed my hand over his ribs where the cinch goes and he will raise up and suck in like it hurts him. But what I don't get is that he is fine when she rides him. I know Gizmo, and if something is bothering him he will show us (bucking, kicking, putting ears back, ect.) We are thinking about having a chiropracter coming out to look at him. I was just wondering if anyone had any advice?

*ps- I know it isn't the girl's saddle, because I have the same saddle I used to ride him in when I first got him and he does it with mine too and he didn't use to.

 

[gizpeptig]

I have wondered about ulcers because he is also prone to colic. Yes I make sure she tightens up slowly, and he still does it. He starts to panic as soon as you pull the girth up. I've also checked for sores and make sure to stretch his legs out after ward to prevent any pinching.

How would the vet check for ulcers?

 

[gizpeptig]

My granddaughters barrel horse started doing the same thing when cinching her up. Acting like she wanted to go down, spreading her legs, turning around to bite, and believe me, she got us all a couple of times she was so quick. No matter how we cinched her up, even tried a couple of different types, but nothing worked. Charmayne James was having a barrel clinic and had her personal chiropractor there. We had him work on Ruby and found out her neck was out just at the withers, after he adjusted her, she never gave us another problem. He said it can happen easily when they run and play, slip when running, rolling, etc, just a thing that can put it out of place. Maybe he has the same issue.

He actually fell one time like last summer I believe. He was chasing the other horses and just lost his footing. He got up and kept running so we supposed everything was fine. I wonder if that could be the problem, something out of line and then maybe it got worse? Well we'll definitely have the chiro come out than, Thanks!

 

[gizpeptig]

Ulcers are diagnosed by placing an endoscope up the nose and down into the stomach where you can see the gastric mucosa on a screen. Very cool actually.

Wow.. well if he does have ulcers is there anything we can do about it?