Nacho - Hock issues - arthritis- severe back pain - no injections!

 

John Dowdy:     Hello, and welcome to another Equinety podcast. This is your host, John Dowdy, and I'm really excited to share with everyone this amazing Equinety story. This is from [Gracie Hayes 00:00:12] out of Kentucky, and she's got an eight-year-old off the track Thoroughbred by the name of Nacho. And some of you may have seen these ads running across the internet for quite some time, because this story is really amazing. And without further ado, Gracie, welcome to the show.

Gracie:             Thank you for having me.

John Dowdy:     Well, it's our pleasure. And these videos that you sent me have really caused a lot of banter and communications, and all kinds of excitement from people, because ... well, when you first sent them to me, I was pretty amazed by it. And just the things that your horse was going through, and ... Well, let's just tell that story. So Nacho is an eight-year-old off the track Thoroughbred. Well, he was trained to be Hunter/Jumper, and that's when you got him. Is that pretty much right on board?

Gracie:             Yeah. Well, he knew how to ride, walk, short canter, and I had done a lot of the Hunter/Jumper stuff with him whenever I got him.

John Dowdy:     Okay. And then, you kind of continued that on? Or what did you do with him at that point?

Gracie:             Yes. When I got him, I had started riding him more and more, and then I started doing more Hunter/Jumper and a little bit of traveling cross country, and some trails. He wasn't any kind of three-foot, four-foot jumper, but he knew his job.

John Dowdy:     And you told me earlier that he was a bit of a firecracker when you first got him.

Gracie:             Yes. He was definitely a bit like a dragon when you were riding him.

John Dowdy:     Okay. So you were kind of enjoying Nacho in the beginning stages, a bit of a firecracker, and everything's going along in your training schedule. And then one day, he just kind of comes up a little lame? Tell us about that.

Gracie:             Yes. I had noticed he had started getting a little bit stiff and uncomfortable under saddle. And I had noticed that it had kind of gotten a little worse, so I kind of stopped riding him, doing some ground work with him. And then it was like in a week, he just came up lame. Like that video, he came out of the stall and he was just dead lame. And of course, I had contacted a vet, and the vet had suggested that if there was any way I could avoid injections or anything, that I should try that first. So that's whenever I had gotten ahold of Equinety.

John Dowdy:     Yeah. Now for those that are tuning in for the first time, we are going to post these videos at our website, which is teamequinety.com, and then you'll click on the "Podcast" link at the top of the menu button there, and then you can find the specific podcast about Nacho. And then below the podcast, we'll have everything transcribed, along with some videos of Nacho, at teamequinety.com.

John Dowdy:     So when you had the vet come out, what was the vet saying about Nacho, other than what you had just mentioned about maybe not giving injections. But what did he think that the problem was?

Gracie:             He had pinpointed that his hocks were bothering him. They were stiff, maybe a little bit of arthritis. You know, when you get an off the track Thoroughbred, they've been so much anyways, to training as young horses, that they could have problems with their muscling or joints. And he had pinpointed his hock was stiff. He didn't really want to inject his joint just right off the bat, because he said once you inject, you could possibly be injecting for life. So he said,