Making an insurance claim?
I have a question for those of you who insure your horses and have made a claim before.
I have a 4yr old OTTB who came up lame about 8 weeks ago. I have had him since the end of January and had a pretty thorough PPE done before I bought him.
A little background:
I am in college and while at school I work for an UL trainer and keep my horse at her barn. I got a summer internship which is closer to my parents’ house so I brought him home, to the barn where I used to board in high school, for the summer. This is a small barn and there are only a handful of horses so they all go out together as one herd. My horse was getting severely beat up by the other horses (a problem we’ve never had, he is leader of the pack at the other barn) and came up lame (his left hind) soon after I moved him to this new barn. He had a bunch of nasty cuts on the inside of both hind legs. I called the vet and had her come out to do a lameness exam but unfortunately the day that she came out he got kicked again (this time his right front) and was then lame on that leg so she could not properly evaluate. He had a pretty large laceration in the middle of his canon bone and there was swelling around the splint area so we x-rayed it to rule out any sort of fracture. There were no fracture evident so she said to put him on bute for a few days and cold hose it and if he was sound on his right front in a few days she would come back out and look at the left hind. Well, his right front seemed to get better for a few days then it suddenly got hugely swollen and he got considerably more lame about 5 days after the initial injury. The vet prescribed SMZ’s, bute, cold hosing etc and he got much better. Now all of the swelling is completely gone and the cut is all but healed but he is still unsound. It has been 6 weeks since this incident.
I had my friend hop on him the other day (Saturday) so I could see how lame he was and he appeared sound about 85% of the time. I couldn’t pinpoint a specific direction where he was worse or whether he was worse on a circle or a straight line. It was just every once in a while he would take some bad steps on that right front. He actually seemed almost worse tracking left which I thought was strange because it’s his right front. He is normally a little bit stiffer to the left though. His left hind looks fine now though. Another weird thing I have just noticed is that at the walk he sometimes steps shorter with his left front than he does with the right. He does not do this at the trot, only at the walk, and I never really noticed him doing that until Saturday. It could be that I just overlooked it but I’m not sure he was doing that before. He is in a stall during the day and out by himself in a small paddock at night so he doesn’t get a ton of opportunity to move around other than when I come and walk him. Other than the 15 or so minutes my friend was on him the other day and one or 2 times I have gotten on him and just gone for a walk around the front pasture, he has not been ridden in about 8 weeks.
I have no idea what could be causing this because it doesn’t really make sense to me that he would still be lame from that kick 6 weeks later when there is no heat or swelling at all anymore. I would like to have the vet out again but after racking up a huge bill the last time and basically not getting any info I want to make a claim with my insurance to help out. I have never made a claim before so I am wondering if it is a problem that this happened 6 weeks ago. The reason why I didn’t do it right away is because I never expected it to take this long for him to be sound again, so now I am concerned that there could be something else going on. He is insured with Broadstone. If anyone could give me any info as far as insurance that would be awesome. Also, if you have dealt with a similar injury and can offer any advice on that front that would be great too.
And just so this isn’t all boring text, here are some pictures of the bugger.
Thanks!
I have a 4yr old OTTB who came up lame about 8 weeks ago. I have had him since the end of January and had a pretty thorough PPE done before I bought him.
A little background:
I am in college and while at school I work for an UL trainer and keep my horse at her barn. I got a summer internship which is closer to my parents’ house so I brought him home, to the barn where I used to board in high school, for the summer. This is a small barn and there are only a handful of horses so they all go out together as one herd. My horse was getting severely beat up by the other horses (a problem we’ve never had, he is leader of the pack at the other barn) and came up lame (his left hind) soon after I moved him to this new barn. He had a bunch of nasty cuts on the inside of both hind legs. I called the vet and had her come out to do a lameness exam but unfortunately the day that she came out he got kicked again (this time his right front) and was then lame on that leg so she could not properly evaluate. He had a pretty large laceration in the middle of his canon bone and there was swelling around the splint area so we x-rayed it to rule out any sort of fracture. There were no fracture evident so she said to put him on bute for a few days and cold hose it and if he was sound on his right front in a few days she would come back out and look at the left hind. Well, his right front seemed to get better for a few days then it suddenly got hugely swollen and he got considerably more lame about 5 days after the initial injury. The vet prescribed SMZ’s, bute, cold hosing etc and he got much better. Now all of the swelling is completely gone and the cut is all but healed but he is still unsound. It has been 6 weeks since this incident.
I had my friend hop on him the other day (Saturday) so I could see how lame he was and he appeared sound about 85% of the time. I couldn’t pinpoint a specific direction where he was worse or whether he was worse on a circle or a straight line. It was just every once in a while he would take some bad steps on that right front. He actually seemed almost worse tracking left which I thought was strange because it’s his right front. He is normally a little bit stiffer to the left though. His left hind looks fine now though. Another weird thing I have just noticed is that at the walk he sometimes steps shorter with his left front than he does with the right. He does not do this at the trot, only at the walk, and I never really noticed him doing that until Saturday. It could be that I just overlooked it but I’m not sure he was doing that before. He is in a stall during the day and out by himself in a small paddock at night so he doesn’t get a ton of opportunity to move around other than when I come and walk him. Other than the 15 or so minutes my friend was on him the other day and one or 2 times I have gotten on him and just gone for a walk around the front pasture, he has not been ridden in about 8 weeks.
I have no idea what could be causing this because it doesn’t really make sense to me that he would still be lame from that kick 6 weeks later when there is no heat or swelling at all anymore. I would like to have the vet out again but after racking up a huge bill the last time and basically not getting any info I want to make a claim with my insurance to help out. I have never made a claim before so I am wondering if it is a problem that this happened 6 weeks ago. The reason why I didn’t do it right away is because I never expected it to take this long for him to be sound again, so now I am concerned that there could be something else going on. He is insured with Broadstone. If anyone could give me any info as far as insurance that would be awesome. Also, if you have dealt with a similar injury and can offer any advice on that front that would be great too.
And just so this isn’t all boring text, here are some pictures of the bugger.
Thanks!