Lace’s Leg Injury – a Pictorial of Healing
For those of you following my endurance story and you’ve only just met Lace, this story is from Lace now… she is 18 years old and still the boss.
I’d taken Tigger and Lace for a 20km work along the roads that morning, riding Tigger leading Lace. Tigger leads well too but Lace will not stand for the rope touching her rump, and sometimes the verge is narrow and Tigger has to be behind… she gets really cross with him and stops, just easier to ride Tigger! Had I known what was coming though I’d have been on her, love riding my pony! She was clearly starting to feel fit and was feeling and looking great. I put the ponies away and went inside to have lunch.
I came out when Peter returned to continue work on the new yards, “What happened to Lace’s legs?” What!!!!
There was only about one inch of skin remaining at the back of her leg 
Pretty devastating
Unbeknown to me she was coming in to season, and so had kicked out at a horse she’d been across the fence from for a week or more… and hooked her leg over the hot wire… and panicked… and run.
Devastated. I had so been enjoying riding my pony again, she’d just had two years off with her third foal and I had big plans for the season. Not anymore.
Vet called, waiting.
Tetanus anti-toxin, antibiotics, sedation, cleaning. There was only about an inch of skin remaining at the back of her leg. On the inside there was a large vein exposed – lucky she hadn’t cut it – the vet decided to try stitching. Normally stitching flaps on this sort of wound doesn’t work, but there was good blood supply and even if it didn’t take the skin would protect that vein for a while at least. Bandaged up over the hock, pain relief – the good, injectable sort today, on to bute tomorrow.
October 22 – 3 weeks 
October 22 
October 24 – when your over-hock bandaging needs work… alipped down 
Showing the first signs of the expected oozing. I got the vet out to cut off that bottom part which was a fold of skin 
November 2 – 1 month 
November 6 – nearly 5 weeks 
November 15 – 6 weeks 
Looking tidy but feeling there’s not a lot of progress 
December 5 – 9 weeks. That narrower bit at the top showing the first signs of shrinkage 
December 15 – 10 weeks 
Lower portion still wanting to expand if not bandaged 
The stitches held, greatly reducing the size of the wound 
December 20 – although it looks similar the lower bit is no longer expanding hugely if left unbandaged – Yay! 
No longer bandaging, starting to show progress 
Happy ponies for some light relief!
It’s really difficult to know what treatment to use. Everyone has their own amazing remedies. I ended up trying lots of different things, and can’t really say any was especially better or worse than any other for the initial stages. While it’s bandaged it doesn’t seem to matter what you put on.
Initial attempts without bandaging were with TuffRock and that was looking good for a few days, although the bottom section was still expanding. I guess that was proud flesh, it always went lovely and flat with the pressure of the bandage though. However after a few days of Tuffrock it must have got itchy and Lace chewed at it. When I sent TuffRock a photo of what she did they recommended wet brown paper over the TuffRock and then a simple stable bandage. Only that didn’t cover the whole wound and so got too sore. And the joy of TuffRock was that it was drying everything out a bit, bandaging over it kind of negated that. TuffRock told me that you can use it from day 1, not too sure about that in this case. They were wonderful with their quick responses and suggestions via Messenger and I have used TuffRock on numerous smaller wounds with excellent success and also as a great poultice after a hard ride.
Initial dressing was just the bandage over a wound dressing, no ointments of any sort – vet’s choice – then manuka honey on half and Wound Wax on the other half, I was going to do a test! Although there appeared little difference so I ended up giving up on that idea. After the vet removed the bulging flap we went to Inflamol for a while, later combining with manuka honey.
Once I stopped bandaging the Wound Wax has been excellent. It not only promotes healing but also contains insect repelling ingredients, a great thing over summer. https://www.renegadehoofboots.co.nz/wound-wax/ This was enough to make it the lotion of choice over manuka honey which is excellent but does tend to attract wasps and bees!
I believe that a wound like this is going to take a certain amount of time to heal regardless of whichever treatment you choose. Will it heal significantly faster with one over the other? Possibly a little, but I suspect not a lot. There was the option of skin grafts, that would have made a difference to healing time and also to the cost
December 31 – 3 months 
You can again see here the large flap saved by the stitches 
14 January – 3.5 months 
31 January – looking good after a trip to the beach with lots of paddling 
15 February – after another beach trip 
26 February 
8 March 
5 months 1 week 
18 March 
25 March 
5 Months 3 weeks 
Another happy picture riding lace at the beach
Nearly 6 months and we’re nearly there… Just in time for winter. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I noticed as I was rubbing Wound Wax on the wound that the surrounding skin felt loose… her leg had been still swollen all that time!
I’ve been enjoying the odd trip to the beach with Lace and occasionally riding her bareback around the track grazing system – often with all the other horses coming too… can be quite exciting! Even though winter is on its way I may just keep riding her from time to time as weather permits. I do love riding her and she’s getting older…!
