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María Alejandra Ramelli

2. LAMENESS EXAM
Performing a lameness exam is essential especially if your horse is an athlete. A
lameness exam will tell your vet if the horse has pain in his legs. For this exam, vets
perform the fore or hind-limb flexion test. A flexion test is an easy and fast way to
identify lameness in a horse. This test reveals any trouble lurking in the joints that
usually doesn’t cause any kind of lameness during an ordinary trot (Horse&Hound,
2012). During this test, your vet should flex each leg of the horse making sure to flex
the fetlock, hock and stifle as well. The horse should remain in this flexed position for
approximately 60 seconds, and then trot in hand on a hard floor in a straight line. This
test has to be done for each leg. A positive flexion test means that the horse is lame in
one or more legs. A negative flexion test means that the horse has no pain on his legs.

The idea of this test is to answer these three main questions:
Is the horse lame?

In which limb or limbs is the lameness?

What is the severity of the lameness?

Besides flexion test, your vet should also examine your horse trotting and
cantering in circles. In Europe, this part of the vet check also includes checking
the horse while he is being ridden, because sometimes, there is a pain in the
legs, back or neck that can only be visible when the horse is ridden. So, make
sure to tell your vet you want to include this part on the pre-purchase check.

3. IMAGING
X-rays and ultrasound are a very important part of the pre-purchase vet
check for showjumping and dressage horses since bones, joints and ligaments
play an essential role in your horse’s performance. These exams will help your
veterinarian to corroborate his or her findings in the clinical examination, and
to check that the horse’s bones, joints, and ligaments are healthy. Imaging test
reveal your vet if the horse has had a fracture, cyst, osteochondritis, or any ab-
normality that may affect you in the future (Garcia-Lopez, 2014).

A standard imaging test should contain images of (Voermans, 2018):

• The navicular bone.

• The coffin bone.

• Sesamoid bones.

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