Hey guys. I went to the barn today and, though astonished it was actually sunny and warm, decided I would ride despite the heat. But when I went to grab Beanie out of the field, her left foreleg was swollen and from the side I saw, I almost thought she had bowed a tendon but the other side was fine. The next thought was "she*t, she's torn something major" so I walked her in, jogged her and confirmed that yes she was dead lame, and put her in a stall. The area was hot to touch and very very tender.

I decided that it didn't look like something that would go away with some butte and a hosing so I called University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center, a world renown large animal clinic (They did Prince Panache for Karen O'Connor when Nash had heart issues). They are my regular vets and I asked for Dr. Moresby whom did my vet check for the Benter and he liked Beanie a lot.

So he was out there at 4:30, he walked in and was like "holy she*t, what did she do?" We figure she must have been fooling around in the field and slid or fell or just twisted weird.

He picked it up and started to squish it around, much to Beanie’s dislike. His first words were "Wow. She did quite a number in here. I want to ultrasound her. I have a bad feeling about this suspensor."

So he ultra sounded her and it came up with she has torn/severely strained her superficial flexor tendon, badly strained her deep digital, but her suspensor seems to be okay (which is good!). But her leg is nice, swollen, hot to touch, and quite tender still. She's in standing bandages and I cried my head off when the vet told me what he thought.

One month of stall rest at least. And in three months, they'll be able to tell whether she'll be back completely. She needs to be hand grazed 15 minutes, 2x a day with her leg hosed off before both those times. Decrease in grain and she can't do anything stupid or she's probably done her riding career. She's on some serious butte for a couple of days until he comes back on Monday to see how she's doing.

*Sigh* he also recommended taking her to the Sports Medicine Center at the clinic for a second ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis and to make sure she hasn't a chip off her seasmoids or a fracture anywhere...he said he highly doubts it and it will probably just back up what he says but he wanted to be better safe than sorry.

"I expect she'll come out of this fine but I want to address this seriously because it is a major injury. We want her to come out the same way she was two days ago so that means plenty of rest and a long time off."

Now, my trainer and my friend think I should get a second opinion before I take her to New Bolton but its another New Bolton vet and I highly doubt he'll say anything but the same thing. I trust Moresby a lot and I like his professionalism (and I'm so glad he convinced his secretary that he needed to come out today, not tomorrow, and that the other peoples on his list could wait).

My mom thinks we should take her to the Sports Medicine Center, my trainer thinks she'll be fine and she doesn't want a second opinion from anyone else other than HER vet nor does she want her to go to the SMC.

Any advice? Any insight?

And what can I do to keep her happy in her stall for probes a couple of months?