There were OCD lesions in both hocks. There were two main reasons that I went ahead and purchased him anyway. The first is that all the lesions were located away from the articulating parts of the joint. Because of this, the vets (I had three or four look at the x-rays) all agreed that, unless some sort of trauma caused the lesion to break off, they would never cause problems. I also looked into the corrective surgery. It is relatively inexpensive (1k to 1500/hock), and has a very high rate of success. So, I decided that if he did need the surgery, I would be willing to do it. If I remember correctly, the rate of success decreases as you move up the leg (ie, fetlocks are better than hocks which are better than stifles), so you may want to double check that your vet was referring to the hock.
I did a ton of research into OCD, both for purchasing Tristan and for a paper in college. There was an amazing study done by the KWPN (the Dutch studbook in Holland) about it; that may be worth trying to look up. Basically, I think most experts agree that there are a whole lot of horses wandering around with OCD that nobody is aware of because they've never been x-rayed.
When we re-x-rayed Tristan, the lesions were still there but had not changed. I think he was about 6 then. Most of the research I found said that lesions may come or go when the horse is young, but they are usually "set" around 6 or 7. I did choose to hold off on jumping Tristan much before then (never a bad idea with a warmblood, anyway), and had the hock checked before he did much. Of course, in the span of those years, I fell in love with dressage anyway
. Tristan did do a fair amount of jumping under a friend of mine, who got him jumping 3'/3'3" courses, and he never had a hock issue.
I did do joint supplements for a few years (probably age 7 - 9), until I started reading a lot of studies that suggested oral supplements don't do much. I use Legend injections now when he is working hard, and had his hocks injected last winter. There wasn't much fluid in them, but I did see an improvement in how he used his hindleg following the injections; I may repeat them soon.
Yikes, that was a lot. Anyway, I chose to take the risk despite the OCD lesions, and it has worked out well for me.
Tristan at his first hunter show
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