Stall rest – a prison cell or saving grace. How to survive isolation both as a horse and a rider

Stall rest can be anything but restful for horse and owner alike. Here’s how to achieve the best possible outcome.

For anyone who has been through a prolonged stall rest this is what it looks like for both horse and rider:

Every day after work dressage rider (let’s call her Karen) drives to her boarding stable and assembles a tiny round pen within one of the spacious paddocks. She outfits the pen with a water bucket and a hay net, and then it’s ready for her horse to spend the night.

Oliver a ten-year-old Hanoverian is on stall rest–from a high suspensory ligament partial tear. The stall-sized round pen enables Oliver to see and hear his barn buddies when they are turned out at night, and to think he’s being turned out, too.

The rest of the time Oliver is either confined to his stall or being hand walked for 40 minutes a day another facet of his veterinarian-prescribed rehabilitation program.

It’s an unfortunate fact that stall rest–is not fun for the horse or owner but is deemed to be necessary.

Jail/Bed Rest for Horses

Stall rest is mostly a compliance issue. If a human gets injured and is in a cast, we can tell them not to run for a while. We can’t tell a horse to not run around in the pasture, so the purpose of stall rest is to keep them from moving earlier and more than they should.

Many conditions lead to an order of stall rest: Bone fractures require rest to heal properly, as do certain soft tissue injuries such as suspensory ligament strains, some surgical procedures, such as colic or joint surgery, require a period of stall rest to facilitate healing and minimize stress on incisions and sutures. Healing of a severe wound, such as a lacerated tendon or a gaping muscular wound, might also benefit from controlled activity. A horse enduring ongoing treatment involving intravenous (IV) catheterization might also be confined to a stall to help protect the IV site and keep the needle in place.

Stall rest helps prevent a rehabbing horse from doing too much, too soon. After a while of rest, it feels better, and so they are tempted to resume normal activities, but it’s not finished healing, so it may feel sore again afterward–an indication that they’ve actually sustained a minor reinjury.

Such a reinjury not only prolongs the healing process but also can make the affected area more susceptible to reinjury in the future, even after the horse is pronounced fit to return to work.

Tendons and ligaments heal better and faster with restricted exercise. Skip the stall rest and the injury might heal less well, with a poorer fiber pattern, which is a permanent weakness.

Rehab Programs

Depending on the nature of the horse’s injury, complete stall rest may be prescribed for days, weeks, or even months, with periodic follow-up assessments. At some point in the process the horse owner might get the go ahead to introduce very mild activity, such as hand walking, usually for a certain amount of time per day. The activity periods and frequency increase gradually, perhaps expanding to include walking under saddle and turnout in a very small paddock or a stall with a small attached pen or run.

Building exercise incrementally on a strict schedule is key to rehabbing many injuries. Walking a horse under saddle may progress to include trotting the horse for a minute and then slowly increasing the time periods, eventually leading to an introduction to canter. If the horse is recovering from a tendon or ligament injury, the lead practitioner might caution against doing anything that could exacerbate stress to the injury. This usually means no tight turns, circles, and lateral movements. I like to see a horse walking, trotting, and cantering consistently sound under saddle before considering turnout in the horse’s usual pasture. Horses at liberty are inclined to perform more strenuous movements than when under tack.

The Noncompliant Patient

Some horses cope with an extended period of inactivity remarkably well. In general, laid-back types are quieter on stall rest than energetic or nervous horses, and older horses might handle confinement better than youngsters. Some horses by nature are very accommodating and compliant during stall rest while others are more of a challenge.

Confinement gives some horses cabin fever: They rear, spin, and kick in their stalls or become unruly when being handled or even on their own. Their antics can be detrimental to the injury at best and downright dangerous to handlers and riders at worst.

Sedatives can be very helpful in these cases- pharmaceutical or natural in origin. Some horses simply can’t be taken out for a controlled exercise session without a dose of the mild tranquilizer acepromazine–or even a long-term tranquilizer such as reserpine. CDB, avena sativa and several other natural sedatives are helpful if you are wanting to go the more natural route.

To counteract the horse’s inevitable boredom, get them whatever will keep them occupied. If your horse will play with a stall toy, by all means get him one. If he enjoys your company, spend as much time grooming, hand grazing, and hanging out with him as you can, hang a hay net in the stall with small openings which force the horse to eat slowly and, therefore, keep him busy longer. Eating small amounts nearly constantly also helps prevent gastric ulcers from forming, which are a potential risk of stall rest stress. Having hay present at all times might also prevent the horse from eating his bedding–a recipe for impaction colic, , especially if the horse is accustomed to liberal turnout. Hay is also high-bulk and relatively low-calorie, which is a boon for those horses that have been taken off concentrates or have reduced rations to suit their abridged energy needs.

The isolation of stall rest is exacerbated if the horse can’t see or be with other horse. Horses housed in show barns, due to the fact that they spend so much time in a stall, actually tend to fare better on stall rest than horses confined alone when everyone else is out on pasture.

Rehab

For the horse that requires extensive therapy i.e.: multiple-times-a-day medicating, bandaging, or hand walking; or whose horse keeping situation isn’t conducive to stall rest, there’s another option: an equine rehabilitation facility.

Staffed by experienced professionals, rehab facilities offer full care and perform whatever treatment regimen the horse’s veterinarian prescribes. Some offer treadmills, hot walkers, and even swimming pools. These businesses are not riding and training facilities, so they’re typically quiet and restful environments without the kinds of stimulating activities and noises that can set a horse off. All the other residents are rehabbing too, of course, so generally there’s always company. Most charge the equivalent of board at a high-end training facility, typically $30 to $40 a day. It’s not cheap, but some owners find the cost worth it for the peace of mind and the relief of not having to shoulder the rehab burdens themselves. The real financial strain can occur if the owner’s regular boarding stable requires the continued payment of some or all of the board fee to hold the horse’s home stall.

It is what it is….

It’s not a natural thing for a horse to be isolated and away from its herd. The isolation is very difficult for them, and they’re unhappy when they’re kept apart from their friends.

Nobody relishes the thought of putting a horse on stall rest, and no horse owner who’s done it is eager to repeat the experience. If it is necessary, have a candid discussion with your vet regarding the care and time requirements, the anticipated rehab period, and your options thoroughly so you can make the best decision for you and your horse. And if your rehabbing horse starts behaving like a lunatic, let your veterinarian know so he or she can take steps to keep everyone safe.