Paging Dr. House.....

Okay, seriously, Bastian is 3-legged lame, he's been off for two weeks now and actually seems to be getting a bit worse. No heat.  No swelling.  His legs look great. 

Lets review the facts:

• I go out out to ride him two weeks ago.  He feels fabulous and we have a great ride for 45 minutes.  Then out of nowhere, he's lame.  Not too bad, but definitely off.  It seems to be his LF.  So after untacking and a little exploration, I find his lovely hoof rubs and there is a tiny bit of heat in his heel.  Eventually I come to the conclusion that he most likely just clipped himself really good with his hind foot, which has a shoe on it.
• I'm convinced that putting shoes on him will fix everything.  He is wearing his heels funky anyway so this should level the playing field.
• Wednesday comes, no farrier.  Friday comes, no farrier.  Finally just this past Wednesday, on the 5th, Bastian gets his new shoes. 
• I go out to hopefully have a lesson, I figure I'll just saddle up and find out if he's lame from up top, but I am thinking he won't be because of the new footwear, the fact that he lunged about 98% sound the night before, and he had bute the night before and that morning.  Alas, I was wrong.  Lamer, and now its the RF.
• *sigh*
• He continues to be lame.
• Since the intial minimal heat in the heel, no heat. 
• No swelling, bruises, or abscess. (I totally used Cindy's patent Abscess-finder wrap and nada).

Possibly significant:

• Three times in the past  couple of days, he has spooked while I was working on his right side.  Its always while I was doing something with his feet/legs.  Once was while polo wrapping his RH (on the day he went off) but I think that was because my grooming bag fell off the barrel.  Then the other two times were random while I was poking around his RF, I can say with complete honesty that he does not spook at anything on the cross ties.  Heck, he barely spooks when there should be something, a trait I really like in him because I can't move fast enough to get out of the way if a horse spooks when I'm around it.  So it is odd behavior that makes me think maybe something neurological is involved?

Okay team!  Go to to, give me some diagnosis!

Seriously, I am grasping at straws right now.  My horse can be lame all he wants, I just want to know why so I can make him better!

I'm going to have the vet look him over on Monday, maybe he can shed some light on the situation.

I'm still going to my dressage schooling show tomorrow.  A wonderful trainer at the barn is letting me take one of her horses, Goer.  He's a 12 year old packer, I think that I'll have a good time at the show tomorrow, though I wish I was taking my handsome man.

Videos and pictures will be posted from the show :)