Journey
Journey was rescued during July 2026 to prevent him from entering the slaughter pipeline or living with a poor quality of life in any situation of further neglect and no proper caretaking.
Some of the information gathered during his initial veterinary exam and evaluation included:
Journey is a quarter horse or appaloosa style grade dark bay gelding with roaning on and near the face. His body condition score ( BCS) is 5/9, with saddle, tack, or pannier white haired spots on lateral thorax and heart girth regions (indicative of scarring due to poor fit/incorrect use).
There is a left hip freeze brand on the lateral haunch. Journey has a prominent dorsomedial carpal bony knob on the left foreleg, with a 25% decrease in the range of motion when flexed maximally. His gait in the hind end is unusual, with a severe medially-oriented arc that crosses midline before stabbing suddenly laterally with both hind limbs, suggesting pain in flexion of either the hock or stifle. Stifles palpate non-effusive but both distal hocks are dramatically Churchill test positive, which can be an indication of hock pain, but is non-diagnostic.
Journey is 2/5 lame in both hind limbs and 3/5 lame in the left front when put on a left circle lunge on firm ground.
Xray results revealed the following:
“The right tarsus has radiopaque sclerotic changes to the tarsal articulation of the tibia and tarsal bones, at the tibial cochlea and tarsal trochlear apposition. The distal tibial articular surface shows an irregular joint surface, indicating uneven wear on the tarsal high motion joint. This type of lesion is unusual, but suggestive of a highly inflammatory and painful process to the most mobile of hock joints.
The left carpus images demonstrate global osteo-arthritic (OA) changes in all 3 joints with a prominent caudal proliferative process impinging the mobility of the floating fulcrum of the accessory carpal bone.
There are concurrent lytic and proliferative changes in all joints with erosions of carpal articular
cartilage and loss of joint space.”
After careful review of these findings and an ongoing negative quality of life where no treatment options are available to manage pain, slow disease progression along with the existing damage to high impact multiple joints, Journey was humanely euthanized.
As stated many times with our rescue horses, too many have been so used up and broken down that it is an ongoing disgrace showing the level of ignorance, neglect, abuse and outright cruelty in some cases by humans to these noble and innocent animals.
More About Journey
- In Assessment
- Dark Bay
- Gelding
- 2006
- QH Cross
- Colorado