I bought the Arc Equine when my horse sustained a SDFT injury at the Badminton Grassroots championship. There was no hole just damaged fibres so he had a week of shockwave therapy followed by the Arc Equine course. I was actually recommended the Arc from the vet’s receptionist following her positive experience.
My vet was pleasantly surprised by the improvement on the second scan, six weeks later, so he came back into work. Now while this was amazing and we were all thrilled at the effect, the Arc had its true value came in to play when he sustained another SDFT injury last year.
The scans (attached*) showed a decent size hole with just a few mm top and bottom before it fully ruptured making it an incredibly worrying time. Danny is not a horse that will tolerate box rest but was suddenly eventing fit and out of work so very much created his own entertainment in the field – much to my vets horror when she drove in one day to visit another horse!
He had been written off for at least six months with a very guarded prognosis about returning to any form of work given his exuberant behaviour, to the point that we did discuss putting him to sleep if any further damage occurred as he isn’t a horse that will retire to a field.
He had no extra treatment this time as I didn’t have insurance cover and do all of this on a bit of a shoestring, so the repair between these six week scans is solely from the Arc.
To say we were all shocked is an understatement – my vets shared the scans with each other and couldn’t believe the repair – but you can’t argue with what’s in a black and white scan image!
I was given the go ahead to start walking and he is about to go and do his first Intermediate I – mad considering he should just be coming back into full work now and was so close to completely ending his entire career if the tendon had blown.
I have since sent the images to two friends who have both subsequently purchased an Arc for their horses. So thank you! *date of the top image is 8th Sept 2023, bottom is 21st October 2023 – six weeks and one day apart.
Submitted: 9th May 2024