Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Pin-firing: is it significant?

From: Jennifer

Hi Jessica, I am looking at possibly buying an ex-racehorse (4 year old TB gelding). His front legs have been pin-fired and I am wondering what future soundness implications this might have. I am planning to use him for very low level dressage, some jumping (nothing more than 2'6") and trail riding. The bit of research I've done seems to indicate that pin-firing or freeze firing is a fairly common practice - but I have not been able to get a concrete answer or whether this procedure should be raising red flags or not. I'd really appreciate your comments on why this procedure is done in the first place and what implications it might have on the future soundness of the horse.

Thanks so much for providing this fantastic newsletter - I just recently joined and I really look forward to receiving the next newsletter! Cheers! Jennifer

Hi Jennifer! The pin-firing itself doesn't necessarily have any bad implications for your horse's future activities - it's an old, barbaric, and useless practice that was originally intended to speed up the healing of whatever injury (e.g., bowed tendon) the horse had sustained. For a very long time, "everyone" accepted the idea that causing additional injury to the leg through pinfiring (the new injury was referred to as a "counterirritation") would increase the circulation in that area and lead to healing of both the pin-firing and the underlying injury. When some studies were finally performed, the "counterirritation" proved to be useless. The only benefit that horses received from pinfiring, or from the equally archaic and even more brutal process of blistering, MAY have existed in certain cases because the horses' owners and/or trainers, able to SEE the damage from the second injury, allowed those horses some time off from their training schedules. Some trainers and vets would justify the practice by claiming that ignorant owners would probably insist that a horse recovering from a bowed tendon return to work as soon as the visible swelling had gone down, but that they were willing to take the vet's or trainer's advice to give the horse additional time off if they could see a highly-visible unhealed injury on the surface of the leg.

Sadly both practices are still employed by some trainers and vets, generally for the same "reason". Any lower-leg injury that requires a layoff may still be pin-fired. If you purchase a pin-fired horse, even ten years after the "treatment", you'll know, because you'll see and feel a (usually) very neat and tidy pattern of dots wherever the pin-firing was performed. You may find them on the back of the lower leg only, on the front, or all the way around, and they may be white or - more often - just look as if the hair over those spots is is slightly flatter or shorter. The procedure doesn't mean that the original injury was terrible - on the contrary, it's something that's generally done when the vet and trainer have every hope of returning the horse to the track. If the horse had sustained a career-ending injury, there's a high probability that he would simply have been sold, not pin-fired.

So now you know about pin-firing. What you really need to know, though, is something I can't tell you, and that's whether your potential purchase is fundamentally sound and suitable for the kind of riding you plan to do. The pin-firing doesn't imply that the horse's legs are permanently and badly damaged - but it also doesn't mean that the horse hasn't sustained another injury since the pin-firing was performed. In terms of useful information it tells you only that the horse was probably a racehorse, which is something you already know, and that it was, at some point during training or during its racing career, injured in some way, and that it was (probably) expected to come back from its time off and be able to race again. The evidence of pin-firing points directly to the site or sites of the original injury, but says nothing about the severity of the injury. When your vet performs the pre-purchase exam, ask him what he thinks. If a careful exam reveals nothing more horrible than evidence that the horse once had bucked shins, or that he had a tendon or ligament injury that is now healed, and if the vet finds that the horse as he stands and moves RIGHT NOW seems to be suitable for your purposes, he will be able to tell you so.

Share your concerns with your vet, explain exactly what your plans are for the horse, and if you're very worried, consider asking to have some pictures taken (e.g. ultrasound or nuclear scintigraphy) of the interior structures of the horse's legs. If I were in the market for an ex-racehorse, I wouldn't consider evidence of pin-firing to be a huge red flag. If I liked the horse's attitude, movement, and conformation, and if my vet felt that the horse seemed sound and suitable for my purposes, the existence of pin-firing scars certainly wouldn't prevent me from buying it. Good luck with your pre-purchase exam!

Jessica

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