What Are Sidebone and Ringbone in Horses?
Elizabeth Acutt, DVM
August 18, 2025
Learn about two different and unrelated processes that present as firm swellings in the horse’s pastern region.
Learn about two different and unrelated processes that present as firm swellings in the horse’s pastern region.
Driving horses, whether pulling a plow, going for a pleasure drive, or competing, face health considerations similar to and distinct from those of typical sport horses.
Here’s how veterinarians and farriers diagnose and manage this degenerative arthritic condition.
What is the best way to treat ringbone in horses?
Veterinarians have tools to help them make educated judgments about lamenesses, their causes, and prognoses.
Can bone spurs be surgically removed, as in osteochondritis dissecans cases?
My 17-year-old Arab gelding has been diagnosed with ringbone. His granddam and another of her offspring also had this disease. What exactly is ringbone? Is it hereditary? What is its cause?
My eventer was recently diagnosed with ringbone. How well could he jump with a rolled shoe? What else can be done?
Ringbone, a lameness disease of the pastern and coffin joints, is a degenerative disorder that has no cure.
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