Many years ago, Tucson, Ariz., farrier Paige Poss acquired two new clients, both of which had been retired for years due to lameness. They had been deemed “navicular” by their veterinarians through diagnostic imaging such as radiographs and MRI.

Both horses improved quickly and dramatically after slight changes to the hoof care they had been receiving.

“I did not understand why they got better so easily,” says the co-founder of Anatomy of the Equine. “It must’ve been something I was doing differently than their previous care, but I wasn’t sure what it could be. I felt like it had to be a nerve, because only a nerve could produce such quick results.”

Determined to look at the neurovascular bundle, Poss followed her gut feeling and did a careful dissection of the bundle in the distal limb and carefully photo-documented the results. She suspected the proper palmar digital nerve may be impinged in the pastern area of the leg.

“The palmar digital nerve (Figure 1) is transected both medially and laterally in the pastern region,” according to the University of Minnesota’s Large Animal Surgery – Supplemental Notes. “The nerve is typically on the axial aspect of the neuro­vascular bundle and is closely associated…