I have a 6 year old Quarter Horse mare and she is a trained cutter. She has not been shown much until this year since she was bounced around a bit until she found a home with me. We were at a show Friday and Saturday and while we were warming up in the loping pen, she tripped over a large rock about the size of a softball. She did not show any signs of lameness during the weekend and had Sunday and Monday off. On Tuesday while loping in the arena, she was fine for a while, then started getting crabby and then started to favor her right rear. Her stifle area is very sore to the touch with some heat.

My question is has anyone had any experience with having an incident such as the trip that did not show any effects until days later?

I can not think of anything else that could have caused this.

PS I also want to add she is in excellent condition, so I don't believe it is a conditioning issue

Have you contacted your vet? A call to the vet is more indicated than going on a forum for answers. The members here have a lot of diverse knowledge, but we do not know you or your horse, and certainly can't evaluate your mare since we can't see her. Unless you came here while waiting for the vet to come over, your first contact should be to your vet. The vet would be most likely to be able to find the cause of the problem, as well.

I'm sorry I did not mention that yes, the vet has been contacted and is coming Friday. I just found it strange that the injury too so long to show symptoms and was curious if anyone else has experienced a delay in onset of lameness symptoms. 

Ahh, you have reinforcements. Good.

That is what I was also wondering. I guess I was not very clear in the way I posed mHy question. I was wondering if others have experienced the delayed onset of symptoms in this way. The sequence of events went like this......the rock incident during warm up, showed in 1 cutting class on Friday, 1 cutting class on Saturday then rest on Sunday and Monday. I put her back to work on Tuesday and that is when the lameness came up. 

Maybe the two days off were enough to stiffen things up, hence the appearance of symptoms.

 It is certainly possible that she pulled something, but if it had occurred during the trip, you are correct that symptoms should have showed up after a night in a stall.   However, horses are capable of many odd things that don't make sense and I completely understand your hatred of waiting.  Mine was just in the hospital for 3 days for a bone scan, radiographs, and back injections and I think I burned out a retina staring at my cell phone.

If the stifle is hot, ice and cold hose are never a bad idea.  If you have some bute, that will help with inflammation as well, but don't bute the night before or the day the vet comes so they can see the real deal.  That's about all you can do until the vet shows up.  Then the answer is probably time -- I am learning this is most often the case, you'd think after so many years around horses I would know this by now, sigh.

We have had a similar situation happen but after MANY vet checks including ulta sound and x-ray the prognosis was "somewhere in the stifle area".  My daughter was in the show ring and on the last day of a three day show weekend, her horse came up lame in the last flat class.  Same symptoms you described, crabby, a little unpredictable and then lame.  The horse is a 8 yeat old gelded appendix.  He seemed to never be really on 100% but this time it came on exactly as you described.  Vet did everything but exploratory surgery.  He was on stall rest for 6 months and now in in a pasture for another 6 months.  Next check is August 2012. The third vet believes it is NOT a soft tissue injury.  Don't know if this helps but the just so you know the symptoms seem similar.  Good Luck!

It sure makes me worry. Nothing showed up on X-ray so she is on rest, antiinflammatories, and linament. She is still sore. The injury is one week old. 

 my horse is on the injured list right now.  when the first vet came out, he thought it was a stifle injury.  my farrier did too.  (i called the farrier cuz i was impatient waiting for the vet and wanted an opinion).....after a couple weeks of bute and stall rest which made no difference, another vet came out.  she immediately thought it was in the lower leg.  she did an ultrasound and found a torn tendon down there....so, perhaps it's worth a second opinion for you too.  maybe it's not the stifle, or if it's a tissue thing, maybe an ultrasound would work better than an x ray.

just a thought.

Yup, I agree with a second opinion. Juno's shoulder injury turned out to be an infected coffin bone, when xrays of the hoof were taken after a oddly-resistant abscess. Some times a second look at things makes a difference.

My mare is in the hands of my trainer until Sunday as I am out of town for work. If symptoms do not improve by the 18th, I agree with the second opinion. 

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