Dear George, After reading all the other testimonials sent in by many horse owners far and wide, I thought to myself “been there, done that”.

Our mare Jill belongs to my daughter, who showed her in 4-H and for a short time in small hunter/jumper shows while she was still sound enough to jump. We purchased Jill in April 2003 at 9 years old. Her first lameness exam was in June that year only two months after we got Jill. Jill’s lameness issues were like most horses, they are sound for awhile and then they are off again. My daughter never knew when she went out to the barn to ride or for lessons, if she would be able to ride Jill or have to use another lesson horse that day. It was very disheartening to have that happen time after time for YEARS!

We love our mare and she had been described by one of our many vets as “stoic”. Jill could tolerate a lot of pain and still wanted to please my daughter when she tried to work out Jill’s stiffness or joint pain or whatever label the vet would put on it for that visit. Finally, severe navicular syndrome came down as a diagnosis – no cure or quick fix for that. Many thousands of dollars later after paying for vet bills, lameness exams, different kinds of supplements, x-rays, nerve blocks, corrective shoeing by many different farriers, an unnecessary surgery for a non-existent bone chip, coffin bone and hock injections — I could go on and on. Hand walking and long stall rests were part of our normal routine. My daughter would cry and me right along with her. We tried everything under the sun to make Jill sound again and were so very frustrated. At her worst, she could barely walk out of the stall for the examine. The really sad part was that both Jill and my daughter had a passion for jumping and just loved it.

We were at a crossroads when the coffin bone injections stopped being effective. A couple of other surgical procedures were offered including de-nerving but there were no guarantees that either proposed surgery would help Jill. We were told that she had the third worst case of navicular disease that one veterinarian had seen in his long career. If her lameness continued to progress, he suggested that we put her down. I didn’t even present that option to my daughter. Our last attempt at helping Jill was to take her to Equi Spa of Bristol in Bristol, Wisconsin, for cold water spa treatments. It was at Equi Spa that one of Jill’s caretakers came across your article on the Internet on how gallium nitrate could help horses with severe navicular issues like Jill. The spa treatments included change in diet, massage therapy, treatments in the tub, lots of pampering with tender loving care. We also gave the routine doses of gallium nitrate. The gallium was started over a year ago and I am absolutely thrilled to report that Jill is a happy, sound horse today at age 15 which we attribute to the use of gallium nitrate with occasional cold water spa treatments. We also took off her corrective shoeing and it has been an amazing transformation to see her hooves heal and grow naturally.

Thanks to you there are many horse owners who can share their success stories with gallium nitrate along with their horror stories about owning and loving horses with navicular syndrome and its many complications and perplexities.