Lyndsey, you perhaps wont need to go down the op route, not for a trapped nerve. Its more likely a good physio would manage to exercise it out.
The exercises Fiona gave me for willi were good,and interesting to see how he used himself when I was doing them. This is why Ive said go find fiona, Everyone in racing seems to know of her, she's quite famous these days.
exercise one, was to stand behind tied up horse, hold tail and take your weight to one side slowly, hold for a count of ten then release. You can see the horses back pulling opposite to the way your pulling. I did this ten times x three times a day.
Exercise two was to hold the tail and pull slowly back so that the horse pulls forward against the pressure of your pull. this was for a count of ten, x three times a day. She came back in about two weeks, then again in 4 weeks. She was pretty pleased with the end result, and so was I, he did have the same problem, but never again as bad..
She explained that sometimes a big foal will get nerve damage as it is being born, she also saw the same sort of problem when a horse in racing falls over a fence, a rotational fall.
I'll go look through my pictures, see if there is anything to show you, He had a really great neck, well muscled and set on correctly, his rear end was also good, but his pasterns on his hinds were slightly upright.
Driven he used himself well, as he did in his ridden work.although he was always prone to dropping a shoulder to get me off.
Looking back I think that he was always struggling when it came to canter, he would never canter correctly, not really, although in a dressage test he was hardly ever marked down?.
Not perhaps what you wanted, but it shows that he had a good outline, was well muscled and fit.
