Bucked shins is a concussion disease and every trainer should routinely check his animal after every work for the possibility of sore shins developing. The quicker one detects damage to the racehorse's third metacarpus, the better! There are approximately four stages of Bucked shins:
1) This first stage is the best stage to treat and offers the least amount of time being taken off and the best results. It is the early initial stages of bone damage and can easily show pain upon palpation (finger pressure) to the colt's front cannon bone surface. Rise the leg and take your fingers putting pressure on the front canon bone. If you elicit pain then you probably have a problem. This symptom will be the first to show itself, many times even before you can detect a problem with the gait. Stop speed work and begin icing or what I prefer, applying herbal extract paints containing DMSO on the shins. Comfrey is a good herb to employ. Cut back galloping miles presuming no further damage is being done and avoid all speed work. Wait till your animal tells you it has been resolved before any further serious track work.
2) This second stage of damage not only involves finger touch soreness, but you can feel heat too from bone inflammation. If the cannon bone is radiographed, you will see mild periostitis on the plates. At this stage, galloping may be eliminated until the condition can resolve itself. Continue icing with other hydro-therapies and put your colt up in bandages with a good herbal extract paint formulated to heal bone damage.
3) The third type not only exhibits soreness, heat, but severe periostitis/microfractures in the bone on the x-rays. Only hand walk and apply various cooling hydro-therapies, poultices and herbal shin paints.
4) The forth type have all the previous characteristics along with actual swellings on the shin. They often are severely lame with the radiographs revealing stress fractures on the cannon bone's cortex. This may need actual pasture time along with initial hand walking. One should also apply appropriate herbal formulas and physical therapies, too.
A list of some excellent herbs to formulate in your shin paint. I would use DMSO as the menstruum of choice:
a) comfrey
b) Solomon's Seal
c) St. John's wort
d) spring growth horsetail
Both this photograph and the top one are of your author starting green, unraced youngsters at Canterbury Downs using my method resulting in horses with strong legs, great mental outlook, and no bucked shins.