Navicular disease causes chronic forelimb pain in horses. Modern management approaches improve welfare and extend useful working life through multimodal pain management.
Navicular disease welfare management requires a long-term commitment to pain monitoring and multimodal intervention. The chronic progressive nature of the condition means that welfare assessment must be ongoing — what controls pain effectively at one stage may become insufficient as pathology progresses. Corrective farriery is the cornerstone of management, reducing concussion forces on affected structures. Pharmaceutical pain management provides relief during flare-ups and may slow progression. Regular lameness assessment by a veterinary surgeon guides management adjustment. Horses whose pain cannot be adequately controlled with reasonable intervention should be retired from work or humanely euthanised before quality of life becomes significantly compromised.