Steroid induced laminitis can happen in rare cases. When evaluating risk, corticosteroids are comparable to other anti-inflammatories and the benefits out weigh the risks. For healthy adult horses the risk of steroid induced laminits is very, very low.
Horses with certain medical conditions, while the risk is still very low, are more likely to experience a laminitic episode. Those condition include, but are not limited to, horses that are overweight, are insulin resistant, who suffer from Cushing’s disease, or those who have had a recent occurrence of laminitis.