That is so cool. A great testament to your wise trimming, to wise owners that kept the boy in the pasture even tho he was sore and to whom ever was wise enough to give the boy a short easy workout because that little extra push for extra movement is so necessary for bare hooves to heal. Congrats to you all,

Don Huston
If you want a barefoot horse you are just gonna have to ride that sucker barefoot.


At 02:50 PM 9/4/2009 Friday, you wrote:

 

I got such a great rush today! I recently got a new client that I started trimming for. She has a riding school and I came out to trim a couple of horses so that she could decide whether or not I would work out for her. After trimming a couple of them, she told me about a TB that she had that lost shoes constantly. Each week the shoes would have to be replaced and each week, he'd lose them again. Every time the shoe came off, it took a little more of the hoof wall away and the horse was constantly lame. I told her I would take a look at him all the while gleefully rubbing my imaginary hands at the prospect. I've been wanting to prove all along that horses whose feet fall apart with shoes really have the shoes to blame and that they CAN go barefoot. I went down to the pasture he was in and I pulled the one remaining shoe off his foot. He was very lame and hobbled his way up to the barn for me to trim. The hoof wall was completely destroyed and the front feet were very flared and flat. Not a surprise. I took off the excessive hoof wall that was still there and just gave it as much of a roll as I could. There wasn't much to work with.....The horse was so sore I had to put a Davis boot on the opposite foot just so he could stand for a few minutes at a time. The back feet were not as bad. He had lost the shoes about a month before and they just ended up leaving them off. Needless to say, the back feet were doing better than the front...as usual. I suggested they boot him, but they were worried that since he was out in pasture most of the time, he would get too much moisture inside. They opted to bute him twice a day at first. Two weeks later I came back to do some more of her horses and I just touched up the edges of the walls on him. No real change, but he was able to walk better out in the pasture and had even run around a bit. Awesome! I called her recently as it had been almost 3 weeks and I wanted to recheck him. She told me that they had taken him into the newly dragged arena and had been able to walk, trot and even lope him a bit with her daughter on him. He was a bit on egg shells when he first got in there but walked out after just a bit. He was by no means sound, but he was willing to move. More yay! This is just two trims...one full trim and one bevel of the walls and a breakover put on for the second. I went out today and trimmed him in his pasture. Not only did he allow me to pick up the feet without a boot on the opposite one, but lo and behold, he is starting to shed sole and get a concavity! OMG!! I'm really happy now. It flaked off on it's own with just a light touch of the hoof knife and under there was fresh healthy sole that had a slight concavity. Not a lot, but enough to start getting that sole off the ground. He's no longer zero at the toe of the frog! We actually had hoof wall to trim off and bevel and I was able to take his heels down some more. He's still too high by a long shot, but the collateral grooves are too shallow to take as much as he need