Hooves changing quickly - for good or bad

We had a "rehab return" last week - Paul, who was here in November 2009, has come back to Rockley for a short winter break ;-)  When I first met him he had been lame for a long time, with persistent problems in his LF .  He went home in Feb 2010 back in full work (he had  a day's hunting as his last day!) and has had a busy time since then.

As with every horse, there have been ups and downs but Paul's life has been active and he and his owner Clare have achieved a lot.

Paul came back this September, for the RRR, and at that stage he was landing and moving well (despite a nutritional blip over the summer) but for some reason (and we may never know exactly what the trigger was) he became lame in October.

Paul's hooves changed radically over the time he was here in 2009 and Clare is now extremely well versed in what makes a hoof healthy - or unhealthy. She had already spotted a few weeks ago that his caudal hoof had weakened and that he had lost his good heel first landing.  Its probably worth adding that he has been trimmed regularly all the way through, so its not a lack of trimming that has caused the change(!).

Here is his LF when he arrived a week ago and sure enough, as Clare suspected, his frog has become weaker and is no longer playing a primary function, particularly on a hard surface.  His overall hoof balance is still good though, and importantly his digital cushion is extremely robust - 2 years of hard work barefoot are still paying off!

Look how much stronger his foot is when he returned last week (above) and at the hoof pastern axis, which is radically better today than when he arrived in wedged shoes in 2009 (below)!  The sort of strong base he has now makes it so much quicker to improve hooves.

Both Clare and I were sure it wouldn't take long to get Paul back on track, especially as he has such a fantastic attitude and is such a determined little horse. 

We don't know exactly what Paul has done but its possible he has re-injured the same area that was originally a problem.  We know that most horses with his original problem in fact have soft tissue damage within the hoof and its true that horses who have previously suffered a tendon or ligament injury are prone to the same area being re-injured.  

This is because once an area has been damaged, scar tissue forms which is less elastic.  Clearly, if a hoof like this starts to land incorrectly again, damage will happen more quickly as scar tissue is less able to sustain incorrect stresses (such as a toe first landing) than undamaged tendons or ligaments.   

However, if we look at Paul's changes over just the last week its clear that - with a healthy hoof structure already in place - he is already starting to bounce back, and much more quickly than he did straight from shoes.