Horses to confound all stereotypes

I am getting Bryan's updates ready to put on the blog this week.  He is a big, 17.2hh Belgian warmblood, a showjumper who has competed at county level and I hope will do so again [ETA: I am told that he has actually competed at national and international level - oops!  Sorry Bryan, I had no idea you were quite such a superstar!].  He does not, to put it mildly, conform to many people's idea of the sort of horse who would benefit from being out of shoes.

Then I got to thinking about Domino - as different from Bryan as chalk from cheese - a proper cob, lots of bone, lots of hair - who has the same size girth as Bryan despite being several hands smaller.  

Dom's owner was told that he wouldn't go barefoot because as a cob he was too heavy a type to cope without shoes.  So - what's YOUR stereotype...?

We have had horses here of all shapes and sizes :-) There are lots of people who think that horses "can't go barefoot" because they do a particular job, or belong to a specific breed - that's when the argument about genetics is wheeled out, along with the theory that thoroughbreds have had "the feet bred off them".

I really don't buy that, because the full thoroughbreds we've had through rehab have all done incredibly well and have some of the most radically changing feet.

I don't think hoof health is dependent on breed at all. We have a huge variety of horses for rehab: several Dutch warmbloods (KWPN); Belgian, Danish and Polish warmbloods; Irish Draughts, a Hanoverian, a Trakehner; we've had quarter horses, an Andalusian, Selle Francais, numerous Irish sports horses, Scottish and Welsh bred horses.  All of them have hooves which can and did improve given the right circumstances.

We've had horses as big as 17.2hh and as small as 14hh. We've had eventers, showjumpers, dressage horses, happy hackers, ex-racehorses, endurance horses, show horses, hunters, reiners.  We've had 5 and 6 year olds at the beginning of their careers and horses in their late teens who've been there, done that and got the t-shirt.

The one thing we don't have is horses who do nothing :-)   

Don't be constrained by the stereotype: hooves are dynamic, adaptable and capable of improvement, no matter what the horse.

Georgia finds her feet

Georgia came here with a fairly gloomy prognosis from her vet, who had described in great detail to me over the phone all that was wrong with her feet (DDFT damage, fibrocartilage erosion, flat feet, collapsed heels etc). He felt at the time that the best that we could hope for was a "reasonably sound retired horse".

Couple this with the fact that she had a hind limb extensor tendon injury and it was clear that her rehab could be an uphill struggle. However over the last 8 weeks Georgia has made good progress, from a tense, unlevel horse (above) to one who is starting to rebalance herself and move much more correctly. 

Georgia on a circle from Nic Barker on Vimeo.

The reason for this is that her hooves are undergoing some fairly radical rebalancing as well. The steep angle change you can see in the lower photo is the hoof growth over the last 8 weeks.  

From the top its obvious that the new hoof capsule will not only give her a shorter toe and stronger heels but there will also be a significant shift in medio-lateral balance.

Her palmar/caudal hoof is not yet as robust as it needs to be - and it won't be at its best until the new hoof capsule has completely grown in. Nevertheless, even with just a few weeks under her belt she is developing a stronger hoof which better supports her limb - so less strain on ligaments and tendons as well.

As you can see, her frog is nowhere near as strong as it should be (compare with Felix's hooves in this post) but its improved enough already to allow her to land better, particularly behind. 

Georgia from Nic Barker on Vimeo.

The One Trick Pony

I had my camera yesterday when we were out hunting with Felix and Charlie  - a lovely cool, cloudy day and after a couple of weeks of sunshine the moor has dried up a bit, so its no longer the bottomless morass we've been traversing all winter!

Charlie always makes us smile when he is out because he is a totally transformed horse when he is hunting.  At home, if he has missed a day and has to go out exercising its clear its done under protest.  He will amble along if he is led but under saddle has a tendency to assess how far he feels he should go (usually no more than a mile or so, especically if its hot).  When he reaches that point he simply stops and looks at the view, ignoring any attempt to make him go further.  Exercising, in his opinion, is a Waste of Time.

Out hunting, he is a different horse: utterly committed - he has a job to do, and its one which he loves. No matter what, he never takes his eyes off the huntsman and hounds and he is happiest up at the front with the master all day, making sure he isn't missing anything.

After all, you never know when the huntsman or the master might need a spare horse, in which case Charlie is there!

Charlie may be a one trick pony, but he is very good at his one trick :-)

Ted's updated footage

Ted the QH arrived here back in November and has been here over 4 months now. He was due to go home at the beginning of March but logistics have meant he has stayed a bit longer.  The nice thing about that is that I can post photos of his feet at a more advanced stage of rehab - so here he is. 

Day one, in his remedial shoes, with a long toe and under-run heel.

In this photo you can see the new angle of growth...

...and here is the hoof capsule today, with a good two-thirds of the capsule grown in at the new angle.  Its shortening his toe as well as bringing his heels back.

Same story from this angle - but compare how long the hoof wall is in the shod photo compared to...

...the same hoof today.

Finally, his sole shot - not much to see in the shoe...

 the typical weak frog and long toe just out of shoes...

...and today a frog which is in much better proportion - I'm sorry for the dirt, but you can see his breakover (the green line) which is where the dorsal wall will end when the new hoof capsule is fully grown in.  

Finally, here is his recent footage on a circle.  Unfortunately I don't have earlier footage, when he was quite clearly unlevel on the left rein but he will continue to improve as his new hoof grows in completely.

Ted on a circle from Nic Barker on Vimeo.

Lazybones

We've had the most incredible weather this week - summer in March - and its been nigh on perfect for the horses.  Not too cold, not too hot, no nasty flies; grass in the fields (which they are now on at night) and sprouting leaves in the hedgerows - plus of course haylage on the tracks during the day!

Obviously, all but the newest arrival, Eva, have to do their fair share of work in the mornings, and that leaves them pretty exhausted(!) and in need of serious relaxation by the time the sun is high in the sky.  They have therefore spent most afternoons this week doing the equine version of laying by the pool - aka loafing...

Lazybones from Nic Barker on Vimeo.

I have lots of hoof updates to post, but its been so beautiful that I've had my camera in my pocket all week and couldn't resist a Friday feel good film. I had to seize the day, because we may not see sunshine like this again for several months - I hope you enjoy it :-)

One example of a healthy hoof

I grabbed some photos the other day of what I would describe as a truly healthy hoof.  This horse covers hundreds of miles over the toughest terrain and I honestly can't remember the last time he was trimmed, so I thought it might make for an interesting blog post.

For sure, the last time anyone took a rasp to this horse's hoof with the intention of doing more than rounding the edges was in 2004 - and that didn't last long as he was clearly even then more than capable of sorting out his own feet without human intervention!

His dorsal hoof wall has no deviations, ridges or angle changes but has not had a rasp anywhere near it for years.  Its not me that has rolled his toe - he does that himself.  I've never trimmed his heels, frog, sole or bars.  I actually don't touch his feet at all except to pick them out, and former students will vouch for the fact that all they've ever been allowed to do to his feet is the mildest possible mustang roll.  The last one of those was over 12 months ago :-)

More important than how his feet look is the fact that they perform incredibly well and have done for more than the last 8 years over steep, flinty, boggy, trappy, stony, harsh terrain.

He is obviously self-trimming, but are his feet self-trimming because he lives on the tracks here? No - even horses who live on tough surfaces don't (in my experience) do enough to self-trim and just mooching on our tracks, even though they have abrasive surfaces, isn't enough to generate a self-trimming foot.  Equally, this means that you don't need tracks to have a self-trimming horse yourself!

What makes the difference is mileage - and that includes roadwork. This horse does hundreds of miles in each 9 month season's hunting (he had done 50 fast and stony miles across Exmoor in the 4 days before these photos were taken) and generally is in lighter work - covering 15-20 miles of roads per week - during May, June and July as well.

Here is the most important shot of all, and a demonstration of why you can't simply trim a foot to become truly healthy - how would you "trim" frogs or heels to become as strong as that?!

The key to this horse's mileage, soundness and toughness is in the enormous strength of his frog and digital cushion which gives him great shock absorption, correct medio-lateral balance and stability for the whole limb above.  This is what allows him to go over surfaces like this at a canter, week after week. You just don't get a palmar hoof as good as this in shoes (or at least I've certainly never seen one), and you don't get it from trimming either.  

Its a nice irony that when this horse first came out of shoes I was told by one well-meaning but uninformed trimmer that I should stop working him because "his frog needed to be lower than his heels in order to be healthy".  I was also told time after time by other equally well-meaning people that I couldn't do roadwork, that his feet would wear away, etc etc(!). 

In those days his frog was nowhere near as robust as it is now, but fortunately I listened to the horse and ignored everyone else!

A hoof as healthy as this isn't genetic - it derives from work, stimulus and fitness and is achievable in many horses.  We are back to the holy grail of good nutrition, correct biomechanics and masses of movement!

Footnote: This horse has a fairly symmetrical foot without deviations because he has good, straight limb conformation and no injuries - if he were a horse recovering from long term lameness his foot might look (and need to look) different  - nothing wrong with that :-)

Wedges are definitely "in" this year...

We had a new arrival at the weekend - Eva, a 15 year old IDxTB mare who had been diagnosed at Leahurst with a DDFT tear.

Her vet and farrier have worked hard to try and improve her lameness over the past few months and she arrived in wedge shoes and pads.

She has an interesting hoof/pastern axis, particularly on her RF, and although the wedges have shored up the back of her foot its clearly very weak.  Her toe is also very long, especially if you envisage her foot minus the wedges.

Not a lot to see at the moment! In fact the gel had done a reasonably good job and out of shoes her frog was not half as bad as it would have been in the bar shoe alone.

 Nevertheless, that's a frog and digital cushion that desperately need better stimulus.  It also looks as if her medio-lateral balance isn't quite right - it may just be the camera angle but the foot does seem to be tending to collapse medially.

Eva is now out of shoes and enjoying the new experience of living in a mixed herd - she is rather like the girl from a select seminary for young ladies who has suddenly started a new term at Grange Hill(!).  Though she thought they were a bit of an odd crowd she is now well on the way to finding her feet - in every sense.