Incredible!

...is the only word to describe the response to the Rockley Scholarship post that I put up yesterday!  Thanks to all of you who shared the post or emailed it to friends - I am really hoping that the word is now out and that we will reach someone who needs the place and will make the most of it.

Of course I will post reminders about the closing date (16th April!) nearer the time but in the meantime, if you think your horse (or a friend's horse) might benefit, do get an application in :-)

Despite all yesterday's excitement over the scholarship, the routine here carried on much as usual, with a new horse arriving and me already well behind on uploading footage of Georgia, Bryan and Nico(!)...

The new boy has come from Wales - our first Welsh rehab, or at least the first to arrive from there - and is the latest in the long line of Baileys.  First there was Andy's Bailey, then Bailey Whitworth and now Bailey Griffiths!  His photos and footage will be on a blog post of their own, probably tomorrow, but he has settled in well so far and is taking everything in.

Nico's owner, Emma, came to visit him on Sunday and we managed to finally take some footage of him on a circle.  Unfortunately, though Nico has been here for nearly 12 weeks, I've failed utterly to get any earlier footage on a circle.  In fact, through December and January the weather was so wet that the only filming that could be done was in the barn but surely it will start to improve from now on?

As it is, you will simply have to take Emma's and my word for it that Nico has improved tremendously, particularly over the last 3-4 weeks.  When I first put him on a circle he was so weak on his RF that he was unlevel on that leg even on the left rein.

Three weeks ago, when Emma last saw him, she described him as still around 3/10 lame on the right rein.  Fast forward to Sunday and another level of improvement, though he is far from perfect.   Bear in mind, though, that he still only has half a good foot and should strengthen further over the next 3 months.
 

The Rockley Scholarship

Its time to go public with an idea I have been knocking around for a while - the Rockley Scholarship!

Rockley has become steadily busier and busier over the last few years. We are now at the stage where we are full and have a waiting list pretty much year round; as one horse goes home, another is usually on a lorry on the way here ready to take that place.

Its wonderful to be so busy and to have so many horses and owners coming to us, but I am aware that there are owners who aren't able to send their horses here, however much they or their vets might want to. This post is for them and is also my way of trying to say thank you to all of you who have supported us over the years.

Basically, the scholarship is a way of giving one owner the chance to send their horse here for rehab for a nominal charge. The aim, of course, is to give an opportunity to someone who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it.

The scholarship would involve the horse coming here for 12 weeks, with livery and rehabilitation provided at no charge to the owner. There will be a weekly charge of £10 to cover feed and forage but your horse's stay here and all rehabilitation exercise will be free.

I thought the fairest way to choose would give you all a few weeks to send in applications; we will then try and select the horse and owner who best fit the criteria. There is more detail in the bullet points below, so please read them before you apply - we've kept it as straightforward as possible!

There is no "form" for applying - just send in an email BUT you need to include all the information and cover all the details in the bullet points - the better the application, the more likely you are to get the place :-)

If you are interested in applying for the scholarship yourself, then please read to the end of this post and send in your application by email to rockleyfarm@gmail.com before 16th April 2012.  Don't forget, you need to include in your application all the information in the bullet points below.

If you know of someone else who might be interested, you can invite them to read this post by sending them this link: http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2012/02/rockley-scholarship.html or sharing this post on Facebook.

Scholarship conditions

• The 3 impartial judges (ie: Andy, Edward and I!) will go through all the applications after 16th April 2012 and choose one owner and horse to be the scholarship winner.  

• We will notify the owner by 5th May 2012 and you will need to be able to transport your horse to Rockley by 3rd June 2012.

• The scholarship for your horse will be for 12 weeks and you will need to sign our usual rehabilitation livery agreement (please email us if you want a copy).  You will be charged a nominal amount of £10 per week for feed and forage but there will be no other livery or rehabilitation charges.  You need to arrange your own transport to and from Rockley.

• Your application needs to be supported by 2 references (you need to send these in with your application).  One needs to come from your vet - who must provide details of the horse's lameness history and consent to the horse coming to Rockley.  The other reference should be given by a professional in the equine field who knows you well and who has read and can support your application.  This could be an instructor, yard owner, farrier or other equine professional.  Please include contact phone numbers for both referees so we can get in touch with them.  

• The scholarship is intended for someone who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to send their horse here, so please give details of why you might be eligible in your application - for instance if your insurers have refused to pay for rehabilitation. 

• Your application is more likely to succeed if you show you understand the essentials for hoof health.  As keeping a horse barefoot is a long-term responsibility, you need to explain how you plan to continue your horse's rehab and hoofcare after he comes home and what your aims are for the future.  You don't need special facilities but do need to show that you have time and commitment.  

• Your horse's age is not particularly important - horses from 5-20yrs old have all been through rehab but this type of rehabilitation is not suitable for horses who would be retired, so the more information you can provide about your horse's potential and your ambitions the better. 

• Please include your name, address, email address and a contact phone number so we can get back to you!

Two quick updates...

I took lots of footage last week but had no chance to post about several horses.  One of the ones I missed is Knightley - known to all of you as "Mr Knightley from Dubai" since his arrival here at the end of October!

He has now been here just over 3 months, longer than most horses, but he will remain here for a bit longer as Debbie, his owner, is still over there.  He is a very kind horse but now that he has been here a while his mischievous streak has appeared, and he takes great pleasure in taking Edward's cap off as he goes past, sticking his head across the aisle so I can't get past with a feed bucket for another horse and playing slightly rumbustious games with his great mate, Nico.  

Clearly, his stride and landing have improved a great deal over the last few weeks; what you can't see on this footage is that his right hind does tend to take a shorter step than his left hind - its more obvious on hills or turns, but is something we will be keeping an eye on, as its historically his weakest leg.

I also had no time last week to post Thomas' final piece of footage, taken just before he went off to live in Dorset on Thursday.  Mel posted this nice photo of him and new buddy Oscar, taken yesterday, and you can see how well he has settled in!  Here is his footage, a little late but none the worse for that.



As you can see, he has hugely improved in the 12 weeks he has been here.  He is making big changes to his medio-lateral balance, particularly on his RF, and it will be another 3-4 months before that change is complete, but I know Mel will do a great job of keeping him going and giving him the best chance to grow the best feet.

Buster's Big Day

Buster arrived late on Tuesday and as it was getting dark I couldn't take his photos or footage till Wednesday morning.  That meant that his family couldn't be here to see him take his first steps out of shoes so I promised to try and get some footage of him when he went out the next morning.

Fortunately it was a beautiful, sunny day and so, since Buster has a proper coat, unlike my horses, he got to go out in the sunshine with no clothes on :-)  Buster has been on box rest for several months and although he has been very well behaved his owners felt that he was becoming increasingly frustrated.

I always turn new horses out in the top yard, initially, with Felix and Charlie for company.  I was glad that I had my camcorder with me yesterday because Buster provided a perfect opportunity to show how well my boys know their job of keeping new horses calm and making them feel secure.  I am very proud of Felix and Charlie - they are absolutely essential to the smooth running of Rockley.  Buster gives a perfect demo of how quickly horses can integrate, even after box rest :-)



For the hoof anoraks, here are Buster's hoof pics, to finish things off.

He arrived in bar shoes with rather long toes and has had remedial farriery to try and improve the collateral ligament damage which was diagnosed on MRI. 

Bar shoes hide a lot, but it will be interesting as always to see how his hooves change over the next few weeks. 

All go, all good!

 Hurried, short and late blog today, but there will be a good one up tomorrow, I promise :-)

Its all change round here, as Solar has made it home and has been replaced by Buster, a cob with the thickest tail in the whole wide world - his footage and pics will be here tomorrow so apologies to Jenny and family that I haven't managed to get them up today...

The reason for that was Thomas going home - which was due to happen on Friday but with a severe weather forecast for tonight and the next few days, it had to be brought forward to today.  Very unfortunately Sophie, his owner, isn't well so he has gone to stay with Mel and the gorgeous Oscar in very sunny Dorset.

I'd never been to Cattistock before but its the most beautiful place and bathed in winter sunshine looked marvellous.  Oscar was keen to show off posh trotting to his new friend and Thomas decided he wouldn't be outdone!  Mel and I had a relaxing coffee, watching them get to know each other, then it was hit the road and get back to Exmoor before the snow comes in!

One more bit of nice news - following my update on Ted I had an encouraging email from his vet:

"I agree the angle of growth at the proximal toe area is encouraging. 


Although there is still an obvious splaying of his walls I am impressed by the improvement of his medio lateral hoof imbalance. It is also encouraging to see him landing heel first."

A great note on which to finish ;-)  More tomorrow...

Ted's updated footage

I've posted Ted's updated photos on previous posts...

His photo day one is above, of course, and the most recent comparison below. 

It looks peculiar until you look at the angle of new growth in the top of the hoof.  Now imagine the whole hoof growing down at that same angle.  You can see what a difference that will make to his long toe and underrun heel. 

As always, the solar view is the most useful.  Above is his LF a couple of days after his shoes came off.  The shod photos are also up on this blog but don't give you any idea of how his sole looks because the shoes completely covered his hooves. 

Today the same foot to my way of thinking looks healthier - a more robust frog, better balance and a shorter toe (despite how odd it looks on a lateral view). 

 and I think its clear from these how much his feet are changing, and in what direction.

It won't be as splayed as this once the whole hoof is at the new angle - honest :-)

Finally, the caudal shot.  In his bar shoes, with relatively high hoof wall (look at the distance from hairline to the ground on both sides)...

...and today.  Comparing the same distance (hairline to the ground) you can actually see the bulge which marks where the new angle of growth begins.  You can also see that the lateral wall was a lot longer than the medial wall - again look at the bulge; the new hoof capsule will have a different medio-lateral balance.  

I've also put up footage of how he is landing, and its interesting that he has taken a lot longer than many horses to start to land heel first, probably because his foot balance was so compromised and his caudal hoof so weak to start with.

I normally try also to get footage of rehab horses on a circle but the grim weather we have had here over December and January made it difficult to get that footage outside.

I've remedied that now, but when you watch it you need to understand that it was filmed when the arena was partially frozen, so not the best surface(!) and that Ted has always been worse on the left rein, with his LF being the foot with the most damage on MRI.

Jumping to conclusions...

or 

"Why you shouldn't try to extrapolate too much from a photo".

I posted last week about a hoof which quite frankly looks very odd.

Most of you regular blog readers, who have seen a succession of hooves (from the totally straightforward to the completely unexpected) in past blog posts were pretty unfazed by this and came up with a variety of interesting and plausible hypotheses for why the hoof might have grown the way it does.

More importantly (which I loved), your first instinct was to listen to the horse and give him credit for not putting effort into growing a bizarre hoof deviation unless he had some need for it.

However the post attracted interest from elsewhere - which is great, although some of those who came to have a look had a rather more - shall we say - unreconstructed view of hoofcare.  For them, the deviation was just something which should come off - and quickly.  Various posters on a couple of different forums (in the UK and US) stated that if it wasn't trimmed to something more akin to normality, the horse would have problems.

I have no issue with these people disagreeing with me, but I do get concerned when they won't listen to the horse.  What these posters tended to do was to comment on the photo and then make big assumptions, usually with little or no evidence.

The initial assumption was that the hooves were simply overgrown and neglected - despite the fact I'd made it clear the horse was in work, despite the dramatic asymmetry of the hoof, and despite the fact that there were no chips in the hoof wall.

One person decided that the horse had muscle wastage in his forearm.  Actually, what I said in the post was that the horse had suffered from wastage of specific shoulder muscles which had now improved.  A competent bodyworker could identify the weaker leg now just by looking at the shoulder, but I am not sure that anyone else would.

Someone else stated that the horse landed laterally.  Au contraire, his landing - with the deviation - is surprisingly balanced, which is what led me to suppose that its required to enhance the stability of that limb.

In fact, its on his other foot (which lacks such a significant deviation) that he lands laterally.  I've put some footage up below, but it just goes to show why photos - though interesting - can only tell you so much - though obviously you guys know that already(!)...

Anyway, I'm delighted that others were interested enough to come and have a look at the blog and really the more discussion the merrier, so I hope the additional info I've put up now will help make things a bit clearer.

I'm not saying a hoof capsule like this is ideal - far from it.

In an ideal world this horse would never have developed a deviation, never had an injury, never have had to go through rehab.

In the real world, this horse had a DDFT injury (to this same foot, well before the shoulder injury) and was given a less than 5% chance by 2 leading vets of ever returning to work - and that was in 2007.  He came here for rehab in 2008 and since then, despite occasional ups and downs, has competed successfully in dressage, show-jumping and XC, has hunted and has been almost continuously in work.

It ain't perfect, but human ideas of hoof balance haven't historically been much help to this horse and I, for one, am not arrogant enough to insist that I know better than he does how his hooves should work.