Back in the Saddle

On Saturday 2nd September, I decided the time was right to try and re-back Lutine. Lutine was originally started as a 3yo and did a summer of hacking and showing but it's been 4 years since she was ridden and I didn't want to make any assumptions about how she would react.

First of all, I introduced her to the saddle and she was mildly curious, not at all freaked by the tack. So then I saddled her up and took it off again, once from each side. No problems. Totally relaxed. Then I asked her to come and stand by me at the mounting block and I leant over her, patting the other side, from each side. Still no problems. Put my foot in the stirrup from each side, no bad reactions, not 'in denial'. So then with the help of hubby, got a leg up and lay over her while hubby led us in a biggish circle in each direction. No problems...

Then, the big step. Up, tummy over, foot in stirrup, other foot over and in stirrup, say hi to Lutine in each eye, be led round whilst crouching, slowly sit up, be led around then with hubby still holding on to the rope, take over the steering...

A couple of circles in walk and whoooaaaaa, come to a stop. Totally unfazed by it all.

She whickered to me as I dismounted and boy! did she get lots of cuddles and praise!

However, she seemed to be happy to be ridden, very gently and my husband said she'd whickered 2 or 3 times, when I'd got off. Hope it wasn't that she was saying 'thank gawd that lump's got off me!'

The only problem was that, as I sat in the saddle, my husband went to take a photo with our digital camera and said 'camera's not working!' - I'd forgotten to put the memory card back in! Agh!

So, on Tuesday, a friend came over to ride with me and we had a go at putting her on board Lutine for a 5 minute wander around the round pen again. Once more, Lutine seemed totally happy about this and this time, I'd remembered the SD card!

The plan from now is to start taking her out on the lead rein with my other horses so that she becomes fitter and then to teach her to long rein and get her exercising gently over poles. She needs to develop her hindquarters and also her second thigh, especially on her nearside hind as that seems to be the weaker leg.

Magical changes

Lutine's hooves have been producing some wonderful changes over the last few weeks. The first little sign was a small area of crumbly sole that appeared on the lateral (outside edge) of her offside fore hoof. With the kind of natural hoofcare approach I've been using, the healthy sole is sacrosanct and is not trimmed and we look for changes in the natural sole plane to tell us where and when and how we can trim the adjacent wall or other structures. Lutine had a medio-lateral imabalance on this hoof, and it had been there at least 3 years. I found a vet report from 2003 in her passport when she was given to me that noted this imbalance at the time and recommended remedial farriery to sort it out. The photos I have of the hoof when I first went to see her in January 06 show the imbalance was still there. However, by trusting the sole, finally it decided the time was right, the coffin bone had migrated to a more balanced position and the sole powdered up a little, allowing me to finally work on that imbalance.

This is something that I love about natural hoofcare. The French have a saying "Compose not Impose". That's exactly what, for me, good hoofcare is about. As with all good horsemanship, you 'set it up and let it happen'. We always seem to get in trouble with horses when we try to dictate and control through mechanical means according to a man made frame of reference. I like the saying 'Rarely does wisdom dictate one thing and Nature another'.

A couple of weeks following this little event, I picked out Lutine's feet and noticed that on 3 of her hooves the soles and the frogs were starting to shed out a significant amount of material. This was very exciting! (OK, it's very quiet where I live and I don't get out much! :-D) In particular, Lutine was forming crumbly sole around her overlaid bars, meaning I could finally get to trim them without invading healthy sole and in the heel corner area, meaning I could potentially lower her heels a little, which in turn would bring them back, away from the centre of her foot. What was also very significant was that all this crumbly sole was also leaving a lot more concavity in its wake, meaning Lutine's feet were becoming stronger, tighter and with the coffin bone much higher within the hoof capsule - all 'tucked up safe and sound in her hoof'. :-) Finally, the whole outer layer of her frogs on each front hoof sloughed away, revealing a new frog that was healthier with a more well defined central sulcus.

I was sweating a bit about what exactly I needed to do with these hooves now. Instead of just diving in, I returned to my books, papers and articles and developed a plan of action. I wouldn't dump the heels on to the new frogs because those guys, whilst a lovely new shape, needed to get a little fatter and more callused. Also, if I did that I would be in danger of creating the 'low heel, long toe' situation I'd been trying to get rid of for 8 months. I would work on smoothing and trimming the bars, check the toe and wall height relative to the depth of the collateral groove at the frog apex, and then make sure I kept rolling that toe back to keep encouraging the flared forward toe to grow out. I also made frog shaped inserts out of some gym mat material for Lutine's boots to provide extra stimulation and vibration damping for the new frogs.

Now for photos (Jan 06 on left, Sept 06 on right):

Off fore








Near fore