My Bag of Tricks Arrives

My new box of tricks arrived from Easycare this morning; an Easycare Comfort pad system. Basically, there are three different densities of pads for the inside of Lutine's boots, three different density frog supports and three different densities of frog pressure pads. You can mix and match to get the most comfortable support and protection for your horse.

I added a medium density comfort pad with a soft frog pressure pad to Lutine's boots. The medium density pad was the same as we were already using and she seemed comfortable on her soles with these. I then added the soft frog pressure pad to give her frog a more forgiving surface to bump into as she stands on each respective foot. I decided to use the soft pad as Lutine goes a lot more comfortably on soft ground and the aim is to make her comfortable to move and encourage a heel first landing.

Here are her pads:

She started moving much more comfortably as soon as I put her in them. I put them on her at the bottom of our field and then led her back up to the barn to dress a bite that one of the other horses had given her. She seemed, even then, to be landing less toe first on the near fore. Once I'd dressed the bite with some 'spray on sticking plaster' she had a drink at our water buckets and then proceeded to trot back down the hill with one of my other horses. She wasn't totally sound, still a bit sore on that near fore, but at least she was willing to break into trot downhill! She has been avoiding that avidly since our ground went hard again. I am happy enough with her movement in these boots now that I will start riding her again on the lanes.

Lutine started her Whole Horse herbal mix for movement this week too. It has a component for arthritis, a component for tendon repair and a digestion component. She's only been on it a couple of days so it's too early to tell its effect yet. I also have some more 10:10 Joint Support in the post for her - she definitely improves when she's on therapeutic levels of Glucosamine and MSM and deteriorates when she's not on it.

Serious mileage required

I think everyone I speak to is converging on the idea that the next stage of rehabilitation for Lutine is a serious amount of mileage, ridden or hand walking, but all done at walk. Below is a reply from an AANHCP Field Instructor that has been kind enough to discuss Lutine and her feet with me a few times before now.

So my first post was meant to be a direct answer to your query about navicular. The second was to illustrate that some horses just take a long time to come right. Many of the horses have come working sound sooner than I might have expected. This is always pleasing but the reality is it takes 8-9 months to grow a new hoof and 4 years for a hoof to fully transition.

The first year is about that new hoof, but after that, if you maintain the hoof, the walls start to build mass actually becoming thicker.

I took a moment to go back and look at the pics I have of Luntine’s feet from when we talked a year ago. The feet were poor. The wavy event lines indicating a poor history of foot care and a ‘blow out’ through the front of the walls on both feet just beneath the coronary band [in fact, these were bruises from overtightened Boa boots]. Assuming diet , exercise and trimming were brought on line we would still be looking at 9 months to grow that hoof out.

I’m aware from following your posts on the eye problems your horses have been having that you and yours have not had an easy year. I certainly hope that the situation is finally improving. However from a hoof point of view, I would assume the immune system has been under stress ( there’s a British understatement) and the effects of any drugs have all produced a situation where the horses metabolism was not optimal for good hoof growth.

I assume that your exercise regime was not optimal in this period.

I would be interested to see pics of the present hooves; Are the hoof walls consistent good quality ( no event rings or deviant toe angles) do they feel smooth to the touch or are there little underlying bumps that can be felt but not seen?

Given Lutine’s history perhaps she’s not doing so badly. I can’t remember where we got to with the pads I sent. I have found I get better results by trimming the outer edge down, so that the pad is more of a dome.

If she’s just a bit off at the trot, I’d boot up and put some serious walking miles on her.
Also all the gravel crunchers I’ve had, developed high concavity. I have come to believe that concavity is higher with higher toe angles. The toe angle come from building a good digital cushion above the frog ( this seems to jack up the P3 and the concavity follows).
So when I’m not happy with the frog/digital cushion I use boots with V pads under the frog.

Some times a horse sound on harder going at the walk but going short or footy at the trot may have weak heel cartilage. I will walk extensively with such a horse without boots and boot up for trot work/dressage.

It can get a bit despondent when the hoof doesn’t go to my schedule! Luckily Deb is usually around to remind me of where the hoof started and how far we have come . At least you're riding now, remember the trim is just the base, diet and milage are the two factors that forge a wild horse hoof.

Hope this is helping Kev

Other professional trimmers have also expressed this view. But, most importantly, this is a view that's also shared by our vet, who's seen Lutine 'in the flesh'. His comment was that she was fine for being ridden and that we were going to have to carry on with gentle, appropriately progressive, exercise and not just stop whenever we have a minor hiccup or else Lutine would simply fail to improve in the longer term.

Anyway, bearing this in mind we walked out again tonight, with Lutine in boots and pads on her front feet, and she was back to being sound in trot on the roads 'sans cavalier'. Remember when it took 5 days for her to get over the head bobbing the last time? now it took just 2 - I did say I was looking forward for when it took more 'effort' for her to start head bobbing and less time for her to get over it.

I am going to recommence riding her and concentrate on keeping her in walk and just getting her fit for regularly hacking out in walk. So we're looking for fitness to do lots of miles at a walk pace with the aim of rebuilding her musculoskeletal system and general health.