Thursday, April 14, 2011

Trim failure

Bijou got trimmed two days ago, and went off again two days ago...

She doesn't have huge feet, and they do like to chip and crack, but I asked my farrier and he said that her chipping etc was all normal. He barely clipped anything off, and only rasped enough to get the edges clean and she hadn't been trimmed yet this year (!!!!) I kept putting it off waiting for her to look long and she just never did, so I just did it anyway and now I guess I regret it.

She's mostly sore to the left which is funny because her 'clubby' foot is on the right. I've still been getting her out for short rides because she isn't that sore and I do REALLY want to build on the momentum I've gained in the last couple of weeks. We've had many wet saddle pads (with perfect sweat marks, might I add) and she's finally starting to get the hang of good walk/trot transitions and we've even had our first balanced canter transitions that don't involve rushing. I'd hate to lose all that progress because I got her trimmed, so I might do what I thought I might have to do at this point this year, and just put shoes on her. This happened later in the year last time... she got sore around May/June and I put two sets of shoes on her and then took them off for winter again.

I might see how it pans out and see if she'll grow enough foot while I'm riding to make her happy again, but riding wears feet down so the less I ride the faster she'll theoretically get better... and then have lost some of the fitness etc that we've worked on.

2 comments:

  1. Got any photos? I'd bet her hooves are chipping because he left her walls too long. Another term for that is "self trimming."

    About the soreness: If she's got thrush and he took her heels down that would cause some soreness.

    What's she eating? This is the perfect time for horses to get laminitis from grass. Mild laminitis could easily cause her soreness. Check out http://www.safergrass.org/.

    Are you riding her on gravel or rocks now that you weren't before? Soles need to build callus to deal with tougher terrain.

    Exercise stimulates hoof growth, the only way your horse would be wearing off more hoof than she was growing would be if you were riding miles and miles on pavement. I'm guessing you're not doing that. I think farriers say that because horses will sometimes show wear on their toes, that probably means that their toe is too long.

    Sorry for the long comment, I'm a bit of a hoof nerd.

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  2. Nina wears her feet off too. I tried her barefoot just on the back over the winter and she is getting shod this month. She has normal looking hoof wall, thin soles and wears her feet off like erasers. Sometimes barefoot doesn't work for working horses.

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