Allie Trim

22.04.11

Allie is my own horse. She is a bay 4 year old, 16.2hh Arab Warmblood mare. No previous pathology at all. Her fantastic feet are a big factor as to why I bought her! They are lovely.

The only problems I had been having with them lately is battling thrush, which has affected her frogs. Also, we recently moved and we used to ride on gravel and stony trails but now we have no access to that kind of footing in a safe trail environment. I need to buy some pea gravel to put down in their paddocks to help this.
Also, for the 2 weeks prior to this trim, she had been stabled at night. This really does affect their feet!

She also displays quite a few event lines. To explain this, she has had a few episodes of late:

• 4 hour first ever float ride (and first time off the property where she was born) in November 2010, and the stress from that.
• Escaped with her paddock mate from their paddock and was injured on a fence post (due to the neighbors having fireworks on NYE just gone. They both galloped a fair way on the bitumen roads.. eek!). 6 week recovery time for the injury, 2 weeks on antibiotics.
• Another relocation to my new house here, and the stress associated with that.

So you can see this poor horse's feet have suffered a little bit. But they are still structurally sound and she is still 100% sound (no ouchyness) over sharp gravel when I take her on it.

I got photos of the left feet only.


Left front:

Note on the before pic on the left the three red lines - these highlight her event lines. Interesting - the lowest/oldest one (the 'big move') is much bigger than the top/newest one (the 'little move'). Note the quarter scoop relieves the bulge in the coronary band. Ignore the big red ride-on mower in the background. :P

 

Solar view shows crappy thrushy material, frog that has flappy 'thrush trap' material. I'm worrying about her heels contracting. Must get her out on some rides! Note her SUPER DUPER thick walls. They are huge. Easily 2cm thick water line/outer wall combined. Other than her frogs needing developing, I am happy with the general structure of this foot. And there is my man-hand! God gave me man-hands so I could trim huge feet like hers. That's my excuse anyway!

Left Hind:

Ok, so with the hinds from the side, same again as for the fronts - event lines, scoop. You will notice I had to take quite a lot of outside wall (you can see where the inner 'white' wall is peeking through where I have rasped off the outer 'black' wall in the after pic) as she has major flaring here. More on that below.

You can see this massive flaring to the outside here. This horse has trouble picking up the right canter - could this have something to do with it? Soreness or wasting from when she was laid off for 6 weeks? She certainly lost a large amount of muscle when she was off. We are going to have the equine body worker out soon. We have used Raph Kennedy in the past with my last horse and I thought she was great. Also with this foot - again with the MASSIVE WALLS! This hoof (I should have taken a half done pic) has the THICKEST walls I have ever ever seen on any horse I have ever trimmed. I guess it's the warmblood in her - I have never trimmed a warmblood before her.