Bertha 18.06.11

Bertha is a 16.3hh 20-something year old OTTB, who has had a ridiculous amount of babies. She is a typical fiery red chestnut mare, but she has grown on me. I have been trimming her for about 6 -8 months now. She has great feet, except that they grow very slowly, which can be a blessing (less trimming needed) and a curse (issues take longer to resolve). Her owners are great with thrush treatment and she is easy to trim. She is in light work (uni students, they ride her more when they are on hols).

She is a sweetie at heart, just don't tell her that!

She kept resting her head on my back. So cute. This horse loves farrier visits!

Left front. This is 8 weeks growth for this mare. Slow compared to other horses in the area.

Right front

Right front. Frog looking a bit cracked. She was treated for thrush a few days before this trim.

Right front. Slight flare in bottom third of hoof. She was about 2 weeks overdue for a trim, normally trimmed at 6 weeks.

Gracie 21.05.11

Gracie trim 21.05.11.

Gracie's last hoof pics.

Near fore (trimmed 19.05.11, so no before shots)

A tiny bit thrushy. Heels look too tall, I think I could have them a mill shorter. I took down her bars this day a little as I didn't have my knife on me when I trimmed her fronts the other day. Nice big frog except for the trush. I want to see more sole depth.

Sorry about the angle here. This shows where I could take a tiny bit more heel. Note her fence-injury scar on her right heel bulb. This won't ever go away I think.

Quarter scoop shown here. Little bit of concavity.

Quarter scoop obvious here. Again I need a little off the heels. Flare growing out nicely.

Front view! This horse has awesome stripes. This angle shows the bevel nicely.

Near hind

Sorry about the weird after shot. I had a helper to take photos this time.

Quite a bit of wall to come off.

Again quarters scooped.

Bit thrushy, scrappy pieces of frog removed.

:)

Gracie had super thick walls too - I got a progress shot to show you:

I like this one as it clearly shows the difference between outer (black) and inner (white) wall. Uneven wall thickness as you go from the heels/quarters to the toe. I evened all this out.

I would love any feedback in comments here by the way. :)

So excited!

The other day I booked in to do the advanced hoof clinic in August with the Barefoot Blacksmith! It's the same people who I did the beginner course with that I loved so much. I am really excited. :)

Once again I am excited beyond belief about hooves. I honestly want to be the one people call when they have a horse close to death and I want to bring it back to 100% soundness. I want to trim successful barefoot performance horses. I hope to do the Diploma Equine Podiotherapy maybe next year? It's not cheap, but oh my goodness it is my dream.

So I need to get around and get pictures of all my new client's feet! Other than my own horses, I am now the regular trimmer for:

Baylee, Banjo, Bertha, Dancer, Diablo and Flash. Banjo's owner just bought a new horse so I will be doing him too. That will make it 7 horses! I'm pretty happy about the lot of them. I need to do little case studies on each of them, and post them here. It is just that editing the pics in paint in a pain in the neck!

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.

Gracie Trim 3.03.11

Gracie is a 4.5 year old Andalusian cross mare. She has never been shod, and had her first trim at about 2 years of age. Her feet were good, she grew up in rocky hilly terrain. She was 100% unhandled and wild when my sister got her.

Her feet went to crap when I moved to acreage and took my old TB with me, leaving Gracie on agistment for a further 2 or so weeks. She was due for her 4 weekly trim at that time, and I just didn't get around to it until she moved to the new place too. She was at 6 weeks since her last trim, and she had been showing signs of early laminitic stress on her feet (LOTS of flare). So I have been battling to get her feet back in to good shape for the last 14 months. I had recently realised it was her diet holding her back, and have now cut as much sugars out as I can. Feet are starting to improve now (as is waist line!).

Gracie could have gone another half week or so before she was due, but I err on the side of early now with her. Not much wall height to remove, but plenty of outer wall and especially flare to remove. Some flappy bits of frog etc. taken too. I barely rasped the heels, nothing to tweak there.

Click pictures to see bigger version. (Before on left side of pics)

Right front

Dramatically reduced flare - I think this will grow out in about 3-4 months. Note the event line closest to the coronary band? That is from when my two horses broke through the fencing on NYE and galloped down the road.

Funny how things jump out at you in a photo but not when you are actually looking at the foot? Note left heel/quarter.

Flies!

Left hind

Left heel a little higher before.

Nice bevel if I do say so myself! :P

She has great heels, very tough digital cushions, lovely frogs (very very hard at the moment, the ground has dried up).

And some of me trimming the mare:

Lucky there is no plumber's crack today!

She is not this narrow at all!!

Helping?

The Workshop

I just got back from my first ever trimming workshop and I am so excited to trim my next horse!

The one day workshop was really good. Aimed at the horse enthusiast with little to no prior hoof knowledge, I was expecting not to get too much out of it. I am so glad I went, as although I already had that prior knowledge and a lot of what they spoke about I knew/understood, I still learned so much. I am definitely going to their advanced workshop, and then depending on whether I like that workshop, I will probably go ahead and fork out the money (and time) to do the Diploma in Equine Podiotherapy.

From my notes (in no particular order. I was rough on my booklet and it became unbound. On my way out I dropped it and the pages got all mixed up. Grr):

Blood in hoof = 300-400 times more than what the hoof actually requires for nutrition - energy transference/protection from concussion.
 
Ringbone caused by toe first landing - pedal bone and P2 connect at landing. Bad.
 
Heel first landing = knee straight before hoof hits the ground. Toe first landing = knee bent as hoof hits ground.

Outline of the sole is the outline of the pedal bone - follow sole template!

Base width of wall from the width close to the heel.

Outer wall non-weight bearing, quarters non-weight bearing.

Hard ground - little or no wall height. Soft ground - need extra wall for grip.

Be conservative with heel height! (This is something I have been too aggressive with in the past.)

Hairline viewed from front - parallel to ground = joints all the way up the leg also parallel.

Hoof wall same height all the way around.

Proprioception - Spatial awareness (a term I had not read about before today).

Pressure in hoof pushed blood into all nooks and crannies therefore feeding the small structures.

Laminar line = white line.


Underlined or starred in the booklet:

"... test the hay quality myself by simply soaking it for 4 hrs. If the hay is not high in NSC [non structural carbohydrate] the water generally will not be discoloured or taste sweet."

"Another high fibre low NSC feed I have used is Speedibeet". Possibly for Gracie?


"The gravel I am talking about is natural river or creek gravel rounded by natural water erosion not crushed rock which can be sharp and pierce the sole." (Regarding putting rocks in the paddock to help with the feet).


So... I have some (crappy iPhone) pics of my cadaver trim - don't scroll down if you don't want to see! (No blood and gore, promise...).

I forgot to take before pics!!
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It was a hind foot.

The only thing I should have been more conservative with was heel height, which was a hair shorter than the frog.

It is incredibly hard to get good hoof pics when there is no horse attached to the leg!

Go ahead, laugh at my sparkly red nails...

Bit blurry, but shows the quarter scoop.

This was the table with all the interesting bits!

A hoof/leg cut in half - you can see the digital cushion at the back there, P3, navicular bone, the deep digital flexor tendon, etc.

So tomorrow is my first trimming workshop. I'm a little nervous about the cadaver trim, and I'm dissapointed in myself that I didn't get off my butt and book earlier so I could bring a horse, but it should be a fascinating day for me. I have had no formal training, and so I am viewing this as the first step. It's their beginner course, aimed at the owner who wants to learn more about feet, but you need to do this course to attend their advanced course. I'm interested to know what basic stuff I might have skimmed over in the quest to feed my brain, and to see things from the ground up.

After this course, I'm hoping to attend their advanced course in Canberra in April, hopefully with horse in tow. Then... Not sure? I would love to go do anatomy (eek! More dead horse!) and massage, biomechanics etc. I think concentrating on the hoof alone is not the answer. I've seen a trimmer go up to a horse, poke it in the bum and get a violent pain or soreness reaction, pick up the hoof, rasp a few sweeps, then poke again, with no reaction. I want to be that intuitive. I want to be that trimmer, to see the whole horse, treat the whole horse, not just the foot. Wholeistic or whatever it is called. Yeah.

I'm taking my camera tomorrow, I hope they let me take pictures to post here!