Performance barefoot

We've posted about this pair several times on this blog as we have plotted their journey.  One of the more difficult rehabs.  Not just 'navicular' but also as we discovered later, very sensitive to diet.
Anyway to cut a very long story short - look!

Hunter Trial April 2012

This is their second Hunter Trial both run early April 2012.   Apparently horse didn't slip at all, despite the rather horrible weather we have been having in the UK. 

Yes horse is still sound. But the original vet will never know because the owner reports that they refuse to come and see her unless she is shod.

Hooves are like

Financial investments..........  they can go down as well as up.

Your job as a horse owner will never be finished - not while you have a horse.  It doesn't take long; a brief holiday and you can come back to chronic thrush, contracted heels or worse.

But the joy of it is if you get the hoof structure healthy in the first place then hooves can take a lot and small set backs are just that.  Small and easily resolved.

If you have the good hoof structure in the first place.

Which is what sooooooo many peeps seem to fail to understand including, but not exclusively; horse owners, vets, farriers, yard managers, instructors............

And good  structure as always is a product of good management/facilitating a healthy lifestyle for the horse.

So sadly some of these will, quite unintentionally I am sure, promote poor hoof structure because they don't know how to achieve something better, or even believe that structure is determined before birth and a bad hoof will always be a bad hoof.

But you only have to look at a few rehab photos to realise that this isn't so.  But what the rehab pictures don't show is the sheer hard work some of these transformations have taken.  Which is why some people think that is then just a matter of taking the shoes off and are horribly disappointed to find that they have to change......

And to continue this theme - I've seen some very nice hooves damaged by inappropriate riding techniques.  This is perhaps the most awkward conversation of all to have.  It is hard enough to say to someone 'your horse is overweight' or 'your horse has thrush' etc, but 'please can you change how you ride your horse' is a whole other matter.  If anyone has any constructive and polite suggestions...........