Dexter and the air suspension :-)

What a lovely day today :-) First of all Dexter's owner came up to see him today, and we had a lovely hack out on him and Ghost. Actually Ghost was his normally (in company) slightly naughty self, but Dexter was great.

He has been doing quite a bit of roadwork over the last couple of weeks and so is more than capable of striding along on the lanes, but it was nice for his owner to feel for herself that he is improving, and feeling so happy in himself. It would have been nice if it had been a bit less foggy, and then we might even have been able to see where we were going...

We talked about Dex, and the fact that the only thing he is really lacking at the moment (and it will come with time and work) is really good shock absorption in the back of his foot. He is getting better every day, but he still has a realtively weak digital cushion, compared to a long-term barefoot horse.

This afternoon however a local journalist, who is interested in natural hoofcare and barefoot horses, came up to see us, and we took Charlie and Felix out for a stomp across the moor. She had not ridden barefoot horses on stony track before, and came up with the brilliant description that it was like having "air suspension" :-)

This perfectly fits - Charlie and Felix are hardworking barefoot horses who go over all terrain, and they have fantastic digital cushions, which provide them with perfect shock absorption (this is what Dex is still working on!), so riding them is like being in a pair of Nike Air trainers after wearing your Green Flash daps :-)