Sunday 15 May 2011

Flynn - hooves day one

Flynn arrived shod all round, with natural balance shoes in front.   He was extremely unlevel (his vet assessed him as 5-6/10 lame) and worst on his RF.  He'd clearly been landing toe first for a long time and had a weak, infected frog on this foot as well. 
His heels were high and he had a long toe - he was overdue for shoeing but I'd asked for him not to be reshod just before he came down here.
This is a great photo for demonstrating how even NB shoes - which are supposed to give more emphasis to the frog and caudal hoof - effectively prevent frog stimulus.   You can see that all the load is taken peripherally rather than caudally.
And the result over time is a hoof which has been weakened caudally and is no longer functioning as it should.

I've left the audio on Flynn's footage, as you can hear as well as see how unevenly he was landing.


Flynn from Nic Barker on Vimeo.

4 comments:

Val said...

How ironic. Also, the shoe is wider in the toe area, just like hoof with a weak caudal region.

Dom said...

Holy toes...

jenj said...

Poor guy. I hope he makes progress swiftly and is more comfortable soon!

Nic Barker said...

Val, Dom - yes, scary isn't it...Jen, he is much more cheerful - he is the big bay in the "magic forest" clip from yesterday :-)