Buster on a circle

Buster is going home later in the week and you may recall that last time I updated the blog about him we had an ongoing issue with his soundness on the right rein on a circle.

Like all rehab horses here, Buster will only be part-way through his rehab when he goes home.  Much as I would like to have a magic wand which I could wave to make horses immediately sound, in the real world tendon and ligament damage which has taken months or even years to make a horse lame also takes time to heal and though we can lay a foundation over 12 weeks, that's only part of the story.

Although he has several months to go before he will have grown a full new hoof capsule, Buster has made good progress since he arrived.

He has gone from being on box rest with recurrent lameness when brought into even the lightest work (a fairly common pattern for a horse with a collateral ligament injury) to being able to work consistently several times a week with improving soundness.

As the footage shows, he is still not 100% on the right rein (the gale force winds and driving rain yesterday will not, to be fair, have improved his performance!) but crucially work and his new hoof growth is helping rather than hindering.


Buster on a circle from Nic Barker on Vimeo.