Wednesday 19 November 2014

Feet, stride-length, backs and saddles

Sorry for the blurry photo but I thought you might be interested in this - its a couple of wither tracings which I have done for one of the rehab horses.
The inner line shows him on 1st September and the outer line was done today. Its always interesting to see how feet improving can trigger other developments - here I suspect that a longer stride length has meant he can really swing through his shoulder and of course he has muscled up as this has happened.

You can imagine how important it is - especially now that he has rediscovered his proper stride length and built up new muscle - for any saddle to allow this movement to continue and not restrict him in any way.
I'm quickly adding his comparison hoof photos, which cover the 12 weeks he has been here. Lucky had been out of shoes for 9 months before he came here and his feet had already shown huge improvement as I mentioned in his original post
The most obvious changes are to his toe length and to hoof pastern axis - his foot is more supportive now as a result of having a stronger palmar hoof. His landing has also improved from being flat and intermittently heel first to consistently and clearly heel first. 
Not the tidiest frog in the world as he has shed a layer of it but its a pretty robust foot. He has lost the elongated bars he had when he arrived, which extended round his sole and his heels are also stronger. 

Hairier of course(!) but also a better frog - now sharing load properly with the heels instead of the heels taking the primary role, as was happening on day one. 

Similar changes to this foot and once the new growth hits the ground his heels will be less under-run as well. 

 Again, good changes to the heels and bars - there is some old damage which he had on day one which has all but grown out now but that is the reason for the slightly distorted medial bar in the lower photo. 

 Better frog - compare the central sulcus and how the hoof wall is no longer curving in but is slightly wider than the hoof capsule at the coronet, as it should be. 


1 comment:

RedsMum said...

Great that you thought to do the wither traces, very interesting.