Ozzy's feet - the only arrival in shoes

These feet belong to Ozzy, the last of our new arrivals for this week. What is very interesting from these photos is how dramatic the different is between his left foot and right foot when you look at the heels. This foot is collapsed and under-run whereas his left foot is less so.

However when his lameness was diagnosed he was worse on the left than the right, so this may be a recent compensation. On MRI he was shown to have navicular bone and related damage, DDFT and collateral ligament damage bilaterally.

 The medio-lateral imbalance on this foot is quite clear from this angle and in fact on video he is landing laterally on both front feet but much worse on this foot.

On video he is landing better on this foot  - he has a fractional heel first landing whereas the other foot is toe first and his medio-lateral balance is better as well.

Again, if you compare the photos, this foot looks more balanced - its dangerous to extrapolate too much from photos alone but in this case they confirm  what we see on video.

Ozzy's footage is here and there will of course be updates on him and the other horses over the next few weeks: https://vimeo.com/277606810

Our second new arrival - Flynn's feet

Flynn is the second of the new arrivals from the weekend. He is an Irish sports horse who has suffered low grade lameness for nearly a year and has been diagnosed on MRI with navicular damage.

He has fairly under-run heels and long toes and also has a media-lateral imbalance where he is landing on the lateral side of both front feet, worse on the left front.  

 This is his weaker side judging from his footage on arrival

He has reasonably good frogs - better on the right front; he was landing marginally heel first on this foot and toe first on his left foot when we filmed him

https://vimeo.com/277524337

New horses arriving - Beau's feet

We had a changeover at the weekend with horses going home and new horses arriving and I've a lot of updates to post but I'm going to start with photos of the new horses. 

These feet belong to Beau - confusingly a mare - who is a dressage horse from Cornwall.  On MRI she has been diagnosed with inflammation of the collateral ligaments of the coffin joint, medial on the RF and lateral on the LF.

Her lameness is worse on the left rein on a circle and although both feet are somewhat under-run and have a relatively weak palmar hoof the left foot appears slightly worse.

On video she is landing flat and slightly laterally (as you would expect) on the LF but its not an extreme landing which makes me hopeful that she will improve quite quickly. 

 As ever, I will post updates on Beau within the next few weeks.

https://vimeo.com/277259484

Hayfields

We've had a big changeover week with horses going home and new horses arriving so I have a backlog of photos and videos to work through and post - I will get on with those over the rest of this week.

In the meantime here is my traditional turning-the-horses-out-in-the-hayfields video for 2018 - at least a month early!

https://vimeo.com/277109399

RRRR 2018

This weekend was another busy one as Becca has been hard at work for months organising this year's Rockley Rehabs' Reunion Ride - and this time we were in Derbyshire.

The beautiful Peak district was the back drop to a wonderful 4 day ride which took in some breathtaking scenery.

Unfortunately I couldn't get away from here till Thursday but still Peter, Kira, Felix and I managed a fantastic couple of days and covered just over 25 miles - the full ride was nearly 60 miles.

Although the clouds looked threatening we stayed dry and in fact the sun shone for most of the time!

Mango, the last horse standing, who stomped round 60 miles and looked better than ever by the end, though he maybe now thinks that eventing is an easier option?!

We passed beautiful villages with picture perfect cottage gardens and gorgeous limestone bridges and buildings were everywhere.

We even had the chance to gallop about on pristine turf at Chatsworth, much to the astonishment of groups of runners who were out on Saturday morning.

Isla and Felix - the 2 arch-poseurs, loving it up for the cameras, as ever(!)...

If you get the chance to ride up in Derbyshire I would highly recommend it!

The most wonderful time...

...of the year...

Beats Christmas for me every time :-). June is very early for us to be making haylage but for the past few years the weather has been so tricky from July onwards that I thought we would just go for it while the weather was perfect.

 

Of course with it being so early we have not made as much as normal but its lovely stuff and its a great feeling to have it done and dusted.