Sisco

Finally for this week here is our last arrival, Sisco who has come all the way from Germany. He has been diagnosed on MRI with bilateral navicular degeneration and pedal osteitis - fortunately for me the MRI report was in excellent English!

He has long toes and of course its no surprise that he is landing toe first. The usual reaction to seeing feet like this is to want to shorten the toe - its something we talked about quite a bit last weekend at Writtle University College. 

In fact although the long toe is problematic it is a symptom of the weak palmar hoof rather than a cause. How do we know this? Because if you shorten the toe in these horses before the palmar hoof becomes stronger they will usually become lamer.  

The aim of rehab and the aim of remedial farriery is the same: to strengthen and support the palmar hoof, but with rehab the additional strength and support comes from within the hoof capsule not from external structures. 

 Once the palmar hoof has developed the toe will naturally shorten as the foot loads more correctly and becomes less under-run. This is what we hope to see with Sisco over the next few weeks.

Sisco's footage is here: https://vimeo.com/manage/321948162