Dylan's 12 week update

Dylan has now been here 12 weeks and its time for an update. He will be going home next week, still with weak feet which will need many more months of strengthening and rebuilding, but at least heading towards normality. 

You can see from the profile that this is of course still an under-run hoof. Dylan's feet were so weak that it will take a fair old while for his palmar hoof to repair but for now every step on a stronger hoof is beneficial. 

Dylan's frogs and digital cushion were compromised at day one and are still weak now. However I would hope that photos from this angle will become stronger over the next few months.

A shorter toe but again a very weak and under-run foot, even today. The hairline is less distorted though so the back of his foot should continue to get stronger going forward. 

Two pictures of an ugly frog. The lower one is better but there are still so many changes which need to happen. Time is on Dylan's side, however, and patience is going to be required by all of us. 

I'll look forward to seeing how his feet have changed in another few months...

Where is the hoof going? Brigitte's update

Brigitte  - a Dutch warmblood - arrived just over 2 weeks ago and her initial post is here. 

She'd been out of shoes for a while but on box rest so it was always going to be interesting to see how her feet changed with movement. Already, a big difference in her hoof profile from the lateral view which is very encouraging. 

There are also big changes in her LF but here there is a severe weak point which you can see highlighted in these photos. The lower photo shows it most clearly as a line traversing the hoof from the palmar aspect, just where there is a kink below the digital cushion.  

 Over time she should grow this weakness out but it will certainly take a few months for that to happen. 

I really like these sole shots and the much more symmetrical picture she is beginning to build. Heels are moving back, the foot is rebalancing and even at this early stage there is lots to be happy about. 

The same story on her RF and from these photos you can also see how the ridge of bar which she came with is starting to disappear as her hoof grows down with a stronger and healthier profile. 

A great first fortnight for Brigitte so fingers crossed for her over the rest of her time here. 

Not bad for his final day...

Indy  - whom I blogged about on Friday - has now gone home but we had a special treat in store for his final day. 

There was a meet on our doorstep and his owner Emily and I were both happy that a short and quiet morning on home ground would not only be well within his capabilities (despite him only being halfway through growing a new hoof) but would also send the pair of them home with smiles on their faces.

At first Indy thought we were just all going out exercising on the same old route he had been on countless times before but then he realised that there were lots of extra horses  - not to mention a pack of hounds - at the end of the road. Happy days!

 A very cheerful Indy just after we set off from the meet, even though he wasn't at this stage totally sure what we were all doing.

Once he heard hounds then he was totally focussed on the job in hand - if anything he was a little too ready to up the gears on the beautiful ground we were riding on...

 ...but stony tracks weren't much of a problem either and I expect rock-crunching performance from him  once he has grown a full new hoof - go Indy!

"I am a very clever boy!".

Changes over 12 weeks - Indy's update

Indy is due to go home on Monday after being here for 12 weeks. I will post his clips later but in the meantime got ahead with his photos and there are some interesting points to note.

First off, look at the angle of the line at his quarter and how much it has changed over 12 weeks. Along with the shorter toe has come a much more supportive heel (again, check out the angle at the back of the foot) and a straighter hairline. 

The same story on his RF and so its no surprise that his landing has gone from toe first to heel first as well. 

I'll post photos next week showing the change from the palmar angle as that's the most important. For now you get a hint of what is happening even in these lateral shots. 

Sole shots also show a healthier frog building and a more symmetrical hoof. The heels and bars still have a way to go but are moving back to a more supportive position. The whole hoof also has more concavity though that's hard to assess just from a photo.

Better symmetry and balance are also evident if you compare the week 1 and week 12 photos of his LF. A long way to go before he has the perfect hoof but a good start and a foundation which can be built on.  

 Personally, comparing these photos of his stance over the same period I prefer the lower one, particularly because both front feet are more stable and grounded and there is less stress on the fetlocks and knees.

Of course Indy still has half a new hoof capsule still to grow so we should be hoping for some much better feet in another 3-4 months. 

My take on this less than perfect hoof...

I posted a photo and clip yesterday for you to ponder because I thought it tied in really nicely with the research on collapsed heels which I linked to in the blog last week.

I'll give you the background and my take on what's happening in a minute, but first I'd better make it clear that the feet in this post are NOT ideal. They aren't the feet I would like to see on a horse I had bred or a horse I had bought and they certainly aren't the feet this horse was born with.

However, we need to give him credit for a fantastic recovery - from a DDFT injury from which he was given a 5% chance of recovery by 2 separate vets and later from a shoulder injury which he suffered while eventing. He had been shod at a very young age and this has also undoubtedly had an effect on the strength and integrity of his hooves.

The research I mentioned is all about the effect of collapsed heels on hoof loading and performance. No surprise, collapsed heels adversely affect shock absorption and hoof function. The researchers also suspect that they pre-dispose horses to navicular and DDFT damage and I would agree, as it ties in exactly with what I see here.

So far, nothing terribly new...but then they made a point which really jumped out for me. When the researchers loaded the hooves which had weak, collapsed heels "the medial heels deformed more than the lateral heels".

Here is the palmar shot of this horse when he first came for rehab. This was his lamest foot and it was also flat and under-run. He had a DDFT lesion and was landing toe first and had been lame for some time.

This is the same foot 6 months later. Better depth and strength to the digital cushion so therefore a much healthier palmar hoof - at this point the horse had been sound and back in work for several months. 

The same hoof 4 years later. Notice how the digital cushion is stronger again - deeper, capable of better shock absorption and much tougher. Nevertheless this horse is still - and probably always will be - compromised. 

He has made incredible improvements and its a lesson and an inspiration in how well horses can come back from injury. However its also a lesson that some damage can never be fully overcome.

You can see yourselves even from this view that there is a medial deviation which he has had for many years and which does not disappear. He is sound and working hard but he maintains an asymmetric hoof capsule. 

Why? Well, I think the research casts an interesting light on this. The phrase highlighted above to me is fascinating. This foot has historically had a weak palmar hoof - collapsed heels - but now he is sound and working well after developing some brilliant compensations. 

I've posted before how I thought the medial deviation was vital to his soundness and (though this is an extreme example) how its something I have seen in other rehab horses with similar issues.

This research could be the missing piece of the jigsaw. In collapsed heels the medial wall deforms more severely than the lateral wall so it would make perfect sense if the medial deviation were required to minimise the deformation of the hoof capsule and to provide stability.

For me, this is yet another confirmation of the principle that (even if you don't fully understand the reasons behind it - yet) you should ALWAYS trust the horse and his soundness as the ultimate judge of his own feet and certainly as the ultimate guide to trimming.

It would be lovely if this horse had always lived in a perfect environment, with a perfect diet, had suffered no injuries and (of course) had never been shod. I would bet you any money that his feet would then look a lot different. However, we all have to make the best of what we have, and that is precisely what this horse is doing.

I salute him and I would not dream of interfering with his feet, except to provide him with the best diet and the most movement which I can and working the socks off him on the most varied terrain he is happy on. 

The whys and wherefores of less than perfect feet

Here is a quick piece of footage for you showing a horse with less than perfect feet. There is considerable deviated hoof wall on the medial aspect of both front feet, more so on the LF.

He is landing heel first but loading the lateral side of both front feet fractionally before the medial side. Its not as severe as the medio-lateral imbalances we see in many of the rehab horses when they arrive but nevertheless is is apparent in slow motion (it would not be to the naked eye).

Bearing in mind the medial deviation, his landing and the article I posted about last week, who'd like to hazard a guess about what is happening here? 

Answers on a postcard or as comments if its easier and there are more clues here which will be familiar to some of you :-)

Peter, interesting stances and feet which are bound to change...

New boy Peter arrived yesterday in bar shoes, with a navicular diagnosis and with an interesting stance which I certainly hope will change over the next few weeks. 

We saw several variations in his stance while I was taking the initial shots in his bar shoes, none of which were square - apparently this is characteristic and he is known never to stand square, though his worst foot is his RF.

This is his better front foot, although he also has issues behind - only time will tell if they are secondary or primary so lets keep everything crossed! 

The all important shots of his feet and bar shoes from the palmar/caudal view. Again, I'm hoping for big changes here though his medio-lateral balance on this foot isn't bad at all. 

Onto his worse foot - this is where we'd hope for the biggest changes over the next 3-4 weeks. On this foot he is landing toe first and laterally when viewed in front and its those landings which we want to see change while he is here.

 

Slightly more under-run than his LF and with a worse landing. 

This isn't a great photo but this foot is genuinely more distorted and lands on the lateral side much more obviously; the tell tale signs are there in the difference between the lateral and medial digital cushions from this angle. 

As always, not a lot to see with a bar shoe but I'll post unshod photos of Peter soon!