Gemini's 4 week photo comparison

Gemini has now been here for a month so time for her update photos. She has already improved her landing as I posted earlier.

You can see from this angle that she has shortened her toe and that her heels are already less under-run. 

 

 Her sole shots are interesting, as she had apparently flat feet but with good collateral groove depth suggesting that her feet actually had better concavity than her flat sole suggested. 

Sure enough, the false sole has started to disappear and you can clearly see that she will have a very strong heel and frog once her foot has fully developed. 

From this angle her foot is also rebalancing and the medial distortion looks to be improving, which is confirmed by her better landing. 

More on Gem soon!

Everyone else may be sunbathing...

...but as well as all the normal yard jobs and exercising horses (and goodness, what a difference the sunshine has made!) there are fields to roll and liming and muck-spreading to be done.

I'm afraid the blog has to take a back seat this week - this incredible weather isn't going to last for ever!

Roger's 8 week circle footage

Roger has now been here for 8 weeks - time for an update!

I made the most of the sunshine yesterday to begin catching up on footage which I haven't been able to take in the previous stormy, wet weeks of this year.

For Roger, it was January when I last managed to film him on a circle and I was convinced he was moving better but it was nice to compare the films and make sure. Roger arrived with DDFT and check ligament damage and its nice to see him moving more comfortably.

I've included stills in this post (January is above and March below) and if you compare how he is stepping under with his LH, and the extension of his RF, you can see the improvement. 

However, its not really until you see him moving that you get a full impression of what has changed. 

Roger - circle footage from Nic Barker on Vimeo.

Seminar spells Spring

After a great weekend, when I went to Belfast to meet a fabulous group of horse owners and give a seminar on Saturday, I got home yesterday to find that Spring had properly sprung.

It was wonderful to see even the clipped horses out of their rugs in the sunshine and revelling in the lovely weather and we were very fortunate to have good weather in Belfast too on Saturday, which made assessing horses and talking about biomechanics and hooves all day much more comfortable. 

I have to give a huge thank you here to Helen Spence who asked me over in the first place and to Nola and Hilary who hosted us so welcomingly - along with their and Elaine's patient horses - and supplied us with limitless tea, cake and coffee. 

We talked about so many aspects of horses and hoofcare, from tracks to feed and hooves to tack, and it was  - just like the RRR - fantastic to get a like-minded group of owners together to share ideas, tips and advice. 

I hope to see you all again and, in the meantime, have a wonderful spring and summer with your horses!

PS: Its likely that I will be doing another seminar in April/May - probably in Hampshire.  I will put details up here as soon as we have ironed them out!

New horse Holly and the heel imbalance

New horse Holly arrived at the weekend and it was immediately clear why she has had soundness issues over the last year or so. 

From this angle you can clearly see that her LF (which has also been diagnosed on MRI with DDFT damage) has a medio lateral imbalance which has led to her landing on the lateral side of the foot. 

From the lateral aspect it doesn't look too bad - the ridge in the lower half of the hoof capsule arose when she was taken out of shoes some 6 months ago. Her feet have obviously been growing quite slowly as she hasn't been in work but on the plus side her hooves are less under-run and she has developed some palmar hoof strength. 

I'd love to upload photos of her RF but for some reason the Blogger server won't let me - it only likes her LF - so lets hope it overcomes that prejudice by the time I come to post her update...

The advantages of a never-shod hoof

I know quite a few regular blog readers have been intrigued by Gemini, who arrived here just over 2 weeks ago. Because she has never been shod its natural to assume she should have very healthy feet. 

That's true, as far as it goes, but a healthy foot doesn't mean a horse will never suffer injury. After all, athletes suffer injuries all the time but - here's the important thing - they will probably recover pretty quickly as well. 

This is exactly what has happened with Gemini. She has feet which are used to loading and working normally and which are basically robust.

However, despite everyone's best efforts her feet became unbalanced and she suffered an injury which prevented her from landing properly - her landing on arrival was toe first, as you can clearly see from the still taken from her initial footage.

But here's the difference between Gemini's feet and those of a horse who has been in shoes long term. Its only taken 2 weeks for her to start rebalancing her feet and landing heel first. 

These are also interesting comparison shots for those who think horses should be fine landing toe first. Compare the extension (what biomechanists would call the cranial phase of the stride) and stride length between her landing toe first and heel first - and feel free to show these to anyone who thinks that a toe-first landing really is ok ;-) 

Gemini from Nic Barker on Vimeo.

Easy like Sunday morning...

 After a busy night partying with the herd, Brigitte clearly had to catch up on her beauty sleep come Sunday morning...

...and as you can see, she has an admirer.... 

 All she needs now is a "Do Not Disturb" notice to hang on her door...