Josh's 3 week update

Josh has been here about 3 weeks so time for a quick update. Apologies for the mud, which I had mostly washed off but some escaped me - our one dry, frosty day was sadly a one-hit wonder and we are back to mild and wet again...

The clearest change so far is in the back of the foot, which is good as thats the area we are trying to strengthen. If you compare the hairline from today to when he first arrived you can see that its more level, with more bulk at the back of the foot. Small changes but good to see. 

Not a lot to see here - if I had done a better job with the mud you could compare hairlines from this angle too but I failed, unfortunately. I did a bit better with the left foot, so have a look at that instead!

Again, apologies for the mud which makes it hard to see what is going on. If you look at where the heels are in relation to the frog you can see that the foot is becoming less under-run; the frog is doing more work too but its not the best photo. 

These photos give a clearer idea of what I mean - again, the easiest place to see the changes is at the hairline, which is less contracted in the lower, more recent photo. 

Although you can see changes from the hairline, they are less clear at ground level although the frog is slightly less contracted today than it was. 

Once more the hairline is the place to look but its good to also see the old nail holes nearly grown out. More on Josh, including his landing footage, when I have a pair of helping hands next week!

We interrupt this blog...

...to bring you a hound puppy fix...

We couldn't walk hound puppies this winter but yesterday Edward, Catherine and Victoria brought our surrogate hound puppies over - Andy and I are their godparents!

 Meet Rockley...

 ...and Rowan!

 Smart as paint :-)

Another new horse - Minty's first post

Minty arrived this week, in front shoes and with a mystery lameness which makes an exciting change! As you can see, his feet are long and have some growth rings which typically indicate a nutritional or metabolic challenge.

There is lots of false sole on both fronts - long bars and deep collateral grooves are a hint, plus the chalky, cracking sole, and its a dead giveaway that these are feet which will look a lot shorter very soon. No need to trim, even though its tempting, as the sole will wear away naturally over the next few days on the tracks without any need for dramatic intervention. Minty will be more comfortable doing this in his own time in any case.

As you can see, the shoes are twisting and not wearing evenly which gives a clue that there is a medio-lateral imbalance on these feet. Sure enough on video he is landing on the lateral edge on this foot.

Same story on the right foot though this has better medio-lateral balance. Its a weak palmar hoof, though, and Minty can only just about manage a flat landing rather than being consistently heel first.

Better medio-lateral balance, as you can see, but a frog which is desperate for some stimulus - time to get those shoes off!

Lameness and landing change

I've got more new rehab horses to post about this week but first I wanted to talk about a couple of contrasting photos which I have lifted from video footage of Darcy.

Darcy arrived here about 7 weeks ago and is a good example of the fact that how a hoof looks can't always tell you much about how well it is functioning. I could point you to a dozen horses with apparently worse looking feet who were nevertheless far sounder than he was.

Darcy had feet which didn't look bad at all, with a palmar hoof, frog and digital cushion that looked well developed, as he had spent most of his life barefoot. 

Despite this, he was definitely one of the lamest horses on arrival, graded at 6/10 lame by his vet and with a visible unlevelness even in walk.

Edited to add: Darcy was about 1-2/10 lame when he had an MRI which showed navicular bone bruising and related soft tissue damage (impar ligament and DDFT). He was remedially shod and his lameness worsened to 6/10 lame; this lameness persisted when the shoes were removed and at this point he came to us. 

Although his feet looked strong enough, there was definitely something wrong has his landing was clearly toe first and he struggled on turns. 

Darcy is still far from being fully sound but in his last piece of footage, taken a week ago, there are signs of improvement which are encouraging to see. Its all about movement, after all. 

Finnick's first photos

Another day, another new horse, this time an Irish sports horse called Finnick. I'm behind with uploading footage but he is landing flat and intermittently flips to a toe first landing on his LF.

To my eyes he has a medio-lateral imbalance which is borne out when you look at the caudal hoof but its not a terrible foot by any means.

Finnick is only 7 years old and was bought to event but has been diagnosed on MRI with pedal osteitis and navicular damage. He came out of shoes while his owner was waiting for him to come down here.

His age and the fact that his feet are reasonably strong and well developed are in his favour and it will be interesting to see how his feet rebalance during the course of his rehab.

Apologies for the blurred shots - Finnick is a charming boy but a fidget when it comes to hoof photos, and poor January light is also unhelpful...

Norman's first day photos

Norman is our next new arrival and unlike Josh arrived in shoes. As ever with bar shoes, you are left to guess what the frog underneath is really like but I will post "naked" photos of his feet soon.

Like Josh, Norman has been diagnosed on MRI with DDFT damage to the LF and also like Josh, remedial farriery had not resulted in an improvement in his lameness so now its up to us to see what we can do - no pressure then! 

 From this angle though there is an interesting twist in the shoe which I suspect was not there when it was put on but as hooves grow and shoes don't, mismatches are quite common a few weeks after shoeing.

There is quite a shunt in the hairline on this foot, although I accept that the camera angle and lack of light don't help - taking photo and video at this time of year is the bane of my life to be honest. 

On this foot the medio-lateral balance when he walks is much better and its probably this which has left this shoe much straighter than the LF. Overall not a bad heel and digital cushion and Norman was landing heel first in his bar shoes so we will see what the next few weeks hold.

New Year, new horses...

The New Year is already a week old and I am already behind on the updates for new horses, as we are steadily filling up at Rockley. These feet belong to Josh, who arrived last week. As you might guess from his hooves, he is an ex-racehorse who has been diagnosed with DDFT damage.

This is his better foot but both are weak, relatively flat and under-run. Although Josh arrived without front shoes he only lost them a few days before and he had previously had remedial farriery which hadn't solved his lameness problems. 

This is his worse foot - ironically it looks less under-run than the right foot from this angle, which just goes to show that appearances can be deceptive!

However from this angle the contracted heels are clear and you can also see the collapse in the digital cushion which is typical of a horse with palmar hoof pain, as well as being common in ex-racehorses. 

You see worse feet all the time so I am hopeful that Josh will look a lot tougher in a few weeks time.