I had a lovely email yesterday from the owner of one of the earliest horses (other than our own) that we ever rehabbed - a hunter mare from south Wales who was diagnosed with navicular some years ago.
She came here well before the days of Project Dexter, and so although I have paper records of her, I don't have video footage, but that doesn't stop us remembering her with great affection as she was a cracking little mare and adored by her whole family. She wasn't in the first flush of youth when she arrived, either, but went home and is clearly still going strong and stomping over rocks to this day :-)
When I hear about the progress of horses like her and then look at Ghost (another navicular horse, who is now 25 and who today let himself out of the barn and jumped up a 4 foot bank to stuff his face with grass then down it again onto the concrete when I came out and shouted at him...!), I wonder how much we have under-estimated these horses.
Most of the rehabs we see are 10 yrs old or younger, but to be honest the older horse are even more fun - they just seem to seize the day once they have comfortable hooves and its pretty tough keeping up with them from then on....
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