Charlie's progress

One of our current rehab horses is (confusingly) called Charlie, so as we also have our own Charlie, and the lovely rehab boy is about 17hh and a totally in proportion, we call him "Big Charlie" - not very original but it suits him ;-)

When he came he was landing and walking fairly well on the straight but was very uncomfortable on turns, particularly on a hard surface, and he had also become slightly short-striding. His turns have improved significantly over the last month and it was very encouraging that his owner, when she came down to see him this weekend, felt he had made progress too.

Interestingly, Big Charlie was one of those horses who initially improved once his farrier shod him in heart-bar shoes. They improved his landing and stride length, probably because they enabled him to load more centrally and reduced his toe-first landing, so all credit to his farrier for stopping the usual decline in soundness.

His owner reckons that he is now even better, and he is certainly moving more confidently every day, which is great news for his long term prospects.