Thursday 27 January 2011

You scratch my back...

Its always nice when new horses find a special friend, and Patsy found Ginger straight away.  He is such a kind soul, and a perfect gentleman and I just had a feeling that they would get on.  Often, I put new horses with Felix on day one, but Felix was hunting on Monday and actually I don't think any other horse would have suited Patsy quite so well!
 I would be very interested to know whether she has had other big chestnut friends or relations in the past, because you would think, looking at them, that they had been together for years.
I've started to introduce her to the other horses as well, but Ginger is definitely her favourite (and vice versa) - though she seems to think that he would be better off without a neck cover(!)...  
Ginger, meanwhile, had a difficult time during the bad weather we had - he hates the rain, just like the rest of us, and it was so relentless that it made him quite stiff and uncomfortable, which was a real shame as he had been doing well.  The arrival of sunshine, and then Patsy, have both had a beneficial effect on him, though, and I think he is now getting back on track.

His hooves, as you can see from the photo, are changing very encouragingly.  Following Wiola's idea, I have drawn a line (which you can see above) showing roughly where his hoof wall will be once it has fully grown in at the new angle.
I've also added these, and it was only when I put the lines on them that I realised how interesting they really are - thank you again Wiola :-)  The top photo is Ginger's LF when he arrived, the lower one is today.

On both photos I have connected the widest point of the frog with a red line and the heel buttress with a yellow line.  What a shift in hoof orientation!  Even though he has a long way to go, its a good start.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

OH glad the Lines Idea is being useful :) It's so much easier to follow what you are writing about now too! :)
I must remember to show you one photo - it's a drawing of a solar view of a hoof in a sort of horse-body-parts manual. It suppose to be showing how the foot looks like and what are the parts of it. The foot on that drawing doesn't look at all like a healthy foot should- in fact, it looks very much like Ginger's!

Nic Barker said...

I've learned to love lines :-) A brilliant tool, so thanks for introducing me to them!