Oh to be young...

Lucy has one big advantage over the other rehab horses - her age.  She is only a 4 year old, and unlike many TBs of the same age, has only been shod for a short time. 

Although the graduated bar shoes she arrived in hadn't improved her way of going, underneath them she still had very nice feet and, importantly, a reasonably good digital cushion and frog.  

With many of the horses who come here, rehab is a double job - not only rehab of the specific lameness or injury but also rehabilitating parts of the hoof which have not had to develop or work in shoes but which do need to function in a barefoot horse.   Add to that a big change in how the hoof is loaded, and its no wonder that horses who have been shod for some years can find coming out of shoes a shock to the system. 

 With Lucy, there are already big changes happening in her feet, and especially in medio-lateral balance (photos to follow but we ran out of time today), but in the meantime she has hooves which are used to being able to function without a shoe and its allowed her to make rapid progress.

Her owner came to visit today, and though I wouldn't normally expect a rehab horse to be working under saddle in less than 2 weeks, Lucy was ready for a short ride out and it was great to hear that Sam - like me - was delighted with how well Lucy was feeling!