Foot balance, body balance

Of course hooves affect the body above, but it never ceases to amaze me what far-reaching changes can be caused by hooves being only (you would have thought) slightly off balance. 

Wiola put this fascinating photo of Kingsley up on her blog last week.   Its a brilliant illustration of how hooves change and how dramatically hoof form can affect the balance of the whole body.  

The photo from this angle makes it a particularly clear how far out of true his RF is - and its this foot which has caused him the most problems.  Of course, the more "good" foot he has underneath him, the stronger and more capable he is becoming through his back, hindquarters and the rest of his body.   Once  he has nothing but "good" foot on the ground, who knows what he will be capable of :-)

And looking at the same issue from the back down, rather than the feet up, Lucy is another really good example of how even mild imbalance can prevent a horse from using themselves as well as they could.   I posted pictures of her feet and stance here, and below is her shortly after she arrived. 

She had very weak hindquarters, although her front limb problems appeared relatively minor and to her owner's credit, her lameness had been caught at a very early stage and she was much sounder than many horses who come here. 

Unlike Kingsley, she had very little new hoof growth when the second photo was taken (3 weeks after the first), but she seemed to already have started using herself better and building muscle. 

...and here she is today, a month on and better again, I think.