Monday 18 April 2011

Rapidly changing hooves - Lucy's update

Lucy has been on a mission almost from the day she arrived, and its really showing in her hooves.  Unlike most horses, she was capable of lots of work on challenging surfaces from a very early stage and as a result her hooves - in 6 weeks - are showing the sort of development that often takes a lot longer. 
Here is her LF foot the day she arrived, straight after her shoes had been removed. Not a bad foot, with a reasonable frog.
This is the same foot after 6 weeks, demonstrating how much the caudal hoof can develop once its worked correctly.  It helps of course that she is a young horse, but its mileage and surfaces that have made the biggest improvement in these feet. 
Apologies for the odd angle, but here is the same foot from the lateral aspect....in her bar shoe, 
...out of shoes on day one...
...and today. 
The lines show the likely angle change, once the whole hoof capsule has grown in.  The toe will be shorter but the heel will also become more robust.  Although the HPA doesn't look right at the moment, it will in fact be correct once the hoof wall angles are consistent.

2 comments:

smazourek said...

Wow, her feet grow really fast!

jenj said...

As always, the change is impressive. Go Lucy!