Pocholo has been here for just under 3 weeks and Annette came to pay him a visit yesterday so it was a good chance to compare how his hooves are doing. He had been out of shoes a month before he arrived but had had a toe first landing for a long time.
He is not able to work on harder surfaces yet but has been working in hand and under saddle in the school and of course has also been out on the tracks with the others. His frogs and caudal hoof are improving, as you can see comparing the photos from day one and yesterday.
Pocholo wasn't MRI-ed, but it seems likely from the way his hooves are changing that his medio-lateral balance was also poor, particularly on his LF (which interestingly wasn't his lamest foot). However you can see on the video footage that his LF has not improved as much as his RF. Hooves never cease to surprise me.
Just looked at all my notes from all his massage treatments over the year or so I have been treating him. He was very often tight on his left shoulder, but even more so after the front shoes came off. When he was very sore (before he had few months off in the winter) both his shoulders were very tight. He always enjoyed deep work in the base of the neck/shoulder junction, so this clearly was an area of discomfort for him.
ReplyDeleteIn the winter when he was off work, I had made a note about his hooves. When I looked directly from front of him, the RF was longer on the inner side and the LF longer on the outer side. As if he was leaning.
Ah, brilliant Susanna - I'd forgotten that of course you'd be able to shed light on this...
ReplyDeleteThe RF is definitely the one that jumps out at you, but I just have a suspicion that the m/l balance will change more on the left.
He wouldn't be the first horse to come here who was lamer on his "better" leg, perhaps due to overloading it as you describe.