This is going to be confusing...

A new rehab arrived yesterday - lovely chap who has come from Wiltshire and looks as if he will settle right in. So what's the confusion? Well, he is called Felix (in my mind Felix=15.2hh, dark bay, white stripe, runs the place) but he looks like Dexter - really, very like Dexter - same size, same colour, same type, same outrageous punk-orange mane - I've already done a few double takes as he wandered round the tracks this afternoon...

More on that in due course, but meanwhile here are his feet. He has a diagnosis on MRI of moderate navicular bone degeneration and impar ligament damage which left him bilaterally lame in front (worse on his RF where he was 3-5/10 lame at his worst).

The remedial shoes he arrived with have given him an exaggerated heel first landing and improved his soundness for a few weeks but he went lame again earlier last week.

The most obvious warning sign from this angle is the hairline dropping down at the back of his foot. He still has wedges on but despite that you can see that the palmar hoof is collapsing and quite under-run.

Looking beyond the shoe and wedge, you can see that the hoof wall is longer on the medial side than it is laterally. it will be interesting to see how that changes. 

One of the frustrating things about wedges is how much of the foot it obscures. I'll try to get some photos of him out of shoes later today.

Although he is lamer on his RF this is a bilateral problem and the same issues are evident in his LF though the hairline is better. 

The other way round this time, with a longer lateral than medial wall and a split central sulcus, never nice to see. 

Better balance on this foot, I would say, though both feet show a medio-lateral imbalance on x-ray.

More on Felix soon...