Tuesday 14 January 2020

Smarty's week 1 post

                                
Our second horse is Smarty who arrived on Monday. He is an 11 year old show-jumper who has a history of low grade RF lameness over a period of about 3 years with a possibly related bilateral hind limb restrictions. 

His owner, who is a vet, has already put in some great work since his shoes came off, with Steve Leigh's support, and it is to their credit that Smarty arrived with a much improved landing - now heel first all round. 

As you can he has a decent hoof capsule already with good support around the back of the hoof.
                                
From this angle you can see a good digital cushion giving plenty of support; hopefully we should see progress quite quickly.
Looking at his sole of his foot he has good frogs already but these are feet which are changing as you can see from the white line stretch.

Despite the RF being his weaker foot he has fairly similar left and right feet which is a good sign, given his history, that he may now be loading more evenly. 

This is a pretty good heel but he still has a way to go before the frog and digital cushions are as strong as they can be. His landing is a great starting point and should help his palmar hoof continue to develop. 

The sole of his hoof looks as if it has reasonably good depth (looking at the collateral grooves) and he has fairly good medio-lateral balance but I (and I suspect Steve!) would not be surprised if he developed more asymmetrical feet at least in the short term. 

Smarty's footage is here: https://vimeo.com/384796637

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