Rehab...what next?

One of the questions I am most often asked is how long horses need to stay here for rehab, and what happens when they go home. The answer, as with most questions about horses and hooves, is "it depends"...but I always recommend to owners who are interested in sending a horse to us that they must commit to the horse being here for 3-4 months.

My aim with every rehab horse is the same - to send it back home when its hooves are capable of a consistent level of exercise and able to work on a variety of surfaces, including 10-15 miles of roadwork per week. Usually this takes 3-4 months - some horses take less time, some take more - but no two horses respond in quite the same way.

When horses go home, its essential that they are kept in consistent work because after 3-4 months they will have grown at least half a new hoof capsule, but not a full one, so the following few months must be treated as a continuation of their rehabilitation. Its definitely the case though that once horses have grown half a good, well-connected hoof capsule and have established correct patterns of movement and landing, its relatively easy to carry on the good work.

Horses go home with a final report, for the owner and their vet, and detailed nutrition and exercise guidelines. Owners often have to make some changes to their management routine, but although they mostly find it nerve-wracking (at first) to take full responsibility for their horses' hooves at home, there is always help and support available and the satisfaction of seeing their horse's hooves improve seems to make up for all the hard work.

We interrupt this blog...

...to bring you a Red Ruby update...The handsome chap in the foreground is our new Devon bull - as far as the cows are concerned, its as if Tom Jones had arrived in person...

Project Dexter - eventing update!

Project Dexter is of course named after this horse, a now 11 year old TB called Dexter.

He was the first horse whom we included in the project, and this is him competing recently :-) He and Kelly are doing another one day event in a week or so!

Fantastic photo...

of Charlie, taken by Sam on a late summer evening a week or so ago...

Rehab - more than just taking the shoes off

One of the interesting things about the Project Dexter results is the range of therapies that have been tried out on the horses before they come to us. There are examples of most sorts of remedial farriery (wedges, imprints, bar shoes, pads, Natural Balance) and a whole panoply of drug therapies and supplements.

If you look at the results you'll notice that 2 of the horses (Dexter and Storm) had also been subjected to that new-fangled, ultra-wafty alternative therapy "barefoot" :-)

Now its true that very often just taking the shoes off a navicular horse will help its foot balance and allow for better engagement and stimulus for the caudal hoof, but its also true that simply taking the shoes off some horses like this will very often leave you with a sore horse who is unwilling to even walk around or has got himself into habitually bad patterns of movement. These are the sorts of horses where people say "I tried barefoot and it didn't work for my horse."

Turning an unhealthy hoof into a healthy hoof requires more than just taking the shoes off - it requires a holistic approach involving diet, environment and last but not least a sympathetic trim.

Wonderful Friday clip

Here is the short clip of Bailey, the newest arrival, filmed the day he arrived and then in the later clips exactly 2 weeks later. He already had a good, robust digital cushion when he arrived but was landing toe first and short-striding.

Apart from to film him, we don't ask him to go over hard surfaces much as he finds them a struggle, but its exciting to see him so ready to improve his footfall.

Just a quick update on technology, as well, to say that it all appears to be working finally so feel free to use the rockleyfarm email address again!

Double trouble

Normally the horses who come here for rehab are in shoes, and have been for some time. Its been very interesting by comparison to monitor Storm's progress, as he had been out of shoes for many months before he came to us.

Of course all the rehab horses (including Storm) are here because of specific injuries or pathology, and rehabilitating that is our primary aim. The problem is that we don't just have to do that, we have to do that as well as taking the horses out of shoes, and that adds in a whole new area of rehabilitation.

I'm aware that the effect that shoes have on horses feet is a deeply controversial area, and to be honest its not a discussion I want to get involved in here, not least because I don't think we really know, at the moment, the full details of the physiological effect shoes have on horses' feet. We can see that there is a tendency for heels to contract in shoes, but not always; I have a suspicion that stress shielding may be a problem for some horses or that nerve damage may sometimes happen, but there is a dearth of systematic research out there.

Its an interesting comparison, though - Storm had a severe DDFT injury and a pronounced toe-first landing when he arrived BUT his hooves were not reliant on shoes and he was comfortable, although not landing correctly, on tough surfaces from day one. By contrast, most horses very much rely on the pea gravel and other conformable surfaces to keep them comfortable for the first couple of weeks out of shoes. This doesn't stop them from making rapid progress and improving their landing equally quickly, but you feel that they are having to tackle 2 types of rehabilitation - their original injury plus re-adjusting to being out of shoes - rather than just one.