Cool Feet!

What can I say? I'm ecstatic.

A week ago I noticed the heat disappearing from Sonny's fronts in particular & to a lesser extent in his hinds.

5days go I let them into a new paddock as per my usual paddock rotation, whereupon the 3 horses proceeded to gallop & cavort for a good 10mins. Sonny galloped the hardest I've seen in a long time.

My heart was in my mouth as every previous time he has cavorted, he ended up with really sore feet again & sometimes abscesses. But this time it was different because I already knew his feet were cool. So I allowed the exercise.

I waited 2days to see if his feet stayed cool & yes indeed they have done. So yesterday I trimmed him again. He is still sore when asked to turn a tight corner or otherwise use the sides of his feet.

The capsules are quite short now, the heels are still wanting to run under but I think it might take a little time for changes to be noticed there as  result of the toe being much shorter & dorsal wall more upright. Actually rather than the heels being run under they are just still too far under the foot.

I'm hoping to begin seeing heel changes in the next few weeks now that the toe shouldn't be dragging them forward anymore.

3 interesting things I noticed this last week:-

1. The RF medial quarter wall is very weak & breaks away easily which in effect disconnects the toe from the heel so the toe can't drag the heel forward. That medial heel is now growing at a straighter angle. So I am experimenting with applying a stronger relief to the lateral quarter to see if the same thing might happen to that heel.

2. A sole callous or toe callous has developed right behind the toe wall. I am leaving it for now as best I can because it arrived right when I noticed the heat go from the feet & it is clear it is lifting the sole off the ground a little. So I am leaving a tiny bit more heel height to keep the angle of sole plane right. Otherwise the toe would end up jacked up with more sole under it & the heels still flat. That might cause a negative palmer angle. I've included a couple of photos of that callous.

If I see it begin to push the toe forward I'll rasp it off. Previously it has caused the toes to push forward but now with a steeper dorsal wall perhaps the callous will do it's correct job of lifting the sole off the ground instead.

3. A week ago I started my horses on a new mineral supplement & already I can see changes. I am wondering if these cool feet are part of that change. As per the vets instructions I am giving Sonny twice the dose for first 3wks then reducing it back to normal dose after 6wks.


Apart from that all my horses are in the throws of shedding old soles. With Sonny's thin soles I have not tried to remove the old sole. We will get rain eventually & the old sole will soften by itself. In the meantime it affords him extra sole thickness & protection.

Next trim I expect I can shorten the heels a tiny bit, particularly if I start seeing a growth change in their position in relation to the foot.


So here are the collages I made;-

All in all I'm very happy with progress. The thing that would make me even happier was if he stopped being sore on the sides of his feet as that would indicate to me that riding might be around the corner again.  Yippee!!


Here are the 2 photos showing the toe callous.

.