I turned Rainbow out in the big field on Thursday afternoon and collected early on Friday. At the moment, I don't want to keep her grazing outings too long in case the hooves are still a bit tender and also for the high sugar content that daytime grass contains; causes footiness in horses. So they can become more sensitive in their soles, and while a shod horse doesn't show this a barefoot one does. I don't think Rainbow is very sensitive, but playing it safe at the mo... Anyway, she seemed to be fine and I walked her back in the stable.
Walking back, she was coping fine in the grassy ground and all the way until we got to the gravelly car park bit. She took a few limpy steps there, but didn't seem worse than before, so we just took it easy. Once we got to the concrete bit, where she should have been back to normal, the limpiness continued. I was a bit worried but thought that maybe there was a stone lodged in her sole. After parking her by her stable and having picked the feet, I was confident the limp would go, but then I noticed the bits missing from her left-front hoof:
I had been warned about this by the podiatrist, saying that for a couple of cycles the hooves will look a little rough, as the dead outer horn is filed away by being exposed to wear, having previously been protected by the shoe. With shoes the hoof loads peripherally whereas a normal, shoeless, hoof should load on the sole and the frog. So in a shod hoof the outer horn often grows proud of the sole, causing the hoof to load peripherally for a while until the hoof wears down to be level with the sole.
The old nail holes are the weak point in the outer hoof, which often 'tear off' first – but it's like our nails chipping, so rarely painful. And that's what's happened here. They looked a little dramatic to me, so I quickly photographed them and emailed to the podiatrist, just to check – and he assured me there was nothing to worry about and that the hooves would look a little rough at first. The rip isn't deep really, only from the outer hoof.
Then I moved R back in her stable and she was still limping a bit! It seemed to be the right-front foot, not this gashed one, so I was a little puzzled. Rainbow also seemed quite tired, which I mainly put down to having been in the field all night, so I decided to let her rest in her stable for a bit and come back to exercise her by lunging later on.
I also spoke to the podiatrist and he said to keep doing what I am doing and the limping is most likely just sensitivity, and if I can avoid the car park a bit, then do that but she should be fine to exercise in the sand school and arena as normal. And surely enough when I got back in the afternoon she wasn't limping anymore and was moving OK in the lunge. I did notice a bit of stiffness in the shoulders and stride but it wasn't awful. I didn't push R too much but did do a few rounds with the side reins on as well. I think she's improving in her movement too – not because of not having the shoes – but I think she's started to develop her back muscles and neck more too. I just need to get her to really engage her quarters next. But these next few weeks are just going to be dedicated for standard exercise, to build up hoof strength and to make sure R makes a smooth transition. Normal horse life that is.
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