Karen’s Musings & Endurance Ride Stuff

Here are a few photos of my horse Pro Bono’s hooves.  I have been riding him every single day on the trail for an hour or more barefoot.  I’ve been really happy with how well his feet have toughened up.  He walked across the wet lawn when we got back from our ride tonight, so the photos aren’t as good as they could be if the hooves had been totally dry.

When Bo had boots glued on in May he developed sensitive feet from getting thrush.  It wasn’t the kind of thrush that you could see.  Or smell.  It was the sneaky kind – that starts out with your horse doing subtle head dips and flinches when going over rocky or uneven terrain, when they didn’t before.  Not a lot, maybe once in an hour…like I said it starts out real subtle.  I was glad that it didn’t get bad enough to cause toe-first landings.

I think that Bo is more prone to thrush than my other horses so I’ll pay more attention to this in the future with him.  At least it was easy to treat.  I cleaned up his frog, soaked his feet with apple cider vinegar and squirted athlete’s foot creme into the frog sulcus (from the $1 store).  Cleared it up really fast.  Plus, riding him barefoot and keeping his feet cleaned daily helped too.

After Bo injured his left front leg in May, the vet put me on a rehab schedule where I immediately began riding him at a walk every day for a half an hour.  Initially Bo would flinch at a walk whenever he hit a rock on the back of his foot.  So to begin with we avoided rocks and stayed on flat good footing for our daily excursions.  As each week went by we were able to add additional trail time and started going over more varied terrain without Bo flinching.  It really didn’t take long at all for Bo to get his feet toughened back up again.

For the last month we have been up to over an hour trail ride a day with about 30 to 40 minutes of that being at a trot.  Bo now is trotting solidly over rocks and any kind of footing without flinching!  I have purposely left his feet alone to see how they would wear.  I have used a rasp to smooth any uneven edges or chips as he still doesn’t have the strongest hoof quality.

You can see in the photos that Bo doesn’t keep a real obvious mustang roll.  Chief never has either.  I don’t know if it is the abrasiveness of the dirt where they live or what, but you can put a roll on those horses and in a week it’s mostly gone.  I can keep more of a roll if I ride through a lot of sand, though for now I’m not doing a lot of sand work with Bo – we are trotting a lot every day but staying on more firm ground.

I think Bo is probably already healed up 100% but am waiting to get the vet to check him before his next ride.  He’s either okay or not and has not had any setbacks or taken a single lame step on the injured leg.  So I will keep with the daily rehab until the vet appointment next month.  It’s good for us to get out there and work on transitions, leg yields, stopping, listening and being calm at a walk and trot going out and coming home and just getting to know each other more.

I’ve been appreciating the warmer temperatures when we are on our rides.  That and we are going uphill for the first couple of miles trotting almost the entire way.  That helps keep the “edge” off of Bo and allows me to do a nice easy trot without him wanting to go faster.  When we first started trotting it felt like I was trying to get a kangaroo…on a trampoline…on speed….to do a smooth easy slow trot!  Yeeehaw!

Some days I pony one horse while riding a different one– that way they are all getting out.  I like to pony one even if it is “a handful” because it gives me a chance to see the other horse move on the trail.  Chief’s ride schedule has admittedly been cut back due to his eye injury.

I think it is good when my horses can to do several trail miles a week consistently barefoot to keep their feet tough and help them to self-wear.  Chief usually has the most toe-callous built up.  Though you can see in these photos that Bo is getting more callous than he used to have.  I’m much more comfortable riding it off than taking it off another way!  I’ll get some photos of Chief’s feet tomorrow.  It got dark tonight and I ran out of time.

Like everybody else, I’m always wondering if my horses feet are in the best shape and condition that they could be.  What else could be done to make them healthier or perform better?  I have really liked seeing the changes in Bo’s hooves from riding him 30+ barefoot miles every week.  Most especially I am excited about the toughness and soundness that they have.  Feel free to leave comments or email me if you have any suggestions on what could be done to make improvements or even to point out things that look right – I’m always interested in hearing what others think.

I may use the angle grinder on Bo’s hooves tomorrow and smooth some edges, take some heel off on the fronts and make sure everything is nice and even.  Since Bo hasn’t really had much done for nearly two months I’m happy with how things look and will get more photos tomorrow.  It will be interesting to compare in a few months and see the progress.

Tonight I used the grinder a bit on Chief just to smooth some things out and had Dave measure the hoof surface temperatures to see how hot the hoof got from the grinder.  Bottom of foot: 91 or 92 degrees before doing anything, and 98 degrees after I’d run the grinder in one spot for an extended period.  We were working in the shade and it was maybe 80 degrees.  I don’t think that heat from the grinder is anything to worry about being that ground temps in the sun often get over 130 or 140 in the summer here.  I am being careful not to run the grinder for any extended periods in the same area though.  I really like the nice smooth finish that you get with the grinder.

btw – if you want to compare these hoof photos to some of two horses with bad trims that were done two weeks before the photos were taken (from a farrier), check out this photo album of mine on Facebook.  Actually, it’s not that it’s a bad trim just that it doesn’t really qualify as one! (ha)  There are a couple of photos of one of the horses hooves from a year or more ago which show a nice foot – it’s the other ones that are….well….there are no words to describe it.  Just go look.

You can also search through my blog and find more photos of my horses hooves – I’ll make an effort to keep adding more including some showing how things look after the horses have been trimmed with the angle grinder.  Oh – btw – I have a couple more things to add to the safety list when using one – a dust mask, and some form of hearing protection.

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