silk wrote:[
Abby, you have a wonderful point of view and a great way of writing it.
I think without specific bodywork/biomechanic influences and support I would have stopped in my barefoot tracks in the early days. I had a difficult horse to take bare. However, I have a whole raft of strategies available now that I did not know about then so these days, it would be much easier with the same horse/ hoof situation, and I believe my clients benefit from that.
Aw, thanks!
I always think of the blind men and the elephant parable. You cant fix things in a vacuum. Sure, doing body work will help. But if the rider is contributing to the issues then the problems will continue. Sure, you can fix the rider, but if the horse has movement patterns that are deleterious then the rider will always be fighting them. Sure, you can fix the feet, but if you don't address the horse/rider bodies then you are still going to have things going on.
That said, of the three factors that contribute to harmonious work with horses, feet might be the most important one. A horse forced to work on unbalanced feet (and I am NOT referring to the OP or making any assumptions regarding her horse or his feet) is a recipe for disaster. So many of the endless suspensory issues, tendon and ligament issues, training issues, back issues, SI issues can be traced back to hoof imbalance and foot pain issues. Add the type of work so many do and to me its a wonder *any* horse stays sound >;->
Horses feet are dynamic. I have had Weltmann for over two years now. He is a huge now 18 yr old US Hano who was shown on the line, showed to 4th, and when he was 9 or 10 was bilaterally nerved due to 'heel pain' or "navicular". He also has ringbone, had fasciotomies behind...the poor guy had been cobbled together for years. His feet were expensively shod by a popular high end farrier. They had long standing toe cracks and he had side clips. Because lots of front end movement is popular these days most of the elite farriers in the area go for that saddlebred looking foot, and Weltmann was no exception. I pulled his shoes. The toe cracks are gone, and while his ringbone is visible is does not bother him. As his feet continue to change and widen (he had very contracted overly long heels with deep deep sulcus cracks, deep collateral grooves) he will periodically go lame. It has happened twice in the time that I had him...there will be some big expansion of the heels, and he will be mildly lame. I pack him with Magic Cushion and wait and give him the recommended does of Equioxx, and it resolves. And his feet are getting so beautiful. His frogs have opened up and his bars are flattening and the cracks have been gone for a long time. The whole process would have gone faster but I was down with my tendon surgeries for so long that I couldn't do him regularly. We are back to normal now. He looks great. Well, he is a hairy muddy mess but he moves great.
My point is that there may be periods of unsoundness when barefoot or while growing a healthier foot. BUT there are periods of unsoundness with shoes when dealing with pathologies. Health can take time. Growing the heels out on the OPs horse and working toward a healthier hoof is important. Panicing over a transient issue is unnecessary and I wish she would give it time.
Tsavo wrote that her horse trotted and cantered to her in the pasture now that he was barefoot. He used to walk, she wrote. To me, that means *he feels better barefoot*. She loves him, she doesn't want him to be in pain, but I wish she could see the bigger picture of hoof health and how allowing his hoof capsule and tubules to grow in a more correct way will be *better* for his ringbone, rather than just going for the quick fix. I can promise that this will not be the end of this story.
