Update

Haven't posted in a while again, so I thought I might mention that Arabee is going sound again (yay!) but the hole in the bottom of her sole has not yet closed up, so she still requires a bandage to keep the dirt out until it closes up. So she's still in her stall, and not too thrilled about it, either.

This beautiful fall weather has me just itching to ride! But, of course I won't be doing any of that for a while, anyway, between being very pregnant and Arabee's abscess.

I finally had to give up trimming hooves myself, and now Matt has taken over. So far, he's only trimmed Arabee, and Jack is going to get his hooves done tonight. All in all, he's done a great job, especially considering he barely knew how to pick out a horse's hooves, let alone handle them long enough to trim them! If he could just take the hoof off and trim it, he'd do great, as it is, Arabee is especially good at testing him with her hind feet, and let's face it - it's disconcerting for anyone, let alone a beginner, when a horse jerks their hind legs at you!

With all the stall rest, her walls were plenty long, and we did try using an electric grinder on the hoof. She handled the noise and vibration well, but there was just too much material to take off to use it for a whole trim. I may be able to take back over the trimming if I use the electric grinder about once/week - just a few passes over the hoof should keep things in pretty good shape at that frequency. It's just that bending over for any length of time is not my favorite thing to do, and our baby doesn't like it either judging by how often I get kicked in the ribs when I try!