Hoof Trimming Pictures - Arabee's Hind Feet

Okay, so I trimmed Arabee's hind feet yesterday.

Took before, after, and during pictures!

This picture is of her left hind - The first thing I did was rasp both of the heels level with the sole from the bottom of the hoof. Then I turned her leg around (instead of out behind her so I can see the bottom, I pulled her leg in front and propped it up on the jack) and rasped from top. I rasped starting where I had stopped at the heel from underneath, then worked my way around to the toe. Here I have only done half of the hoof (except the heels have already been done on both sides). The scrapy lines you see around the frog on the sole are just from the hoof pick...I did not rasp her sole at all.


This is the "before" shot of the right hind sole, after I cleaned it out with the hoof pick.


Here is the after shot of the right hind sole. I followed the same procedure: heels level with sole, trim from the top one side, trim from the top the other side, make sure the mustang roll is smooth. (pardon the tail hairs in the way....it was windy!)

Here's the before shot of her left hind foot resting on the ground from the front. Arabee toes out in the back quite a bit.

And here is the after shot, of both her left hind from the front, and the right hind from the side angle view, makes it easier to see the way her conformation makes her toes point. I'm pretty pleased with the way this trim came out.

I've re-started walking with Arabee up and down the road, which has really helped give her work on hard ground, and has improved the concavity in her hooves. (I had stopped this practice when the pasture was finally dry enough and tall enough to allow turnout for Arabee but am glad to start it again) It's also going to keep me from gaining a bunch of weight!!! I want to measure out exactly how far I am going...my estimate is that Saturday we walked a little under 1.5 miles....but that's just a guess. We started at the barn, headed North to the 90 degree turn, came back, rounded the corner, passed the mailbox, and turned around at the bottom of the hill where the ditch goes under the road, then back down to the end of the barn lot, and back to the pasture for Arabee. I know that the barn lot is 1/10th of a mile one way...so we for sure did at least .2 miles on gravel, which I think will help with Arabee's feet wearing better on their own.

Shoo Fly!

So I want to know:

What do you all use for fly spray???

My experience with fly spray has been poor - usually horse flies ignore it, but it does help with the smaller flies that swarm around the face somewhat. I just have not been satisfied with any products I've used - do any of you guys have fly sprays that just always seem to work well??

My horses don't enjoy wearing fly masks. Jack ran through an electric fence wearing one (I guess he just didn't see it!), and Arabee just seems VERY spooky when she's wearing hers out on pasture. Seems as though wearing the mask diminishes the eye sight enough to put her "on edge" and I think she'd prefer shaking her head free of flies than being nervous about the stuff she thinks she can't see.

So I'm curious - does anyone have specific products they use that they swear by??

Today's Ride

Here are some pictures of the ride we had today. I decided that today will be my last ride for this pregnancy. Over the last week my belly has really "popped" out there big time, and I felt pretty off-balance. It's not often you see pictures of pregnant women riding horses, I thought they were funny!

I just wanted to get the pictures up...I'll write more tomorrow about what we actually did....and how Arabee was trotting off...kind of lame, actually. So bottom line is that it's a good thing for Arabee that tonight will be my last right until after Baby is born.

**Update**
Well, it was really no biggie what we did - I caught her, saddled up, and Matt and I were just going to go for a quiet walk down the road. Right away after I settled into the saddle I was just like, "Whoa! This big belly has got me off-balance!" and I already told Matt that this was going to have to be my last ride...I was just too much "off" to be well-balanced and safe much longer.

Arabee was super-super looky. So I told Matt I needed to trot her a bit to get her "fresh" off before we tried walking down the road again. There were calves now turned out in the pasture I'd used to ride in, so we had to keep to the barn lot driveway (gravel). After about 5 minutes of trotting, I started noticing her feeling "off" and then it was just obvious she was having problems when her head was gently bobbing (or was that just her mane flopping?.....it was pretty discreet, but it was still there) at the trot. Not good. So I asked Matt and his dad to tell me which leg it was. I suspected it was her injured RF, but they were having a REALLY hard time being able to tell me for sure. But that was the leg they settled on. Shoot!

It could've just been the gravel and she may have stepped wrong, since she was fine for the first 5 minutes or so. Since this was going to be our last ride though until probably December or January, I decided we'd go ahead and try the nice quiet walk down the road originally planned. She really wasn't any calmer, and was just really hooking her neck and blowing and looking all around and essentially "forgetting" all about me...so I hopped off and we called it quits.

Riding horses you really just have to forget about the risk of falling off and just RIDE.....but being as I am carrying a precious baby, my mind was pretty in-tune with the idea that falling off was not an option. So rather than ride all wishy-washy on a spooky horse, I felt that the best thing was to just hop off and play it safe. Kind of a disappointing way to "go out" for the year, with a spooky, inattentive mount and a lame horse, but that's the way it was!

I still have all kinds of plans for doing in-hand work with her for the rest of the summer, this won't be the last you hear from me by any means, but I just won't be riding! I'm actually pretty glad it working out this way, I should be able to allow her plenty of rest to allow that coronet band injury to grow out before I try serious riding again, she should become super-familiar with the local area I plan to handwalk her in this summer, and I should be able to perfect her barefoot trim, hopefully.

Tuesday's Ride

Okay, so I have to admit I have a great big grin on my face as I just typed the title to today's post. :-) I hadn't ridden since the 18th of April, and it was really good to ride yesterday.

It wasn't a great ride - Arabee was being sort of a turd. "What's that, you want me to pay attention to you?!" She has an independent mind, that's for sure! Walked for a few laps in the barn lot, trotted a few laps there as well, then wandered across the road to walk some calm laps in the pasture. Or, that was MY plan, anyway. It looked vastly different than the last time we'd ridden there - grass was knee-high, and once we stirred up a young rabbit! She kept breaking into a trot, and single-rein-stops weren't really changing her tune any. So I started circling her each time she tried trotting, focusing on keeping my seat deep and at a walking rhythm. I'd circle her until she slowed down, then we'd walk on, circle some more, walk on....finally she gave me one pretty much full lap of walking.

Headed back to the barn lot for some more trotting. I focused on being able to quickly get her to flick an ear to me, which meant we did some "fancy" work, since she was pretty well ignoring me. Trot, halt, back, 180, trot off.....various little exercises to remind her to pay attention to me! It payed off, she was relaxing and paying attention to me instead of looking out for herself, so we went back across the road into the pasture again, and got one nice lap of walking in. At this point we'd been riding for 35 minutes, and I had been aiming for 30, so I quit. If I get to ride again this week, I expect she'll be much more responsive after last night's session, since really I didn't work her hard, except that she made it hard for herself by trying to trot and then having to circle, or ignoring my polite requests for attention and having to do backing and turning.

I was surprised how sweaty she was when I hopped off! I put some water in a bucket and sponged her off, and wiped the tack down - She was wet and lathered! Also I discovered part of why she might have been fussing me in the pasture - the grass had been rubbing the cut on her RF leg, and it had fresh blood on it. I felt pretty awful for asking her to turn so much, since I'm sure that was what caused the fresh bleeding - she walks around all day on her own in the pasture, but not a lot of turning, so next ride I will avoid the grass until she is fully healed. But I'm glad I worked on the respect issues in the pasture, not the road, since if I can't ride in the grass, I'll have to ride on the road a bit more.

Can't wait to get back on and ride again! The end of May I will be 18 weeks pregnant, and the doctor only OK'd me to ride until 18-20 weeks, so I better get some riding in while I can!

Hoof Trimming

So this week's task was updating the barefoot trims on Jack and Arabee.

((WARNING: at the very bottom of this post is a picture of Arabee's injured hoof. So, if you don't want to see it, don't scroll down too far! There are 2 pictures of Jack, and 3 pictures of Arabee before the injured hoof shows up.))

Here is Jack's "Before" shot of his fronts from his right side taken on Thursday evening:

And shown here are his "after" shot taken on Sunday afternoon:
I've had Jack since he was 15 years old, he is now 29. He has ALWAYS had front feet that quite resemble a ski slope - long and flared toes. When we still lived with my parents, we went through quite a many farrier. He usually wore shoes during the summer show season, and went barefoot through the winter. He's not been ridden regularly since 2002, not been ridden at all since 2005, and although he always enjoyed going for a ride, just 5 minutes at a walk was all he could handle due to arthritis. Jack has been known to look long right after being trimmed, and was doing okay hoof-wise with the same farrier since 2005, but I've seen great improvement in his hoof shape since I started taking the rasp and doing his trimming last August.

This last time I really worked on backing up the toe, and hope to continue bringing his toes back gradually until he no longer has that "ski slope" look. I am also working on a long-time battle with thrush with him, which I think will improve now that we're able to have the horses on pasture and not in the "dry" (usually muddy all winter) lot. Improving his frog health should probably help his overall hoof shape gradually. I'm currently using a chemical that I bought at the local Tractor Supply Co., green, and I am interested in trying a more "natural" thrush remedy. Any suggestions??

I only have "after" photos of Arabee. I did her fronts on Saturday morning, and her rear feet Saturday afternoon. All pictures were taken on Sunday afternoon, after I hosed off her muddy feet, which is why her legs are wet looking.

This is her front feet taken from her left side:

I need to try to wait a week between trimming Jack and Arabee, since their feet are so different. I feel like I got way too carried away with the left front hoof at the toe, almost like I was still in the mindset of trimming Jack the Ski Slope. I felt awful after the trim with the LF, since I actually rasped so much wall away at the toe that she's almost totally walking on her sole for the front 1/4 to 1/3 of her hoof. But the longer I look at the pictures, the more I start to think that the LF is the more correct trim, perhaps not quite enough of a roll on the RF hoof. Maybe I didn't rasp quite enough on the RF because of over-doing it on the LF. She is sound, I longed her a bit right after the trim and I could not see any "off" movement. Any input on this??

The bottom of her right hind hoof:

Another shot of her front feet, showing the difference between the RF and LF:

The LF is resting on the sole for the front 1/4 to 1/3 of the hoof. The RF has some wall touching all the way around the hoof. Which is more correct? I am thinking perhaps somewhere in the middle.

She's lost some concavity in her hooves since her stall-rest and not being ridden. I hope to get on and ride some this week if the weather cooperates, and I might have found someone who will ride her a little this summer, Matt's cousin who's in high school, but I know she might get busy. Anyway, I hope her concavity returns with some work, either under saddle or in hand.


Okay, last warning! Next picture is of Arabee's injured RF hoof.

It shows me holding it up. At the top of the leg you can see some scabbing, that has nothing to do with the actual injury. I suspect it is scratches, unfortunately. Below the scabbing is the actual cut on her pastern, which went through the coronet band, and into the hoof about an inch. You can see the ring around the top of the hoof where it has started to grow out. At one point, her leg was so swollen and puffy that her hoof started to curl away from the coronet band, so it looks like it's starting to grow back well. I am still concerned about the part of the coronet band that actually got sliced through - I hope that hoof growth returns to normal there.

For now I have been trimming as usual, just restoring the mustang roll around the wall to the level of the sole. While her hoof is healing, is there any sort of trimming I should be doing differently?? Especially as the injured part grows down and out.

1st Saturday in May

Well, my two horses apparantly know what day it is today.

Usually when I open the gate to the pasture, they gallop out to the middle then give me a few strides of that big floating, tail over the back Arab trot, then stop to quite calmly eat grass after the initial burst of speed.

Not this morning!

They made not one, not two, but Three big, all-out galloping laps around the pasture, plus some of that pretty trotting, and plenty of snorting. Jack somehow managed to get out of the gate before Arabee, and I have never seen her run so fast, but she caught up with him, then lapped him.

I love getting to watch them move at liberty so freely like that! Such natural-born athletes, so talented and graceful!

Beautiful but Very Windy Days

It has been such wonderful weather for spending time outside! Sunny skies, warm spring air (in the 80s!) and plenty of breeze (or should I say gusting winds!) to keep from getting too hot.

Unfortunately, I haven't done ANY riding!

I am still allowed too, though. On Tuesday I went to the OB for a regular checkup (everything is normal!) and asked again about whether riding was safe, and for about how long could I keep doing it. He surprised me by saying it was fine until about 18-20 weeks! This is much longer than I expected to be "allowed" to ride by the Doctor, so I am pleased to hear his response. In reality, however, I know the only real risk in riding while pregnant is not in the riding, it's in the falling off, so I am being super careful not to take any extra risks.

And, for me and my horse, that means choosing not to saddle up on a really nice weather weekend, since wind tends to make normally in-animate objects unpredictable. So here's hoping the wind dies down some!

Arabee's cut still isn't completely healed yet, although it's looking much much better. I'm still concerned about how the slice through the coronet band is going to heal - it's too early to tell yet whether things will be normal again with that or not, but overall she is healing well. The paddock finally got dry enough all over to allow her 24 hour turnout again! This equals a MUCH happier horse! (and a happier stall-mucker who's now gladly w/out a job shoveling poop!) So if ever the wind stops blowing, I'll have plenty of places to ride, since the ground is dried up and her cut will stay clean.

Our ride at home Today

Matt and I rode Arabee today. I went first, then when he got tired of walking, he rode. We stayed on either gravel or the road to keep dirt out of her cut, and she did great, though we didn't ride very long at all. It probably took longer to tack up and untack than we spent riding!

I made sure to wear the shirt I was given for helping out at the Chicken Chase!

I decided Matt needs a bigger horse and a bigger saddle of his own! And his own helmet - he had to adjust the chin strap on mine. (I'm pretty sure he hasn't bought into the idea yet!)

I'm happy w/ the new saddle pad, though it does add a lot of bulk under the leg compared to the Skito. The saddle flap panel hangs over a little at the back, but not in a problematic way, it's just not as visually appealing, but no problem!

Arabee's cut is healing up very nicely, I think. Since Saturday morning she's been on grassy turnout during the day, then I bring her back in, hose the cut clean with cold water, then hand walk her until it's dry, then wrap her leg and put her in her stall overnight. I am SO grateful it's finally time to start turning the horses out on pasture! (and so are the horses!)

Chicken Chase I - Clark State Forest

Some photos from Friday of the 55 and 30 mile rides.

Will likely post more text later! Too nice outside to do more now!



**Monday morning update:



Arrived at ridecamp at 5:30am on Friday. Still dark, as evidenced by the photo of the closed gate. No activity, even though I had thought the ride was supposed to start at 5:30.



Turns out, the 55 miler started at 7am, and the 30 miler at 9am. Once people finally started moving around (a truck and trailer pulled up behind me and I was unfortunately blocking their path to get into ridecamp) I found the ride manager and introduced myself. We'd been communicating over email so I wasn't a surprise, and she put me to work finding out what riders were what number. There were I think 29 entered in the 55, and all but three riders were going to start at 7. The group of three was planning on going out after the main group.



They had a controlled start, where all riders had to stay behind the first horse until they crossed the road. Ridecamp is on the other side of the road from where the trail started, so rather than having crazy racing on the pavement, they had the controlled start. It was BEAUTIFUL watching the sun rise through the trees at ridecamp. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture to share.



All vet checks on Friday were to be away from camp, and I was sent along with a group of people who headed over there at around 7:30am. We unloaded crew bags and buckets of the riders who didn't have crews, and my job was to be the scribe for the vets. I mostly scribed for Maureen in the morning.



The first riders came in after the 20 mile first loop, horses totally wet with sweat and steaming a good 15 feet up into the cool morning air. I have to apologize to Maureen, since she had to put up with a learning scribe, but I like to think I caught on fairly quickly. (hopefully!)



I feel like I got the hang of what the hold looks like at a ride: ride in, get in-time, pulse down, get official pulse taken and start the hold time, vet through, take horse back with a cooler over the rump, water, water, hay, come back if vet noticed a concerning issue, tack up and saddle up just before hold is over, then alert the out person that you're leaving, and head off down the trail!



After the majority of the 55-ers came in, the first of the LD riders starting coming in. I believe there were 26 riders in the LD, they got letters instead of numbers. It got pretty hairy there for a while, lots of nervous horses milling around in the pulse area waiting to be vetted. I was glad when they finally filtered through since I was a bit nervous of taking a hoof or getting run down. But everything was fine. A pizza delivery person came and brought lunch for the ride workers, and that was a welcome treat! Around 1 or so, a group of people headed back to ridecamp where the finish line was for the LD, and I went with them, since LD is where I want to start with Arabee so I wanted to see what went on. Just before we left a group of 3 riders had come in too quickly to have finished the 2nd loop of trail - they had missed the Shaw and Wildlife loops and had to backtrack. So since they hadn't done the second hold yet, it was going to be a while before Maureen could leave the away vet check.'



We had a bit of a wait before any riders started coming in, so several people had chairs set up in front of the pulse in area and waited for the first riders to come back in. Mike was the vet at ridecamp, and who I scribed for the second half of the day.



The LD horses didn't get their finish time until they had pulsed down to 60 or below. Of the first group of two horses in, the first rider had a tough time getting her horse into the pulse area, made of step-in posts and yellow tape - he was pretty nervous about that tape fluttering in the wind, so unfortunately that caused her to lose the first place to the other horse (but I don't think she minded too much, but probably a little disappointing). This last picture has the first two horses in for the LD on the left side (not great, since you can only see their hind ends, but still, that is them!)



About the time the top ten LD finishers came in, one rider and her chestnut horse came slowly walking in horse in-hand. They'd had a wreck, but thankfully the rider was okay. I guess on some of the really steep uphills the saddle had started slipping and caused the horse to unseat his rider, and he went bounding down hill with his saddle upside down, and got some "rope" burns on his legs. They thought he'd be fine, but he was pretty sore. Disappointing for them, but the rider was genuinely concerned about her horse and was going to take great care of him it seemed.




About then the first of the 55 mile riders came in. The finish line for that ride was somewhere else down the trail, just out of sight of ridecamp. Someone sat at the finish line and took the times for the first 12 or so riders, and after that the finish times were taken in camp. For the 55 milers, their finish times are taken right away, they don't have to pulse down first, but they do have to within a certain time frame. So shortly after they got in they did go to the pulse takers and then vet in for completion. Because of the staggered ride times the 55 milers were being judged for BC about the same time as the LD horses and riders were coming in for completions, which made things somewhat confusing (for me) but I really enjoyed watching the process of Best Condition judging. Someday I want to be able to stand for the BC judging, but not for a while. I'll get some good completions on Arabee before I ever try to top 10, but the more thorough vet examination would be very valuable information. It was surprising to me to see many of the top 10 finishers turn down the BC judging - not sure the why's on that one, to me the more in-depth check you can get the better.




About when the BC judging was finished for the LDs, and wrapping up for the 55s, more riders were coming in for completions for both distances, plus people were wanting to vet their horses in for Saturday's ride. Not only that, but there was a horse who was tying up, and then later a horse was colicking and needed attention at its trailer. So it got pretty busy there for a while with only one vet at ridecamp, since Maureen was still out at the away check. Shortly after Mike came back from the colic, Maureen arrived, and Mike scored the BCs, and Maureen took over the vetting. Things started calming down, and both vets mainly vetted in the next day's horses, with an occassional completion coming in.




I had planned on staying until the end of the 55 mile ride, but that was when I thought it would be finished by around 6pm. I got a call from Matt around 7:15 wondering what my plans were, and I decided I'd better head home, with our little girl at home and home being about an hour away. I started saying goodbyes, wishing I could stay, but I was WORN OUT! I didn't do much but take notes all day, but still I was tired. I learned so much about the sport in one day that I hope to get to most of the rides in Indiana this summer to do more volunteering and learning and meeting people. I really appreciated all the people who went out of their way to talk to me and make me feel welcome, and I am very much looking forward to next April when hopefully I can come and compete on Arabee!




I walked down through ridecamp once to see if I could find Jacke and her horse - there were a LOT of trailers and horses there - it was jam-packed full. There were supposed to be 50 riders in the LD alone on Saturday - so a lot of people on the trail! I talked to Jacke for a while and it turned out she had all the help she needed for Saturday, so I headed back towards the car. I wasn't planning on coming back on Saturday, but since I knew there was a chance she'd have to crew alone on Phebes first ride I wanted to make sure. Got stopped by Cindy and she asked me if I learned anything - a resounding YES! Just can't wait to do it myself. It was a VERY GOOD THING that I did not try to take Arabee to this ride, even if she hadn't had the cut on her leg - I would have been clueless about what was going on. Now I feel like whenever I finally get to be able to compete that I will be much better prepared for the goings on and be a better guide for my horse.




I found myself really wishing I would have driven down again for just the LD on Saturday. There were quite a few people I actually knew for that ride, plus those I had just met the day before, but I was just beat after Friday. I can sure tell a difference in my energy levels with this pregnancy! Plus, this time all the vet checks were in camp, and so I wanted to see what that was like, but there will be other rides I can try to get to this season. My family had a wonderful day together at home on Saturday, working with the cows and then moving them out to pasture, and I cleaned Arabee's stall, and walked her, and then later on we rode (much fun!) then had a cookout just the three of us. Tried looking for mushrooms (morels) but it was too dry. Still fun walking in the woods and seeing all the wildflowers. A really great weekend overall!

Got My New Saddle Pad

My new saddle pad came in over the weekend. Back in February, I ordered a demo Skito pad from Trumbull Mtn. Saddle shop, since they are a dealer for both Skito and Toklat pads. I figured they’d be an unbiased source, and they suggested I try the demo before I purchased a pad.

I’m glad I did, because while I did find the Skito to have several very nice qualities, I had a hard time believing it was truly worth the price tag. I called them back and ordered a Toklat pad – a Coolback pad, based on their recommendations, and they said it would take about 3 weeks to get it from Toklat and then to me. Graciously, they allowed me to continue using the demo Skito until my new pad arrived.

I received a call last week saying that they received the pad, but that rather than being black, as I had requested, it came in as blue. Apparantly Toklat misread the abbreviated “BL.” She offered to either re-order the pad, or give me a discount on the blue pad. I went ahead and bought the blue pad, since after all blue is my favorite color (sky blue, although the pad is more of a royal blue), and I love a good discount!

It won’t clash too terribly with the 2 Jade green Renegade hoof boots I have, and maybe by the time I get ready to order a second pair the company will offer blue ones – it might be kinda fun to have the trotting diagonal pairs matching colors – Green on left front, right hind, and blue on right front, left hind. I plan on selling the used pair of Easyboot Epics I bought, since I do like the Renegade’s so well and I won’t be using them at all until next year anyway, I thought I’d let them find some usefulness somewhere else. So, if anyone is interested in a pair of size 0’s, just let me know!

I hope I do get to ride a few more times this summer. I’m afraid though that by the time Arabee’s healed enough to ride, I will be too big and pregnant to get on board! Arabee’s cut is looking worse, but even so I think it is healing well. Sometimes injuries start to look worse even though they are getting better. I just wish the ground was dry and I wouldn’t have to keep her in her stall to keep her wound clean – in addition to the swelling around the cut, all four legs are stocking up slightly, adding to the awful swelling around her coronet band. Poor girl. I’m going to give her a few minutes of hand walking pretty soon, then get her out again for a longer walk this evening to try to keep the swelling down to a minimum. Hope it’s not pouring down rain now like it was earlier!

**Update: I walked Arabee for about 10-15 minutes briskly, put a fresh pillow wrap on her leg, and it looks *much better* than it did last night. I didn't put any nitrofurazone/dexamethazone on last night, or today, and I think it was good to give her a break. Seems the oozy wetness of the ointment might have been irritating the surrounding skin. Her cut looks good, and is closing up well. Still open flesh, and still predicting rain, so it is hard to say when she can be turned out, but until then, things are improving!