Feets!

So one of the joys of coming home was getting my old farrier to shoe my fat little spanish horse.  After being to the vets and finding her joints all look pristine and her bones are good, it was nice going forward knowing that whatever discomfort she was in was coming from dynamic changes and unbalance and not permanent changes.

I was very interested to see what my farrier had to say. I think her current job is more a reflection of the difficulty of shoeing her correctly more than the skill of the farrier. Anyway, apparently the fashion in sport horse shoeing at the moment is big quarter clips on the side feet and the shoe set back from the toe. The setback toe reduces their ability to grab with the toe when climbing hills and the like, and the big quarter clips reduce the ability of a horses foot to expand and contract and cushion the concussion of movement. Connie especially with her upright foot which wouldn't have the same shock absorbtion was sorer on that side.

She has been reshod in the much lighter shoe with toe clips, and so far she feels like she is really improving much more rapidly than the vets expected. They said 6-8 weeks but I think she will be back much sooner than that, based on how she feels and how much forward thinking she has gotten.