Better late then never, right? There is never a good excuse, but my husband and I recently closed escrow on our first house. So... trying to prioritize. On that note I have been riding! And with none other then Lady as my mount. There is no evidence of her mysterious front end lameness. I really need to get the details of her symptoms out there there in hopes that others may recover from the same issues.
We tried Lady out in pasture but ended up putting her back in her paddock. The pasture she was in had a decent amount of standing water and she had taken to lounging around in it. I think she was spending enough time in it to keep her soles wet and make her uncomfortable on hard ground. By the end of October she was not doing better and I decided to take her to a local equine hospital for a second opinion. Around that time the barn manager mentioned he was thinking of seeing if my friend would want to put her gelding out in a large grass paddock with our trainer's lesson horse. On the way up to watch a horse show I could not stop thinking about trying Lady out there. There was not standing water and it seemed to stay dryer then other paddocks. We did decide to give it a try, and thank goodness! Lady and the gelding got along great. Her hooves started to improve as soon as she was out moving around. Needless to say she did so well I cancelled the appointment.
So back under saddle we went. She was so fresh that I could not start her back as slow as I had planned. Fellow boarders were asking who I was riding and they could not believe it was Lady ( I imagine a large portion was due to her incredibly thick winter coat since we are going blanket-less for the first time in 7 years). Around 6 weeks ago our trimmer commented that she could not believe how dramatically her hind feet were improving. She had to take quite a bit off even at 4 weeks. Side note - the trick with Lady seems to be frequent mellow trims. She seems very sensitive to changes in her hooves. One night I lunged her in side reins and did not use her hoof boots. Lady was moving so good that I jumped on her bareback and rode her around the property, bootless! We have been doing arena work completely barefoot ever since. We had three lessons this month and she just keeps improving. I did try a new DVM for some adjusting and acupuncture. That really did the trick as she is now relaxing into the bridle much easier.
Yesterday we had a nice trail ride (in our Renegades of course) and trotted and cantered a bit, just like the good old days. There are no words to describe it, I never thought we would be out there again. I truly believe we owe it all to loosing the shoes and putting her out on grass. My dream of a hunter pace or two this year no longer seems too far from reach..............
