sand_gail wrote:

All hoof guru's, please take a look at the new photos posted and give me your comments/advice. These are befor trim/after trim in chronoligical order. The good news is Buddys is no longer sore. Is it okay to start riding him now based on the xrays? Thank you.

http://pets.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/ECHoof/photos/browse/dcb3

Gail -

The xrays look GREAT - very good progress for sure, but there are two things ...

1) We really can't make ride/don't ride judgements based only on xrays. We can see the bony column alignment, but the fragile attachments inside the foot are not visible on xrays. I would need to see pictures of the feet to see where the growth markers are on the outside in order to gauge progress of his hoof function. Just because his coffin bone is now parallel to the outside of his foot does not mean he's "derotated". The outside of the wall has been trimmed to match the bone, but nothing INSIDE has changed.

2) If this were a rehab horse in my care, I would tell the owner that NOW that his feet are realigned, we can begin counting one year from THIS date before he should be ridden. That of course is based only on the xrays I've seen and without any knowledge of anything else about Buddy ... In February, he was significantly rotated. That's still growing out.

I'm sure this comes as bad news. THIS - this ridiculous, slow, long recuperation process - is why we prefer to avoid rotation in the first place! I am frustrated on a daily basis by trimming & consulting clients (and worse yet, my FRIENDS!) who are in denial about the precarious state of their horses' feet, and I fear for them if their horses ever are pushed over the edge into laminitis, because I'm certain that rotation is right around the corner.

-Abby



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Abby Bloxsom
www.advantedgeconsulting.com