Yes, a horse can be IR from a young age. IR is a type of metabolism, not a disease. It is a survival mechanism that works well when rations are scarce and exercise is constant but becomes a liability of sorts with our modern horse keeping practices. Mineral imbalances and IR will impact the immune system; salt deficiencies can impact exercise tolerance and sweating; sub-clinical laminitis can look like exercise intolerance. Magnesium deficiencies can certainly bring on anhydrosis. Testing your hay and then tightly mineral balancing to the assay is the best way to make sure that all the nutritional support is there for optimal health. Will need one of the people who excel at the mineral balancing to take a look at the Feed XL data to see whether her diet is well balanced or not.

Laminitis IS inflammation - it is inflammation of the laminar tissues that connect the hoof capsule to the coffin bone. The soles appear to be have about the same thickness as they had a year ago. The angle the latest films were taken from is not a true lateral so it distorts the view of the sole and makes taking accurate measurements impossible. In both sets of xrays the toes are too long in the horizontal plane. This will automatically thin the soles because the sole gets pulled forward along with the toes, thinning it as it goes. The heels are run under, again being pulled by the run-away toes. The dishing in the dorsal walls confirms that the toes are too long and that there has been at least a mechanical issue for quite some time. Coffin bones are ground parallel, with the hoof-pastern axis slightly broken back. The under run heels are contributing to this. There is some flaring evident in  the walls on the sole shots.

Keeping a horse in SoftRides (or any boots) will NOT thin the sole - if anything, it has likely helped to keep it from getting worse by protecting it from abrasion from the ground.

I can do some mark-ups for you to give you an idea of where the trim needs to go. Would you be able to get pix of the back feet as well? That way, we can address all of them at once. Looking at the photos, it appears as if there is a lot of excess foot yet on xray there is barely enough to encase the bony column so it may be that there is some sinking - can't really tell due to the poor angle of the xrays and them not being marked. The squished-out-behind heel bulbs also points toward a possibility of the bony column sitting lower within the hoof capsule that is ideal.

Here is a link to determining body condition score:

http://iceryder.net/bodyconditionscore.html

She appear to be between 5-6 based on that photo but hard to really say without putting hands on her and no other views. Neck doesn't appear to be cresty now (good!). Most horses benefit from being at 4.5-5 as a general rule, so definitely wouldn't want to see her any heavier.

Lavinia, Dante, George Too and Peanut
Jan 05, RI
EC Support Team