Found a farrier!…..and my motivation!
| January 3, 2012 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
I officially LOVE my new farrier. He’s soft with the horse, and said all the right things – the importance of not taking away too much sole (only to the dirt line), the importance of the bevel, the function of the quarter, of leaving frog etc. He explained everything he was doing, wants me to maintain the hoof between visits and will teach me all I want to know – and I can go on ride alongs with him if I would like. Told me to call him anytime with questions, no matter how trivial they may be.
He didn’t take a lot off of Farley’s feet. I was pleased to see that even though I’ve been lax on doing any regular rasping – especially on the hinds – that her feet have maintained a good balance and he didn’t have to fix any high/low efforts as a result of my rasping. He has her on a 5 week schedule, which is a little often, since I can maintain what he’s done for a couple of months…..BUT I realize that I probably won’t do regular raspings – especially if I want to have time to ride. Better to save money somewhere else, than to try and skimp on hoof care unless I KNOW I have the time to do the maintenance myself. And my track record over the last year doesn’t look good…..
I’ll try to remember to post pictures soon, but in general, this is what I want to see in Farley’s feet:
1. elimination of the flares on the quarters of the RF. My last farrier was adament about not scooping the quarters, however without doing so, I couldn’t get rid of the flare and stretched white line. My current farrier DOES scoop, so it will be interesting to see if we can get rid of those flares. The flare is what bumps me up to a size 2 boot on that foot (the LF is a size 1) and IMO I had a much healthier foot when it was a size 1 and didn’t have the flare.
2. “de-contract” the LF. The LF grows a lot of heel and tends to be a very upright foot with a forward heel. With regular riding and trimming/rasping, the LF starts to look more like the RF, get a nice concave sole, and normal looking heels. I sighed a bit when I saw it today all cleaned up. It looks like it did when I pulled her shoes a couple years back.
3. Minimize the distortion and stress on the RH old injury. If the heels on the RH get a little long, it puts stress on the old hoof wall injury and it has a tendacy to distort and want to crack out. That would be BAD. I want to get that healed area as stable as possible, which means keeping the foot nice and short – especially the heels.
I was so motivated by finding a new farrier that I tackled a new project – organizing my tack in my storage horse trailer!!!!! I’m letting my Dad use my trailer for lessons and for hauling out – so my tack is in his much smaller 2 horse, along with some of his stuff. Even though I sold a bunch of stuff before moving – everything was a disorganized MESS.
I can’t function in a mess.
I think a part of me not wanting to ride was due to the fact I had to crawl through tack and horse gear for me to find my saddle, a blanket, a bridle, and my helmet. Everything was chaos.
When I was pulled at 20 MT, I just chucked my stuff in my trailer. There is remained until I moved Farley into my parents pasture.
Then, Matt took the contents of my horse trailer, and chucked it into my Dad’s horse trailer.
And there is lay.
Or rather, piled.
Today, in full sunshine, I took out everything, organized, threw away junk, and repacked the trailer into a functional tack storage.
It took 3 1/2 hours.
It now looks like a working tack room as a opposed to a tack swap pile.
I’m so excited!!!! Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m planning a nice ride on Farley in celebration of my organized tack storage, finding a new farrier, and starting over in endurance. LD’s, here we come!
Did this just come out of draft? Cause otherwise… you get two birthdays? How is that fair?! I want a second birthday!
Anyway. Organized tack is such a good feeling. Mine always get chucked after a ride, and when I go out days later and fix it I feel so accomplished!
It’ll be interesting to see how fast her feet come back into good shape. I bet since they’re basically healthy they’ll look ideal in maybe 3 trim cycles.
Nope – I posted this on the date that it shows on the post, BUT google reader didn’t bother picking it up until now. 🙂
I think you are right about her feet. They aren’t THAT bad and I’ve already seen a HUGE improvment just in the 10-14 days of having her move and having it trimmed properly. The heels are already started to lose retained sole and come down. I think my farrier is going to be shocked, as I think he thought it would be more gradual. But really, she hasn’t been out of it for that long, and I’ve been pretty good about trimming, not having any pain issues etc.