Tag: horse trials

Keeping Ridden Horses barefoot- the good the bad and the ugly

Every now and then I come across a new horsey friend who doesn’t know and understand why I am such a keen advocate for keeping ridden horses barefoot.

At these times,  I find myself re-telling the story that has got me and my horses to this point, and I think I should do a blog summary of the advantages and pitfalls of keeping ridden horses barefoot.

The good

The best thing, and I mean simply the best thing, about keeping ridden horses barefoot, and eventing said barefoot horses, is never having to worry about studs ever again.

img_0274

Not only do I eliminate hours of prep, cleaning out stud holes, tapping stud holes, packing stud holes, putting in studs, searching for studs in the long grass, chasing the foot around with the tap still in the hole and all the other nightmares associated with the logistics of studding a razzed up horse, I don’t have to worry about what size of stud to use, nor the possible damage done to foot and forelimb by the unnatural stress and shear force transmitted to the horse from a studded foot.

You know how footballers are always fracturing their tarsal bones? This is due to the foot gripping suddenly at speed and all that kinetic energy getting transmitted to the bones of the foot at an angle and intensity those bones are not meant to withstand. Horse’s feet are meant to flex, in order to absorb the concussion of landing, and are also designed to slide a little before gripping, to protect the bones of the foot and the more precious bones and ligaments above.

And without shoes and studs, I get the benefit of the horse’s own natural gripping mechanism. The horse’s hoof is beautifully designed to function on all surfaces when healthy. A concave sole with a pointed toe allows the foot to dig in for extra lift. The fully developed spongy frog provides grip, slows the sliding and acts as a cushion shock absorber, a bit like Nike Airs, that also helps to pump blood back up the limb. The bars and quarters act like the cleats in a pair of football boots.

img_1199

Keeping ridden horses barefoot also ensures that they have the benefit of optimal proprioception when we humans are on board.  Proprioception is ‘the perception of awareness of the position and movement of the body’, and a key component of the information required fir the horse, or any animal, is the ability to feel the ground beneath their feet. The ability to access and use that information to adjust to uneven or challenging terrain is an essential part of balance and of healthy movement.  Our human shoes are mostly supple and flex with our feet; horseshoes generally are not. I often think be by shod must feel like being permanently stuck in winter mountaineering boots with crampons- these have a completely rigid sole that does not flex at all; can you imagine trying to walk any distance in your ski boots? You have to do the funky chicken in the joints above to make up for the fact the foot doesn’t flex as it was meant to.

And can you remember how cold your feet get in ski boots, or even in wellies, in winter? That feeling when your feet are like blocks of ice, solid lumps with no fine touch sensation and it’s difficult to wriggle your toes? And you feel like you are walking on chunks of solid flesh rather than a fully functioning foot? That feeling is caused by impaired circulation; in the cold the blood flow to our extremities is reduced to prevent us losing excessive heat from those areas. The foot goes numb, and is less functional.

Thermal imaging allows us to compare the temperature difference, and therefore blood flow, between a shod foot and a barefoot hoof.

http://equinethermography.co.uk/galleries/horse_hoof_thermal_gallery.php

Immobility leads to impaired circulation. When your feet are cold you wiggle your toes to get the blood going; likewise a functioning equid foot flexes and contracts as it contacts the ground, pushing the blood around the hoof and limb.

The horn is still a living substance, more solid than our foot but certainly not rigid as we are led to believe.

Overly tight shoes also lead to impaired circulation. We know this from our own experience; why would horses be different?

What do steel horseshoes do? The rigidity of the steel limits the natural flexion of the foot, converting a conformable, dynamic structure into a fixed, immobilised structure. The nails and the tightness of the shoe impair circulation; even if the shoes are beautifully fitted to the hoof on day one of the shoeing cycle, as the hoof grows, the shoe and the nails become restrictive. Just observe how much the hoof grows out of shoes during your winter shoeing break compare to how slowly it grows in between shoeing cycles.

The impaired circulation from restrictive shoeing mimics chilled toes; the horse therefore suffers from impaired proprioception, both from cold feet and from being deprived of crucial mechanical contact between the sole of the foot and the ground.

In a healthy foot, the frogs act as extra pumps, moving blood around the foot and back up the limb, and also acting as a hydrostatic shock absorption mechanism. A cadaver model has actually shown that a barefoot hoof absorbs nearly ALL the concussion created by landing the limb, and therefore very little force is transmitted further up the limb, minimising damage and wear on the rest of the joints.

http://www.healthyhoof.com/articles/concussion_study.php

Another interesting fact is that steel horseshoes vibrate at the exact same frequency that causes the industrial injury “vibration white finger” in humans. It’s a frequency that causes necrosis or tissue death. Not all shoes do this- Cytek and other plastic shoes don’t have this effect, nor do aluminium racing plates. But steel horseshoes do.

The Bad

What are the disadvantages of keeping ridden horses barefoot? The main problem that I have observed is that we get instant feedback about how fit, well and sound our horses are.

Photo courtesy of V&T equine services

The motto above may not be an easy motto to live by, but it is the truth. Keeping ridden horses barefoot gives us really accurate information about our horse’s fitness to work.

Lucinda Green tells a great story about a racing trainer friend who has recently started legging up his horses barefoot. He is noticing fewer early season injuries, and much better longevity from his charges. Why?

Because shoeing had previously allowed him to work the horses harder than their bones, joints and tendons were ready for. By building up the work barefoot, he could only increase the intensity of work at the rate the feet were conditioned for; which accurately reflected the conditioning of the limbs above.

When keeping the ridden horse barefoot, we also get instant feedback about our horse’s general health. Event lines in the horn of the hoof document times of metabolic challenge. You will see a line for each dose of wormer, each vaccination, every flush of grass. If you’ve moved yards, or if your horse has had an injury, or another reason for a period of stress, there will be a ripple visible.

Is the horse footy on stones? Mostly it will have had too much sugar in its diet, or have a pro- inflammatory process going on. I am now ashamed that it took me a good few years to twig that Cal’s funny feet were actually borderline laminitic.

Laminitis is a funny disease- it’s much more akin to diabetes, a disorder of sugar metabolism that affects the whole body, than a disease limited to the foot. The horse’s foot is the end organ most often damaged by the systemic disturbance, a bit like diabetic foot injuries in humans. Cal had terrible airway inflammation, low level laminitic feet, probable ulcers and some very peculiar skin lumps- all of these are manifestations of systemic inflammation. Once I listened to the story his feet were telling me I found the answer to all his ailments.

The solution- strictly organic, low sugar low starch diet with wrapped late cut meadow hay and Phytorigins amazing supplements for hindgut health, maximum anti oxidant support and optimal digestive efficiency.

the results speak for themselves

So the main disadvantage of keeping ridden horses barefoot is that you will inevitably become much more in tune with your horse’s body. Once you start listening and observing, I warn you now, not all the information is welcome. You may have to adjust your plans and ambitions to fit in with the horse’s schedule, their current capabilities. Your ego may have to step aside. You may have to train at their rate. You may have to learn new skills, such as a little light hoof trimming. You may have to become a feed geek, or a grass geek 😜, or get a whole degree’s worth of knowledge from bitter experience!!

I say it’s worth it.

The ugly

My friend the vet said to me many years ago – “you do see some really odd shaped feet on barefoot horses”

He said this as if it was a problem, as if the trimming was at fault, or those misshapen hooves were dangerous to the horse’s long- term soundness. He was almost offended by the lack of symmetry, and that someone could allow it to persist.

My current level of understanding is that feet reflect both what’s going on inside the horse and also above in the musculoskeletal system.

Nic of Rockley Farm wrote a brilliant blog back in 2013 about flares and deviation; it’s probably the single most useful blog post I have ever read

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2013/03/flare-deviation-and-does-it-really.html

If the horse has funny looking feet, it’s likely because it needs funny looking feet, or because, at this moment, it can only grow funny looking feet. Fix the diet, treat the whole horse,allow and correct the movement, and beautiful feet will grow.

Simples

Nic writes from years of solid experience and is always a source of comfort and inspiration and power on badass barefoot days

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2017/10/ask-how-and-why-and-dont-be-afraid-to.html

Asking How? and Why? of any horse care professional is your right, and your duty as guardian of your horse.

if you are not yet ready to not shoe, do please burn this image on your brain. And give those feet a good long shoeing break every year, to keep the feet looking more like the healthy foot on the left of the picture than the right.

Educate yourself. Turn into a hoof geek. And a horse health geek. Ask questions. Be honest with yourself- what do you see when you look at your horse’s feet?

And remember- no foot no horse

A couple of book recommendations to get you started on your barefoot journey

Feet First by Nic Barker and Sarah Braithwaite

Barefoot Horse Keeping-the Integrated Horse by Anni Stonebridge & Jane Cumberlidge

This article is also available as a podcast

https://soundcloud.com/fran-mcnicol/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly

 

Donate

Nelipot Cottage is a Pay as You Feel endeavour. If you enjoy what you have read and would like to support us on this journey, please consider making a donation towards advert free hosting

£2.00

Naming your horse

Naming your horse can be a real challenge. Choosing passport names can be great fun, but I’m starting to wonder if naming a horse is a prophetic process or even if they help you find the perfect name?

Paddy arrived with a stable name but no passport. He needed a good name for Eventing so after much deliberation I called him Wise Words.

This name did turn out to be prophetic- Paddy taught me lots, over the years. His most important lesson was to teach me to listen to horses.

I’ll never forget the relief in his whole demeanour when we took his shoes off for the last time. Suddenly the trimmer was his favourite person, whereas the Farriers had always been the enemy.

And his jumping improved no end once he could feel his feet and adjust himself.

He always had an opinion though, especially about ditches. Classic quote from the commentary box- Fran McNicol getting some wise words from her horse at the ditch.

His last event was the unaffiliated 3 day at Longleat- some clown had put decorative little wooden lizards and alligators in the ditch. I’ll never forget him back-paddling in mid air over the part A skinny like a cartoon character when he spotted those.

He was the greatest on his good days though – I have some wonderful memories when our wise words were in tune 😀

Cal arrived with a green passport, a microchip and no name. He was bought to be the fabulous cross county horse so I named him Cloud Warrior.

Surprisingly he’s turned out to be a bit of a dressage diva, who offered Pesade very early on. I wonder if I might have a secret Airs horse in the making- I need another few years for that Naming to come true.

He also loves posing

In the meantime at Shelford this year we had an average dressage, a surprise stop in the show jumping but he was storming around the cross country, with speeding penalties, when the commentator struck again. “Cloud Warrior- this horse is very well named, not had the best day in the other phases but he’s storming across the country. Good name for a good cross country horse!”

Rocky’s real name is Royal Magic.

I have no idea yet how that name will come to be true!!

Do you have any funny stories to tell about naming your horse?

Big fit horses in reasonable work can get laminitis too…

Laminitis is not just a disease for small natives: big, fit horses in medium work can get laminitis too, as I discovered to my chagrin a few weeks ago.

I was chatting about our recent troubles at the area 20 qualifiers yesterday and the lady I was chatting too said “Oh, he’s a big horse, we forget they can get laminitis too” as if this was rare?

It had never occurred to me that laminitis was mainly a disease of small ponies, although I do associate it mostly with good doers. Cal is a good doer, but he is also a big, fit horse in medium level work and had been eventing the week before he showed that big fit horses in reasonable work can get laminitis too.

The causes of laminitis are now known to be metabolic, either associated with Equine Metabolic Syndrome ( a sort of type II Diabetes for horses) or Equine PID, more commonly known as Cushing’s disease. Metabolic causes means that laminitis is a disease of the whole horse, the cause and the treatment are not limited to the foot.

I’m pretty sure Cal has EMS, although I’ve never tested him properly. How do I know this? Because he has been such a tricky barefooter over the years. For those of you who do not fully embrace the barefoot concept, let me share with you my paradigm.

Any horse with the correct diet, environment, exercise and trim should be able to go barefoot and work hard barefoot.

Those 4 simple sounding words are not simple things to achieve in the U.K. Cal is an Irish Spirts horse, so he is half Irish Draught, and he looks like he got quite a lot of Connemara in the mix, so a dose of Spanish blood too. He didn’t get much TB in his phenotype, that’s for sure.

Diet-  Cal is finely tuned to survive in the Irish peat bogs, or possibly also in Spanish scrubland. He doesn’t get much green grass, a sniff makes him footsore so a good bellyfull would probably kill him. He is the main reason our horses are track dwellers, and his story is partly why we bought our house and land, because traditional livery yards simply could not cater for his needs. This horse loves fresh thistles, bashes down nettles to let them wilt, eats a bit of bracken for the insulin like compound, goes for ivy, again for the sugar busting properties. He is pretty good at managing his own condition, as long as he is offered the variety of herbs and plants he needs to offset the green posion. He gets a small bucket feed which contains salt, Phytorigin GI, a hindgut balancer ained at feeding the good bacteria, Phytolean plus, a plant based supplement with lots of anti-oxidants designed to support the immune system and homeostasis of tricky metabolic horses.

Environment: he on a track system or paddock paradise. His main needs #friendsforagefreedom are met as best we can. He lives out 24/7, in a stable herd with his mates, to groom, play, commune with and boss around. They have access to constant ad lib forage, and are safe from stress. As he is pretty dominant he is the safest of all from stress, especially as Paddy is the lookout.

Exercise: he’s my main horse. He lives on a track so does about 5 miles a day mooching around on there, he also gets ridden 3-4 times a week, a mixture of hacking, schooling, jumping and fast work every 10 days or so. Of course he could do more, if I had more time.

Trim: trim has always been tricky. But that’s mainly because Cal has been tricky. The more I learn about feet, the more I think there difference between a good trim and a bad trim is a bit like a clip: two weeks!! Bad feet are impossible to trim into a healthy shape and function, and good healthy working feet are really hard to trim into bad shape because they just wear themselves correct again with work and movement. Cal has been footy on stones for his entire barefoot career. We use nice little euphemisms but make no mistake, a slightly sore foot is a slightly weak or a pathological foot. That’s why I would never call a horse sound unless it was truly sound without shoes: if the horse is sore when you take the shoes off, the shoes are disguising a problem. It took me a few years of looking at hoof photos to realise that Cal was a sub-clinical laminitic.

When I bought him his feet ran so far forward the whole foot sat in front on his legs, but he was sound as a pound in shoes! When he broke his carpal bone and we took the shoes off it took 3 full years to get a hoof that actually had hoof under the leg bones, and 4 years to get the heel bulbs in line with the middle of his cannon bones. The under run heels, the slipper like toes, the occasional growth ring, these were all subtle laminitic stigmata. Yet he had worked hard, team chased, hunted, evented, with the only sign of challenge being on very stony ground. So many people said I should just shoe him, as if that would solve all our problems, and that advice even came from some barefoot trimmers and vets.

Had he been shod, I might not have spotted the mild attack of laminitis until it was a full blown disaster.

I had brought him down to the house ready to compete at the weekend. I had ridden him in the school, bathed, cleaned tack and left him in the stable at the house for an early start. Normally when at the house they get Horsehage HiFi Haylage,

but our local shop had run out so I had bought some West Lancs Haylage instead. I gave him a good feed and a good big section of Haylage to last him overnight. The next day he was pointing a foot at me, and shifting around behind.

It took me a few days to twig what was going on: because one foot seemed to be worse I thought abscess first of all. And I was still feeding the West Lancs Haylage. It was only when I realised it was pure Ryegrass Haylage that I put two and two together. After a few days at the house no abscess had appeared and he wasn’t actually a welfare case so I moved him back to the field. He got better there but after 10days was still not looking rideable. He had palpable pulses in all 4 legs and was moving very slowly and appeared miserable.

I got the vet out, who agreed with me that it was laminitis, but very mild, to the extent that, I quote, “a lot of owners wouldn’t have noticed there was anything wrong”. He gave Cal a shot of i.v. analgesia which allowed me to get hoof boots on his front feet so he was comfortable enough to walk back to the house, and then to march him up the big hill. I kept him at the house, rationing every mouthful: no grass at all, a section of Hifi or a tiny feed very 4 hours and walking up the hill once or twice daily. All this strict diet and exercise was aimed to sharpen his insulin response again. He had Phytorigins Rescue Remedy which is a 5 day course, double dose PhytoGI, double dose Phytolean Plus for maximum antioxidants and a sachet Danilone twice daily.

http://phytorigins.co.uk/Phyto-Rescue-Remedy

After 4 days he was much improved, back to hacking out and schooling again at 10days. He went back to the now very dry sandy grass free track (thanks weather) on about day 5 (more to do with work than precise symptoms).

The vet offered to do a glucose stimulation test to see if it was definitely EMS- I have declined this. The blood test says it’s not Cushings, there is no really effective treatment for EMS other than really tight management which we do already, and there is a significant risk of laminitis from the stimulation test.

I now know that every mouthful counts, that I will never switch Haylage again for my own convenience, and that this horse needs to work every week, no matter how busy I am with my job.

It’s been a bad spring. I have another medical friend whose horse got laminitis because she was a bit busy with work and didn’t ride for a week: nothing else changed. And I have heard local tales of other big, fit horses in reasonable work who have succombed to the condition after a seemingly innocent change in diet or management. The grass this spring has been bonkers, wet and warm and then sunny is a great combination for really rich Cheshire cow grass. Our track looks totally bare now but it’s the scorching sun that has killed the green stuff the last couple of weeks, before that it was the horses munching away that kept the grass looking poor.

Do you check your horse’s pulses every day?

http://www.ironfreehoof.com/equine-digital-pulses.html

Shod or not, a palpable pulse might be the first sign of impending laminitis and feeling a change early might just save your horse from a full blown attack.

https://thehorse.com/111374/10-early-warning-signs-of-laminitis/

Do you watch every mouthful your horse eats?

Keeping a tricky barefoot horse sound, healthy and in full work is a sure way to turn into a feed geek; Paddy could eat more or less what he liked and still trot and canter on any stony surface in the forest.

Since having Cal my rudimentary knowledge of horse physiology and nutrition is now more or less at degree level; of course it helps that I am already an expert in human physiology so the proper equine textbooks are legible to me. I have tried every supplement on the market, tried every supposedly healthy bagged feed and have come around to the acceptance that maintaining a healthy hindgut is key, and that all is really required is hay, water, salt and enough variety in their environment to allow them to forage for what they need. in the absence of variety, supplements might be required and it’s the Phytorigins approach that makes the most sense to the cynical scientist in me.

Do you reduce the bucket feed if your horse is doing less work?

Cal isn’t on anything rich or high in protein or sugar, we use Agrobs, but I have cut down significantly from what I was feeding and will cut down even more if he has a quiet week. He wasn’t fat, but his condition hasn’t really changed on less food so I think feeding the minimum required to keep him fit is definitely the way to go. Even in a busy month, he will never be in hard work like a polo pony or a racehorse.

Cal fully recovered at BRC area qualifiers

Winter is coming…

Winter is coming…whether we like it or not. For the traditional horse keepers amongst you, this means months of mucking out in the dark, clipping, changing sodden rugs, riding for fitness in the dark or paying for indoor arenas.

Winter is coming, and the winter preparation for track kept horses is slightly different. Our field is about 6 acres. We have a summer track around the edge, a hard standing area for giant hay feeders and the middle is split into 3 paddocks. This summer, one paddock has been grazed by Gary’s TB, who needed extra weight and needed to be segregated from the others because they bullied him horribly. It turns out he has had Kissing Spines, and now his back has been injected, and he is moving better, he is allowed into the herd; presumable he doesn’t look like the weakest link anymore. That’s another story for another day though.

Winter is coming, which means the grass will finally be safe for the grass sensitive Cal to eat without going footsore. The other two paddocks have been left long to act as standing hay for winter. Our grass doesn’t really turn onto foggage as our weather generally is not cold or dry enough, but we had great success last year introducing them to the long grass one paddock at a time, until they had access to the whole 6 acres for the worst part of winter. Allowing wider access reduced the footfall in any one area, and thereby reduced the mud damage. A couple of the gateway gaps were trashed by spring but they have recovered really well over the summer. And the gravelled feed area proved a life saver last year: the feeders were easy to fill, the horses didn’t get mud fever, their feet were brilliant from standing and loafing on pea gravel. I’ve made a road from haylage store to feed area from old stable mats, eventually this will be stoned too.

The horses made their own gateways last year. This year the electric tape is staying up and electrified for now, but if they start barging through willy-nilly again, it will get unstrung and put away for winter. I’m not sure how well the solar energiser will work over winter!

Winter is coming, and it’s a good time to take stock.

Gary and I have had the most excellent year. We have continued the brilliant monthly clinic lessons with Patrice- Cal is getting stronger and more established in his work, Rocky got through his teenage tantrums, although we had a bit of outside help with that, and Beat settled in lovely and will be the most fabulous event horse if his KS come right. Cal and I have been to 2 British Riding Club Championships, both team trips with friends from the Exceptionally Cool Riding Club. The East Clwyd Riding Club is most excellent, and has been rightly shortlisted for the NAF Riding Club of the Year Award- Please vote here

The Horse Trials Championships were obviously the most fun; bonus was we had a season best dressage and a lovely double clear.

Previously known as sicknote, Cal managed to remain sound for a whole summer. I got really brave and took him down to the Dovecote Stables for 2 ridden lessons with the legendary Charles de Kunffy. Now I will admit, in my dreams I wanted it to be a breakthrough clinic where we got to clean changes. However, Charles is a genius at getting to THE thing; and the breakthrough turned out to be that there is no point doing all the funky stuff until his body submission issues are completely sorted. Many people who know him think Cal is an angel; he’s not hot, he doesn’t dance or jig or bronc, but he does just do this tiny brace in his neck, and fractionally lock his jaw, and he doesn’t ever yield his brain. So the Charles lessons turned out to be all about ensuring we get a good topline, with a lifted back, swinging shoulders and a soft lumbar back. And that’s OK, because when I take that horse to the harder work, that works much better too! Except for trot/canter transitions…if Cal can’t brace we can’t yet do them on demand…..more practise.

We have done 6 ODEs, including an unaffiliated 90 at Eland. Not bad for a full time surgeon! And finally we finished our summer season with the FOTH qualifier at Berriewood- first out on course for individual 3rd and a team win. It was at 80 level again, rather than the planned 90, but this last month has been mad busy so I didn’t feel ready to step up.

For those of you who haven’t noticed, this was all done without shoes. With 24/7 turnout on a track system.

Cal Foth Berriewood 2017

Naughty turned out leg in the showjumping photo- much winter homework required!

Cal XC Berriewood Fotj 2017

Winter is coming, and the horses are getting furry. The working horses will get a shallow trace clip when they get really furry, just to enable us to ride them. I think the TB will need a rug, depending on how much coat he grows, but based on last year’s experience, the others won’t need a rug.

Winter is coming. I was musing the other day that we need to work out how much of what we traditionally do over winter is done for our human convenience, and how much is done for the horse’s benefit. Shoes exist for human convenience. Horses don’t need shoes, they need good feet. And good feet don’t come easily once they are brought into the sphere of human influence. Stables exist only for human convenience. Stables don’t make good feet. Clips are for humans really- people want to use their horses over winter and are taught they can’t do so unless the horse is clipped. Clips lead to rugs, and lead to stables being required. Horses can easily deal with temperatures from -5 to 25 degrees Celsius, if they have adequate forage, shelter and hair. As well as friends. Friends are crucial. When it rains, our horses huddle behind the hedge, or in the dip, taking it in turns to be on the outside. When it stops, they go for a mad 10 minutes play, get warmed up and then get back to eating. Forage ferments in the equine caecum, providing their own central heating system. They eat for about 16 hours a day, to trickle feed their caecum. Their fur can stand up, fluff out, the dense layers of unclipped fur resist rain beautifully and they are often completely dry underneath the herringbone pattern the rain forms in the long top hair. Mud is a great insulator, as is snow and ice if we get a proper cold spell. Our horses only really use the field shelters if it’s wet and windy, or nights like tonight, persistently wet with their full winter coat not quite through yet.

So our choice is to let them deal with winter as naturally as possible. We still ride regularly, with fluffy numnahs to prevent damp hair rubbing. We hack and school and jump and drag-hunt and do farm rides. I’m careful not to work them so hard that they overheat on warmer winter days. The horses cool themselves off perfectly mooching around the field after being worked. We feed ad lib unlimited haylage and grass, along with one hard feed a day. They have ample shelter and they have each other. And the natural lifestyle keeps them fit, in mind and body. It’s not always easy. It’s certainly not always convenient. But it is a valid choice, and our horses are the better for it.

And all we have to do is pooh pick and knock off the odd bit of mud.

Winter is coming. So what? Horses have been doing winter for millions of years, without us as well as with us. Here’s to winter training!

The best thing about competing

The best thing about competing is that entering competitions makes me focus on my training goals. The best thing about competing is that entering competitions gives me a concrete timetable to direct my work towards, and when eventing is your main discipline, that timetable has to include basic fitness, fast work, jumping practise and cross-country schooling

as well as flatwork. We have had a great winter mostly working on our flatwork, as always with the help of the amazing Patrice Edwards, and Cal has been feeling stronger and better than ever, with a good canter (finally) that feels effortless and adjustable. So the best thing about competing is that it forces me to test the training.

 

The best thing about competing, and training for competing, is that we get to catch up with old friends. Winter can be dark and dreary, especially with working full-time and having horses living out; some days it just seems too much effort to ride, let alone enter anything. This winter my surrogate pony club mum, the lovely Judith, has organised regular riding club jumping clinics with Richard Carruthers. These have been great fun, watching combinations develop, and the camaraderie, thrills and spills and banter have been inspirational. A bit of continuity has also allowed Richard to be inventive: in this lesson he put Cal in a hackamore to see if less inadvertent clutching rein action might improve his way of going. We still had a couple of stops but it did make me realise where I might possibly have been tightening my hand when thinking “oh heck”. My current tasks is to retrain myself to kick every time I think “oh heck”!! The hackamore won’t stay in for ever, but it has been a useful exercise, and doesn’t allow me to micro manage at all, so all I can do is keep asking for forward, which is very much what Cal needs.

The scariest number I ever heard is 4000: this is the number of weeks in an average 80 year lifespan. 80 years sounds like a very long time, 4000 weeks by contrast sounds surprisingly short. It’s so easy to let a week drift by, or a month, when one isn’t focused. Horses set their own timetable, for sure, but a sense of time passing is handy for those of us with busy lives and other distractions, like a full time job and a home business on the side.

Rocky set his own timetable this month; no sooner had I ordered his new saddle then he developed an abscess and was waving his front foot around like a dying swan. He came down to the house for a few days for poulticing, which was quite testing. Note to self, must handle him in more inventive ways, rather than just doing basics, as nappies went flying across the yard and he did pirouettes and levade whilst the tape was going round his foot. After 8 days there was no real improvement so we took him to Brownmoss for x-rays. The x-rays showed a tiny abscess, quite deep in the foot, so no point digging and no point poulticing. We chucked him out in the field again for it to work its own way out. This took another week; he got really good at chasing the dogs on 3 legs and doing perfect pirouettes to turn around. It was all good hind end strengthening. He finally looked sound the evening before we went away for Easter weekend, so will get ridden out tomorrow.

Rocky handing in his note excusing him from games

The best thing about competing is that it makes me clean my tack properly! I’m quite good at looking after my tack for durability and checking stitching for safety, as most of it is second-hand, but it rarely gets a full buff and polish unless we are going out somewhere. Rocky chewed Cal’s leather reins, so I have the choice of looking scruffy in lightly chewed leather tomorrow or doing dressage with rubber reins that don’t give the same nice elastic feel…we’ll see.

The best thing about competing is that it forces me to tackle Cal’s mane so that it can be plaited; as a friend once said, he has two good manes, one on each side, that take quite a lot of taming. He also hates having his mane pulled, so we have to do a few handfuls at a time, or do it really quickly before he gets too cross.

Cal showing off his two manes

After photos tomorrow LOL.

The best thing about competing is the anticipation. To keep ourselves moving forwards, we are told to do something every day that scares us. You can’t grow in your comfort zone, only in your stretch zone. Well, having not competed properly i.e. jumping, since last summer (I don’t count dressage as competing because I am now so detached from the outcome), I am indeed feeling stretched! Here’s to growing!

The dulcet tones belong to Richard Carruthers, videos courtesy of Brent Sansom, many thanks Brent.

And finally, my stepson Barney stomped way out of his comfort zone this weekend, walking 100 miles in less than 48 hours, raising over 4K so far for Cancer Research UK and St Wilfred’s Hospice, in memory of Pam, his dear and wise friend. I am uber proud, and would ask you to consider donating to the 2 very worthy causes.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SomeoneSpecial/PAM

 

Barefoot Brain-ache

Barefoot brain-ache is an annoying condition, well-known to the owner of the barefoot horse. Barefoot brain-ache occurs when the answer to a supposedly simple question is no longer simple because certain dogmas are no longer taken as truth.

My barefoot brain-ache is caused, again, by the fact that Cal the gorgeous grey is completely stomping-around sound on a surface, on grass, and on smooth tarmac but not on stoney surfaces. In the last fourteen days he has stormed around the farm ride at Somerford, jumping everything, raced around the Stafford Horse Trials at 80(T) level, competed in the Delamere Forest XC jump training at 90cm, had a day of SJ and XC training organised by Equine Adventures at Somerford and done about 25 miles hacking around Delamere Forest.


Yet had you been there watching me walk him onto the truck for any of those days out you would have pulled him off the lorry and put him back in his stable (oops he doesn’t have one). Our Tarmac is quite rough from the paddock gate to the truck parking place and he tiptoes across it. The yard at Crossmere Livery where we had the SJ training is hard-core- he teetered into the arena and then jumped like a pro. The landings at Somerford XC are gravelled and prepared, none of those bother him but we have to walk down to the XC course on the grass verge because the hard-core track is too rough for him. Although to be fair he would walk on the stones now, but very slowly and carefully like an old man. His ears are still pricked, he doesn’t wear a pain face when he’s creeping down the gravel road, he just really takes his time and care. Then he steps onto the grass and sets off like a pocket rocket. He was jumping out of his skin the other day; so much so we are now on the waiting list for Skipton BE90.


So if any other barefooters out there have any tips or tricks to share, I would love to hear them.
Barefoot brain ache answers to date:

We are building a hard-core feed area in the field to counteract the winter mud; hopefully this will help to toughen up his feet and get him used to rougher surfaces.

These symptoms can reflect low-grade laminitis: the laminar connection at the coronary band and the top inch of hoof always looks good and tight but by the time the hoof wall hits the ground, the white line is a bit stretched and the toes are a bit like slippers. I can counteract the slipper tendency by light trimming with a radius rasp every couple of weeks, so his feet look very good most of the time now. I have tested for all forms of metabolic compromise, he has never been positive for insulin resistance, his ACTH was borderline for Cushing’s once but a trial of treatment with Agnus Castis,  Freestep Superfix and then Pergolide for 3 months didn’t make much difference so we have now stopped.

We changed the haylage to organic with a much better mineral analysis profile, as described in a previous post, and the foot sensitivity definitely improved but hasn’t vanished. Other parameters are vastly improved after the haylage change though; muscle tone, coat quality, general well-being.

His sole is thickening up nicely- he shed a load of sole at the end of winter but still has a good toe callous. He does have some minimal thrush around his frogs but nothing too horrible, and this goes altogether when the ground is dry.

So continues the barefoot brain ache: is Cal lame? What does lame mean?

Definition from Wikiepedia

“Lameness is an abnormal gait or stance of an animal that is the result of dysfunction of the locomotor system. In the horse, it is most commonly caused by pain, but can be due to neurologic or mechanical dysfunction.”

So he does have an abnormal gait that is likely caused by pain but this only occurs on a very specific surface and resolves immediately when the surface changes with no lasting effects. It can also be prevented by wearing boots.

When is a horse lame?

So to be lame, I would guess the change has to be persistent, occur on different surfaces, and I suppose on both reins because we all know now that uncorrected crookedness can look like lameness on one side on particular, and in fact used to be called “bridle lameness” before slow motion film made this dysfunction really obvious in Olympic dressage horses.

When Paddy and I were doing our tour of polo yards with Mel, one place we were at had an arena where they had simply scraped the grass off the top and left the soil as the surface. This “arena” grew stones every time they harrowed it. Now Paddy has always been a rock cruncher but if he stepped on a big rock whilst schooling he would hop off it and carry on. Our host, a vet and barefoot sceptic, used to say he was always lame…but the mis-step was a protective mechanism and only lasted for a stride; is that really lame or just sensible?

“A sound horse is a one who has no lameness or illness.”

So a rock crunching barefoot horse is most definitely sound, because if we accept that the feet are the barometer of whole horse health, (no foot no horse) and if they are functioning correctly, the rest of the horse must be pretty healthy too.

So is a gimping barefoot horse sound?

“The horse is sound for the service intended by the owner or rider. By sound, I mean the horse is comfortable: He’s not going lame from performing his job (barring accident or acute injury).”

Said Phillip Dutton in a fab article “What is Serviceably Sound? “

http://practicalhorsemanmag.com/article/what-is-serviceably-sound-11664

Cal is definitely serviceable sound. For what I want to do (eventing on mostly grass), his feet are good enough. He is not going lame from performing his job.

If we wanted to do endurance we would have to boot, but that’s fine, many of the winning horses in the Tevis Cup are booted. Unfortunately Renegades aren’t made big enough for half Irish bog ponies. We have had two pairs of Old Macs in 5 years, although these have had a tendency to fly off at speed. I’m currently road testing a pair of Cavallo Trecs- they flap around a bit but stayed on cantering around the hayfields last night.

So my conclusion to the barefoot brain ache is that Cal is serviceably sound, and in fact is perfectly sound, according to those definitions I have found.

Would he pass a vetting?

Only if the lungeing on a circle on the hard was done on super smooth tarmac.

How then do you vet a barefoot horse?

 

 

Badminton

This week has been all about Badminton Horse Trials and Cal’s bronchoscopy. Carrie Childs, and her very gorgeous Donner Sara B, qualified for the BE90 Mitsubishi Motors Grassroots Championships at Badminton and kindly invited me to share her adventure.

http://www.britisheventing.com/asp-net/page.aspx?section=1127&itemTitle=BE90+%26+BE100+National+Grassroots+Championships

The build up has been nerve wracking to say the least; as any horsey person will know, the first hurdle after qualifying for any championship, is getting the horse there in one piece. Her preparation had been slightly patchy. Carrie has been blogging for Horse and Hound about the whole experience so some of you will have followed the journey with her.

The first indication of how well Badminton Horse Trials looks after the Grassroots competitors was 4 car passes arrived for friends and family to share the action. I got a lift down with Carrie’s boyfriend, who very kindly got up at 5 to pick me up at 6am (gulp) although his undue respect for the national speed limit and some traffic around Stroud meant we did miss the 9.30am dressage test- whoops.

I then made sure I fulfilled my designated role for the day: keeping mother Judith calm and happy (bubbles started at 10am). 

  These weren’t the first drinks of the road trip: apparently there had been some Pimms consumed the night before at a welcome reception held in the sponsors pavilion by the iconic Badminton lake.

There was then a bit of a gap between phases and Carrie had arranged for another friend to help with the horse so Judith and I took the opportunity to walk the cross-country course. I thought the course was just beautiful. The ground preparation was quite simply perfect, so no problems there for a barefoot horse. Mud is no problem for my Irish bog trotter, it’s hard ground with damp on top that I occasionally worry about. The course posed some proper championship questions but all were fair and there were alternatives where required. Now I know it always looks easier when one is not riding but I thought there was nothing there that my gorgeous Caltastic wouldn’t jump on a good day, although the total amount of jumping required was substantial. I really loved how the Grassroots course crosses the Badminton 4 star track at some of the classic areas, so there was a Grassroots jump into the lake, a tour of the quarry, a line through the white gates and even a new extension off the famous stone wall corner. 

 The dressage arenas and the show jumping were set up on the Grassroots corner of the park but still had enough trade stands around the locale to feel buzzy and exciting. The stables and washroom facilities were plenty fine and there was a real sense of camaraderie around the lorry park.

Carrie did pretty well. I know she was disappointed not to produce her usually immaculate dressage; she then had a slight hiccup in the show jumping which, although superbly recovered,  put her out of the running for placings. Cross country however she hacked around for a fabulous clear, albeit with some time penalties. She tells the story much better than me in her final blog

The road to the Badminton Mitsubishi Motors Cup: We’ve done it!

All in all it was an amazing day, and really inspiring. I came back absolutely determined that this is an experience I would like for myself and that Cal and I would do our very best to qualify one year soon.

The day I came home Cal had his bronchoscopy. This was much better than last year, there was still some mucous about but only grade 2 this year, and the Carina, where the bronchi split, did look sharper, although still not knife-like. Georgie the vet also did bronchial washings to send off for a neutrophil count.

I went through every range of emotions over the next couple of days. I had been hoping that his airways would be perfect on bronchoscopy, and I could just blame myself for being a wet lettuce, so the presence of mucous completely deflated me and all my newly formed Badminton dreams were on hold.

“May obviously isn’t Cal’s month, he’ll never be able to do a Spring championships…” etc

The results came today. Cal’s neutrophils are 2%, joy of joys, so the steroid inhalers are doing their job, despite withdrawing the inhalers 3 days before the scope, as we would for competition, his airways were still OK.

So it’s official, it’s the rider that needs more kicking. For some reason I can be really bold cross-country but still worry more about knocking a pole off a collapsible show jumping fence. The answer to that is very simple: do more of it, do so much of it that it becomes boring and routine and a series of exercises.

Project Kick Ass starts tomorrow at Somerford with Maddy.

And what more inspiration could one wish for than the mighty Michel Jung, Rolex Grand Slam and 2016 Badminton winner, leading from start to finish on a record completion score. He showjumps and does dressage to Grand Prix levels, as well as eventing to four star, so each phase is really solid. He really is the complete equestrian athlete.

It’s simple, as I know from surgery: intelligent directed corrected practise makes inevitable progress towards expertise.

K.L.F.    Kick Like F