Charlie

Background

11.2hh Welsh Section A 13 years old

Charlie went barefoot in 2005. He has suffered laminitis in the past and his diet is strictly controlled with a grazing muzzle which he wears for most of the year.

Charlie is a very fizzy and sensitive pony. He was gelded quite late as a four year old and spent the first four years of his life living with two field companions, one of whom was a miniature stallion. Charlie thinks he is a stallion himself, he likes the girls, particularly anything around 17hh. His seduction technique is to nibble the backs of their knees, which they seem to love.

Shortly after his gelding his best friend and field companion was stolen and was missing for about eight weeks. During this time Charlie had a complete mental breakdown and was discovered by his owner head butting the side of his field shelter. The vets advice was sedation and he was moved to box rest at a livery yard. Charlie was still unbroken at this point, and very rarely handled so was practically wild. He found this very challenging, and it took many weeks before he was confident enough to be handled. The breakthrough was the children that would gather outside his stable to look at the pretty pony and feed him carrots and treats. Even now he is more relaxed around children and women, men, particularly tall ones, he finds very intimidating. It turns out the person that stole his friend spent a day trying to get him as well which has left him with some very deep rooted insecurities.

He was probably my first rehab horse, he came to me to be broken in and to see if he would make a lead rein pony for my friends niece. He is a challenging pony to ride, he relies very heavily on his leader on the lead rein and can put in some impressive spooks. His rider needs to be confident, quiet and sensitive, which isn't easy to find in someone small enough to ride a 11.2!!

Charlie was shod all round (which was not easy to have done) and broken in (in that order). My farrier at the time kept telling me I shouldn't have shoes on him and I kept arguing that horses needed shoes, only poor people didn't have their horses shod. Up until the age of about 6 he could be kept in traditional show condition (ok, fat) with no problems, after the age of 6 he started to get bouts of laminitis. I now put this down to over feeding him and allowing him access to too much grass, his metabolism slowing down as he got older and his rising stress levels as our expectations of him increased.

At the first sign of laminitis my farrier would whip the shoes off and recommend I fed Epsom Salts. I now know that this is fantastic advice although at the time it went against veterinary thinking which was to keep the shoes on and do cold soaks. Removing the shoe allowed better circulation in the foot and Epsom Salts contains magnesium which is helpful in cases of laminitis and it helped his stress levels.

Charlie was the first pony I owned where I had to deal with laminitis. In those days you were faced with two choices, box rest the pony until the attack was over and then turnout in a small paddock or box rest the pony until the attack was over and then turn out in a horrible plastic grazing muzzle which virtually denies any grass at all, is uncomfortable to wear and can come off easily. Charlie was not happy about the idea of a plastic muzzle so spent many years either in during the dangerous times, or on his own in a small paddock. His bucket feed would remain the same, not that he had much hard feed but it did used to include carrots and apples which I now know can also be dangerous.

During this time of intermittent work due to periods of lameness and problems with finding a small child whose parents were either brave or stupid enough to let their child ride him, he had his hind shoes removed and remained shod only in front.

This went on for several years until 2005 when we decided to go barefoot with him. By that point we were already barefoot with Ru, and Neil was doing the interim trims between Trevor's visits and he felt that he could cope trimming him on his own.

Charlie was one of those lucky horses that walked straight out of his shoes. We have to navigate a rough scalpined area to get to the yard and we have laid a path of rubber mats around the edge to make it a bit more comfortable for the horses coming in. Charlie laughed in the face of any woosy foot protection and proceeded to stomp across the largest of the stones.

He has never worn boots, is ridden in the paddock and goes out for short hacks of about 30-45 minutes on a combination of roads, tracks and woods.

He has probably got the best feet he can have without doing more work on the tarmac.

Feet

Charlie was shod in front and pasture trimmed behind. In February 05 he went barefoot and has been trimmed by Neil since this time.

January 05 - Near Fore Lateral View

At the time we thought that Charlie had pretty good feet in shoes, as a shod foot goes, it's probably not that bad. Although he has predominately white feet, white line disease is not really visible around the nail holes. The heels are underun and the toe is forward, the whole foot needs to come back. Apart from the odd bout of laminitis Charlie has not had any lameness issues.

January 05 - Near Fore Solar View

This picture shows the solar view. The heels don't look particularly contracted, the frog has been trimmed and shaved to point, there is no natural bulge to the frog.

January 05 - Near Hind

This is his pasture trimmed hind foot. He has been unshod on the hind feet for around two years at this point.

The hoof wall is not rolled, there is a bruise showing on the lateral side of the foot. On the medial side it looks like the upper inch of the hoof is growing at a tighter angle, then flaring out. The hoof looks like it is drifting inwards slightly although the camera angle is not great. It's a fairly standard example of an unshod pasture trimmed hoof.

January 2005 - Near Hind Solar View

Again a fairly standard pasture trimmed hoof. There is either uneven hoof wall thickness or separation on the lateral side, no roll is evident. The heel width is good, the frog is fuller and functioning compared to the front feet. Small bars are evident and they are quite curved, ideally they would be straighter. At this point in time Charlie is mainly working on grass and soft tracks, there is a slight natural roll at the toe but more road work or stimulation would be helpful.

February 05 - Near Fore Lateral View

In this photo the shoes have been removed for a few days and a very conservative roll applied.

February 05 - Near Fore Solar View

This picture shows how weedy the frog is. The heels are contracted. The farrier has managed not to remove any sole when the shoes were removed. The hoof walls are thin, the sole is going to exfoliate shortly. Even though the shoes have only been off a few days, Charlie is sound in walk on all surfaces.

June 05 - Off Fore Lateral View

Off fore this time, the heels and toe have come back and there is more of a roll on the foot. What is interesting is the vertical slit in the hoof wall around one inch from the coronet band. This is more than likely to be an old abscess exit hole, although Charlie was not lame and if it was an abscess, we were not aware that he had one at the time.

August 05 - Off Fore

This foot is looking much more like a functioning barefoot hoof. There is a nice roll, the photo is not taken at a fantastic angle but it looks like there is a tighter hoof growing in. The foot is free of event lines, and looks very different from June 05.

August 05 - Off Fore Solar View

The heels have opened out since Feb 05. The frog is firmer and fuller, the bars are straighter although they are still a bit weedy. There looks like some hoof wall has been lost for some reason at the lateral quarter, probably due to separation or maybe the abscess slit has hit the ground (this is unlikely in this amount of time, but possible, I don't have a lateral picture to prove it either way). The foot would benefit from a Milton soak. The lateral grooves could do with a bit of a tidy up, and the lateral side of the frog is a little tatty. It looks like some exfoliation is about to take place on the lateral side. It's all cosmetic though, the hoof walls could do with being thicker, but it's still a functioning foot.

January 06 - Near Fore Lateral View

This is one year on from the first shod picture. The heels and toe have come back, the roll is established and there is a very slight scoop to the quarters. He is only working once a week at this point, and mainly in the field. He is walking over all surfaces with no problems.

January 06 - Solar View

A terrible photo! The walls appear thicker, particularly on the medial side. The heels have opened up, the central sulcus is deep but joined. I'd be happier with more wall thickness and a slighter fuller frog. At this point Neil is not yet thinking about uniform hoof wall thickness and the heels look slightly unbalanced, he now balances to the P3 axis. Photographs can be very very misleading though and if they are taken at a slightly wonky angle like this one, it doesn't help. There has been a big difference in a year and Charlie doesn't realise he hasn't got text book feet, he hasn't read the books, it's us that gets stressed about it all!

January 07

I've been very remiss about taking photos of the early horses to go barefoot. I'm also convinced I'm missing some, I will fill in the gaps if I find them. These photos are taken between trims, he is probably due another trim in a couple of weeks.

27th January 07 Near Fore

Charlie continues to have nice feet. He is stomping over everything he comes across. He has struggled in the wet weather like all of the horses, he keeps loosing his frogs but they keep coming back again.

27th January 2007 Near Fore Lateral View

The lateral view shows a pretty good foot, Charlie has lost some concavity during the winter, I can see that because he has in the past had a slight scoop visible on the lateral view although I don't have any photographs to show this. There is no flare and the heels do not look underrun. If all my horses had feet that looked like this, I would be very happy.

27th January 2007 Near Fore Solar View

The solar view is much nicer than the year before. The sole is smooth and has concavity, it would be nice if the frog was wider but it's ok.

27th January 07 Near Fore

This picture shows the concavity in the hoof. I'm sure it's been more concave but it's ok for the time of year and terrain that he is moving around on. They are pretty boring pictures really, he needs periodic trims and that's pretty much it. We are keeping an eye on laminitis, it's been very mild and the grass is still going, although their paddock is still quite bare, that probably just means they are eating it down quickly though. The magnesium and diet seems to be helping, we took the muzzles off a couple of weeks ago as Charlie kept getting his off and eventually broke it. They will go back on soon though and probably we will get told off when there is an event line when Peter visits in May.