Polo

Background

12hh Welsh Type 43 Year Old

Is this the oldest barefoot trimmed horse in the UK?

Polo has been owned by Kirsty for almost 20 years, her first pony, they have grown up together and Polo is a much loved member of the family.

She enjoyed all the normal sorts of things that children do with their ponies and was fully shod during this time.

Around 10 years ago Polo was retired and her shoes were removed. At this point she was pasture trimmed and was trundling about very happily.

In December 05 she went down with a very surprising laminitis attack, she had not previously shown any signs of laminitis and it seemed a weird time of year to get it. Investigations into Cushings proved negative, x-rays showed between 7 and 9 degrees of pedal rotation in all four feet, the hind feet being the worst, again this is unusual.

She was fitted with Imprint shoes and had three sets of these before going into lightweight racing plate type shoes, eventually she was only shod in front.

Polo was happy with this arrangement as well, and although she is getting on in years was not particularly stiff or uncomfortable.

Then in October 06 she became very lame in her near fore, she was not happy at all to flex at the knee, although she was happy enough to bring the leg forward and to weight bear on this leg, she was obviously very uncomfortable.

The vet attended and diagnosed lameness in the off fore, as this leg was slightly swollen. Kirsty and the rest of us were a bit confused with this as to us the problem was very definitely with the off fore. The vet came out again and after quite a bit of pushing from Kirsty, finally looked at the near fore and announced the problem may be with her knee. This wasn't a difficult diagnosis, if you tried to pick up this leg she either sat down, or fell over, trying to flex this joint resulted in muscle spasm in her hind quarters.

She was x-rayed and this showed arthritic changes in her knee, at 43 I think she is entitled to be a little bit arthritic.

During this time she was prescribed bute and after a little bit of playing around with dose rates she is now at a level where she is comfortable to move around, although still not happy to flex the knee for the foot to be picked out.

Kirsty discussed her concerns with the vet, who is not the most pro barefoot vet in the world, and he agreed that it would be quite difficult for Polo to remain shod. Under painkiller and sedation he managed to remove her front shoes and did a little trim.

The problem then was how do you manage to trim a pony that can't flex at the knee?

Various methods were suggested, one idea was to stand Polo on the grass verge next to a drainage ditch and Neil stand in the ditch so she didn't have to bring her foot backwards too much. Another was to rest her foot on a small piece of wood and Neil to trim from underneath the foot.

We decided to play it by ear and just see what sort of trim we could give her without causing her discomfort. We didn't have a set of waders for Neil, so if it ended up with the ditch approach, he was going to get very cold and wet.

Kirsty made sure she had turnout before we arrived to loosen her off. Ginette gave her a 30 minute Photon therapy before we turned up to help increase her circulation and we decided to try the stiff leg first in the comfort of her stable and to see what happened.

Amazingly enough she was able to flex at the knee, Neil kept the foot very low and worked as quickly as he could with his nippers. While this was going on Ginette administered some Reiki which really seemed to chill Polo out. Once the excessive length had been removed and the heels balanced we were able to build her a pillar of bedding to stand on and the rest of the foot was trimmed from underneath and externally to apply the roll.

The rest of the feet were trimmed as normal.

Ginette then gave her another Photon session focusing on her knee and her hind quarters and we left her munching her hay and feed quite happily. Polo doesn't really have teeth any more, she likes to suck the goodness out of her hay and then drops it, she eats a bucket of anything that can be soaked to a porridge like consistency. She didn't look particularly concerned about what had just happened and was actually looking quite perky.

She has a very strong sense of will and makes it very clear that her favourite place for Photon is around her bottom, to the extent that she now offers her bottom to anyone that comes into the stable and tries to squash Ginette against the wall so she doesn't stop.

She is a great little pony and really seems to enjoy her pampering sessions.

Feet

Near Fore - 21st January 07

Once Polo realised that she could flex her knee without it causing her discomfort, she actually picked it up quite high. Here Neil is cleaning out the hoof with his clean out knife. The foot has squared off at the toe and there is some flaring at quarters. Neil is cleaning out the foot as quickly as he can.

Near Fore - 21st January 07

The bars have been trimmed and excess hoof wall removed with the nippers. You can clearly see the thicker hoof wall where Neil's left thumb is positioned, and lack of hoof wall at the toe. The wall is taken to a more uniform thickness with the rasp.

Near Fore - 21st January 07

The rest of the trim is completed with the hoof on the floor. Polo's bed is very deep and we have removed the bed away from the hoof, leaving her standing on a pillar of bedding. In this way the rasp can be used on the floor and is able to be used underneath the hoof at a 45 degree angle to apply a roll.

Note: Neil is not wearing trimming gloves in any of these pictures, and that is very bad, his knife is sharp and the rasp has had the tang removed which means he is holding the rasp entirely in his ungloved hand. This is not recommended and Neil only did this because he wanted to work quickly and have a sensitivity of feel.

Near Fore - 21st January 07

And the finished foot, the notch towards the back of the hoof is where a piece of hoof wall has chipped away, this won't cause Polo any problems and will trim out in time. You can see a little bit of white line disease showing as a black line at the base of the hoof on the lateral side (closest to the camera). One problem that Kirsty has is that because Polo is uncomfortable to flex at the knee, she has been unable to pick out this hoof since her original arthritis attack. We will keep an eye on this, hopefully it will trim out next time or we will spray with Milton following the next trim.

Off Fore Solar View - 21st January 07

We had slightly more time to take photographs with the other feet. This is Polo's off fore and is very similar to the near fore. She has quite brittle horn quality, approximately 50% of her foot is in front of the frog, it should be more like 1/3 of the hoof in front of the frog. The hoof has not yet been brushed off but you can see the way the toe is squared off, there is flare at either side of the toe. The frog has been trimmed by the farrier to a tapered point. The heels are not the most contracted I have ever seen but ideally these will widen and the forward toe will come back. I don't think Polo really cares though, she just wants a foot that she can pootle around on.

Near Hind Solar View - 21st Jan 07

In comparison to the front feet which have only been out of shoes for about three weeks, this is the near hind which has probably been unshod for at least three months. This is one of the feet that had the most amount of pedal rotation.

The white line is tight and yellow/white coloured, the 2/3 1/3 ratio is more or less there, the sole is smooth and has tapered to a natural roll at the toe. The heels are wider and the frog is fuller. The horn quality is better it didn't have that scratchy grating sound when it was trimmed.

There is no tell tale bulge under the bottom of the pedal bone, the depth of the collateral grooves is good and no depression can be felt at the coronet band, basically no real signs of a laminitis attack.

Ok, not a hoof photo but this is Polo's favourite spot for her Photon therapy!

To be continued, watch this space!