Perhaps too much freedom and flexibility now?

Well !

I really don't know if I want quite as much freedom of movement as Ace is now enjoying :-)   He bounced up the yard and out of the gate,  he pogoed down the hill, he insisted on trotting well before our normal place, and he kept that up for the whole ride. His trot stride was absolutely massive; I was having to hover in the stirrups so as not to sit down too soon and lose time with his movement. He was a little spooky, but less that the last hack we did, and our policy of ignoring spooks is paying off as well as cooking his back before we ride. The two are mostly independent, I think, but it must help him spook less if he is not in pain.

I have not used draw reins schooling for a week, and although I had them on to hack out I ended up clipping them to the saddle out of use. Things are decidedly looking up :-)

Woody was sound on the lunge. Either that or he was 1 zillionth "off" on the left fore on the right rein. But I think I was just imagining it.  Did you notice, by the way, how the side of the foot he was lame on flipped over a few days ago? Interesting, isn't it??

Anyway, if he is sound tomorrow when we hack, and again the day after when I lunge, then I will be increasing his work to include schooling in the arena on circles with some canter, and also to work for two days in succession if I feel like riding him. The important thing will be not to allow him more than two days in a row without work, and that will probably have to carry on for many months before we can consider him to be a "normal" horse.

Meanwhile, he's making huge adjustments to his feet, and he is looking "straighter" in himself as a result. His front feet have developed enormous concavity with very deep collateral grooves down the sides of the frogs. This is internal depth - he has no hoof wall higher than the sole callous and his frogs are firmly in contact with the floor. This indicates that he is carrying his pedal bones much higher inside his feet than he was. This will allow him to resculpt the bottom part of his foot to suit the bones inside them and the joints higher up the legs. At the moment we are waiting for more toe growth to reduce the angle of his pasterns. I know it will happen, because his toes are still unnaturally short. But as long as he is sound, we can wait for the rest!

C