This is one of the clearest views you can get as to why Woody has been lame for four years and is now sound. Look at his right foreleg and where his foot is on the end of it - on the left in this shot. How can any farrier shoe a foot to compensate accurately for this level of twist in his movement? When you look at his legs when he isn't moving, there is very little clue that he will have this amount of deviation in his action. The only person who can craft a foot to match that leg is Woody himself, and now that he has done it, by consistent work over 4 months, he is able to move without straining his foot tendons and ligaments, even at speed on uneven ground.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/harwood-images/8460800570/in/photostream
We hunt again tomorrow if the weather is dry enough. Another fairly gentle one is promised, so it will be too tame for poor Radar, who is desperate for some hedges! As am I !! But it will be great to get Woody out for the second time in a row, it will do him no end of good. He will be in a pelham with two reins and a martingale on both of them, just in case. I have sewn a air jacket spare cartridge into his numnah this time so as not to lose another £20 worth of carbon dioxide!
I'm really looking forward to it. I won't have time to report, so don't worry that you don't hear from me. It's the hunt ball (the other hunt) and I'll be rushing to get my posh frock on and get there.
C
That is a rather interesting front leg action!
ReplyDeleteI liked the previous shots too - talk about his ears in your mouth!
Good luck for hunting. I too think you are brave to take out a horse that has never been hunting before. At least he didn't buck. Good boy.
Ah, yes, ginger ear flavour mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
ReplyDeleteHe's not a bucker, thank goodness. I will enjoy taking him tomorrow and having another session educating him than I would taking Radar and it all being rather humdrum.
C
That is one big twist in his stride. You were totally right in allowing him to "trim" his own feet to find the proper angles. It would take a master master farrier to evaluate and shoe to match that.
ReplyDeletePelham and martingale rigs seems about right to me. Wishing you good weather and good footing so you and Woody can find some compromises along the way.
Have fun at the hunt and the ball! (I'll bet you clean up pretty nicely....*G*)
Purple silk for the ball Jean, a leftover from my time playing Corporate Wife at business functions :-)
DeleteC
Wow! That is one wonky leg! The shape of his sock accentuates it as well . . . The more I read about horses being kept barefoot and the more I hear about my friends' horses going wrong (kissing spines here, hock injections there, with a sprinkling of pulled DDFTs along the way), the more I think all horses should go barefoot at the first hint of skeletal problems. Wouldn't it be amazing if vets could magically be educated to say "if it's not pouring blood or got a temperature, let's take the shoes off and see how we go from there"!
ReplyDelete(Oh, I've been watching too much Alice in Wonderland!)
Caroline
Yes you have to imagine the sock all white or all chestnut, but it's still quite a deviation.
ReplyDeleteI love your Alice dream, now where's that white rabbit when we need it.
C