Turk, Take Two

I opened my inbox this morning (in a haze of pain... but that is another story...) and to my great surprise I found a wonderful email from someone I thought had vanished off the face of the Earth, or at the very least from the equi-blogosphere. Peter, our traditional farrier friend from afar (New Zeland perhaps?) happened a moment or three online and read Turk's post yesterday. Rather than fighting with Blogger to leave a comment, he emailed me directly. I'll be posting it here, with my thoughts added, for all to see.

With no further ado, (and because I can only sit on this chair for so long,) I give you Peter.

"My irrevocably arrogant call is that the off front hoof injury isn't the
problem.

Your paint's rider is sitting with her hip canted down and forward and
to the left.

This is causing poor ol' paint to stand way too hard on the near front
to compensate for all that diagonal load.

Just ignore the damage to the off front, I've dealt with one or two or
twenty of these, the modification to the other hooves occurs like this:

Damage off front, take load on near hind.

Near hind stretches a bit all round to cope with the load.

Then near hind needs to step under the belly a bit cos the connection
from the back to the pelvis is getting a bit sore.

Near hind lateral toe then starts to stretch cos it's hitting the ground
too early, after stepping under the belly, (remember the horse is
travelling (falling) forward) which makes the near hind a bit sore, so...

Quick, transfer the weight on to the near front, cos the off hind is
hanging out the back a bit, ok that works good, can stand dead square on
that.

And the off hind come through no problem at all, cos we're only walking,
right, which is what we do most of the day right, unless we are a
goddamn Thoroughbred racehorse... oops leave that one alone ok Pete.

But as the off hind comes forward, it naturally loads the off front,
which is a bit touchy at the moment, so we throw our weight back on to
the near hind...

which hasn't quite caught up with the forward swing yet cos everything
else is just a little bit out of kilter, so...

we have to get that near hind under us real quick so we don't embarrass
ourselves and fall down, which is MUCH more important than anything else.

Isn't it?

And the fact that we slam our near hind medial wall down seriously hard
on the ground cos we stepped forward way too quick doesn't matter, cos
we'll just grow lots more medial wall to callous up against all that
extra shock.

And that near hind medial wall that we're putting down too soon gets
longer so we're putting it down even more too soon.

Owwww.

Got the idea?

Little bit sore off front makes

Long medial wall near hind

Makes near hind hip drop in rotational movement as horse steps under to
even up the impact of the long wall

(old farrier rule of thumb, horse steps toward the longest part of the
wall, think about it)

Makes inexperienced rider fall forward to the left then correct by
pushing up against the left stirrup (Mrs Mom in: The problem with this assumption is that BECG is an inexperienced rider. BECG is a true horsewoman.)

instead of dropping down on the right seat bone

and horse goes THUMP onto near front foot

which makes near front grow bigger round to support the extra load

didahdidadidah

Or, sore off front makes long near hind medial wall, and everything else
falls apart to follow that.

Fix the near hind and the rider's position then everything else will
come right.

Couldn't quite follow the pics, have you got a pre and post trim,
including a good view of the soft tissue between the bulbs? (More pictures will be forthcoming. Yay!)

Peter"


Now- BECG herself had mentioned bodywork on Turk. Which got me thinking...

How many people ever truly address the ENTIRE body of the horse when sorting out old injuries and lameness incidents?

Think about this for a moment.

If your back is sore, and you visit the chiropractor, he adjusts things and puts you back in place. Right? But.

If you slip back into the same beat up and battered pair of sneakers, where one heel is higher a bit than the other, and it alters your gait, thus stressing the muscles that hold the parts just put back into place, which in turn pull against the adjustment, causing you to pop back out of alignment..... what do you have?

A cycle.

This is something I personally feel is NOT addressed in the equine therapy world. If you have a poor foundation, your structure will never be sound. You'll wind up with pain again and again, in the same places. This causes a lot of physical changes to happen in the horse's body- some of which we can already see in Turk's feet. (The Feet Mirror The Whole Health Of The Horse. Remember that.)

When you are rehabbing a hoof issue, be aware of how the horse's movement has been affected. Your job is not just to "fix the feet"-- your job is to be aware of the entire body and what it may need to completely heal properly. (Watch. Your. Horses. Move. Sound familiar?)

In this case, doing *just* chiro work on the horse would not solve the problem. Neither would doing *just* hoof care (or slapping on shoes.) But Turk is lucky-- not only will he get chiro work, he'll ALSO get those feet balanced, which will in turn begin to balance his body out. BECG knows how to help stretch and build up muscles, and encourage the body to relearn how to work- properly and in balance. Turk will make a nice riding horse before long, and I anticipate seeing some really lovely feet under him as a result.

Now, I'm going to cut this short, as my back is screaming at me once again. Time to change to a position that will stretch it and move it, in hopes of changing MY balance and position for the better!