6 year old warmblood currently barefoot. Rads are 4 weeks post trim. Flexions ok, pain/tension to hoof testers, under saddle reluctant to go forward. What would your next steps be?
Fix the trim, add heel height to correct the flat coffin bone angle. The LH has been flat long enough to cause bullnosing (convex profile), the RH is only marginally less so. It’s been long enough to have caused issues all up and down the hind end, and probably working forward.
No riding for now for a few weeks, body work will be needed to help him with the tension and muscle spasms that are no doubt present. Judicial use of Reserpine may be useful to help break the muscle spasm cycles, see what a good MT finds first.
Thank you. This horse has had the same farrier since birth and has been on a consistent schedule. Farrier put shoes and 1 degree leather pads on yesterday at vets request but was pretty blasé about it. I booked the body worker for next week and vet has prescribed pain meds for 4 days. This morning horse has swelling in the right fetlock waiting to hear back from the vet. I feel sick over this but glad I followed my gut despite being told he just lacked fitness.
The farrier caused this, almost 99.99% guaranteed. Rarely is a horse conformed so badly that he does this to himself, at least not without farrier/trimmer ignorance
So, I would be looking for a new farrier starting next trim. You can’t just wedge your way out of this.
Since he’s been trimmed by the same person for 6 years, it may be that the digital cushion never properly developed, and at this point, it may, or may not, be able to be healthy. But it all depends on when the trimming to cause and allow this really started.
the other thing is that there’s distal descent. Your vet should have marked the tip of the frog, and the coronet band, but these images are good enough we can see the coronet band anyway. The top of P3 should be more or less even with the coronet, and in both feet, it’s below. That’s almost guaranteed to be a function of the lack of overall hoof health, and hopefully will improve as the feet improve.
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