Resetting the fronts

Last night Daatje got her front shoes reset.  I was very interested to see what her hooves looked like after 6 weeks in the ground controls.  Were they improved?  Worse?  Daatje has felt 110% under saddle, so I was hopeful they'd look better than they did before we put them on.  I have photos just before the shoes and just after they were pulled, solar view of the right front.


 

The wall at her quarters was gone, broken out fairly high up the hoof.  She was very much on her sole and ever so slightly off bare, sound in boots with pads.  This hoof wore away just from her walking around her paddock.  I had not ridden much during the months of June and July and when I did, it was in her Easyboot Epics.  This got me thinking we'd better add some reliable protection before we start hunting or we'd be dead in the water.

 

Below is that same foot after 6 weeks in the Ground Control Shoes.  The shoe had just been removed, bars trimmed and dead sole pared away.  I had not yet trimmed the wall before I took the photo.  You can see the quarters are coming back, but it will take another 5-6 weeks before they are whole again, I think. 



All in all, I'm very pleased with how her hooves looked under the shoes.  There was no funk, no thrush, very little debris.  The shoes removed easily with my crease nail puller and were in good enough shape to reset.  Here are the fronts, just removed and cleaned up.

As you can see, there is still plenty of thickness left in the shoe.

By the time I had them back on, it was too dark for photos, but this morning, I brushed them off and took some to share.  I only used 6 nails per shoe this time instead of 8 and used washers under every nail.  (6mm in size, and bent like a taco)  I found, as the shoes were worn, that the un-washered nails sunk into the urethane material a little, causing the clinches to lift away from the hoof wall, resulting in the exposure of the sharp hook of the clinch.  The rear nails that were replaced with ones using washers had tight and smooth clinches right until the end, so I though it best to go with them on all nails.

Right front



Left front

In placing the nails, I made an effort to avoid the quarters that were most damaged from the barefoot wear.  The wall there has not yet grown down as strong wall so nailing into it would be counter productive, I think.  You can see in this shot where the quarters still need to grow down.

  

Here's a view from the heel and from the side of both fronts. 

Left front, heel view

Right front, heel view

Right front, side view

Left front, side view

I got a little happy with the "Tough Stuff" over the past 6 weeks.  See all those flakey layers in the photo?  That's it coming off!  I'll sand it a bit to clean up the appearance and perhaps I should switch to a different hoof dressing.  Lol.

 

Anyway, when I was through, I took her for a trot up and down the driveway and her cadence was strong and even, so she's comfortable and moving well after the reset.  We have a hunt tomorrow in Kensington, so I'll be back to report how things go!  (I know, I still haven't posted photos from Wednesday's hunt at Fine Nest, but if you'd like to see them, you can go to the Wentworth Hunt Photo Gallery.  :)

 

The hind shoes are only at 3 weeks, and her hinds were short to begin with, so I'm going to wait another three before resetting them.  They're not taking the beating the fronts are, either, so I may even get a third setting out of the hind shoes.  We'll see.  This is quite the experiment and so far, it's going well.  The horse is more comfortable and her hooves are improving in condition.