Fancy 

"These feet will make a great case study... "

Dec 9 , 2008

My friend Pam bought a new mare a couple weeks ago. We had been going around together looking at horses to buy for her and she found Fancy. I loved her the moment I saw her. She is breathtaking. She is a three year old Paint mare, Jets Fancy Zippo, that has a great pedigree and the quality to match it. Pam is wanting to show this mare along with her other mare Jewel in some APHA shows in 2009. Here are her pictures from the breeder sometime within the last couple of months.

Fancy's hooves needed some attention. You can see in the pictures that her pasterns are pretty upright. That is because her heels are very tall, so much that she has rockered her toe on the left front herself from having a toe first landing. The picutres below will show her hooves before I trimmed them today. They are very unbalanced medially as well as having very high heels. That is her frog sloughing off at the heel buttress area. Her frog at this point is non-functioning and is very neucrotic in many areas.

Here are Fancy's feet just after doing one front hoof. Notice the difference in the size of the hooves. I am not finished with the left front at this time either. I went back and balanced it out even more after I had finished the right fore and had Bob ride her. I did not use the nippers on her feet other than to trim the bad parts of the frog and a small section of the heels on the right front hoof. All the rest of the trim was done entirely with my rasp. It is more work this way but the hoof will tell me when its done with me trimming it. I don't want to "accidentally" nipper too much and have that word "oops" come out when I've cut too far down. It just isn't professional and it makes for a sore horse and an angry owner. Just not something I'm willing to risk at this point. I'd rather shave off a little at a time and see the horn and wall being removed one slice at a time rather than digging deep and going for the gusto with my nipper and guess where I think the live material is. Sure it does take me 45 mintes to an hour to trim one horse but we're in no land-speed records either. There are no first place ribbons for "Fastest Trimmer". There are however great rewards for trimmers who are good at what they do and have the horse's comfort in mind when trimming.

Here is Fancy's hoof after trimming. I was able to take a lot of heel height away from this hoof but left the toes almost enitrely alone other than managing the flares from the top. The toe on this hoof looks a bit strange but it is the rockered toe that was already there that causes this weird view from the front (dorsal). The toe wore down on the inside of the hoof making her walk "pigeon toed". The inside wall was very short and the outside wall was very tall causing her toe to be worn back faster since it was hitting the ground first. The sole of her foot is very flat right now but at least it is level and balanced medially by indication of the straight horizontal hairline. By the next trim the wall will grow down and this rockered look will be gone. You can see in the lateral shot that I beveled the heels to help her adjust to her new breakover since I brought the heels pretty far down this trim. I only lowered them as much as the hoof would let me this trim, which is down to the live horn at the seat of the corns. The hoof is still not perfect by any means but I was getting into sole material by trying to balance is medially. I was positive this would make her sore going much further on this first trim so we'll see what happens in four weeks. For hooves like this it's important to keep up with them as they change. These feet will eventually improve in time.

Along with having her first barefoot trim, she also had her first ride since she is in training at the barn Pam is keeping her at. Bob Siegman at Prairie Winds Stables is who is in the pictures. Fancy has a bit of an attitude but Bob looked to be handling her and got a first ride in without any bucking. We also worked on getting her to pick up her back feet for trimming since she was pretty "kicky" when I attempted it earlier. After I trimmed the fores, I told Bob to go ahead and do what he needed to with her and then we could work on the hind feet when he was done with her. I was able to get them on the post underneath her to trim from the top some but after that she wouldn't let me put her feet back in the cradle behind her. We decided to end the training session on a good note and just stop there for one day. She had a lot of things done to her all in one day. Here she is with Bob up in the saddle for the first time. She sure is pretty.

For a better comparison of the before and after differences here are side-by-side shots: