SeeMe 

"Great hooves! "

Dec 26 , 2008

See Me is a quarter horse mare owned by Dottie. See Me has been trimmed for the previous year and a half by a barefoot trimmer but her soles always still seemed to be relatively flat. It has been six weeks since I first trimmed See Me and in that amount of time there has been great improvement in her concavity and overall structure of her hooves. I instructed Dottie on my prior visit to use Pete's Goo (1/2 lotrimin cream, 1/2 triple anti-biotic cream) to heal the trush I was seeing. It worked great since there is no sign of trush at all now. The picture of See Me below was taken when the sun was almost down so I had to work at getting the lighting right just to get a decent picture of her. I should have taken body shots while the sun was still high in the sky.

SeeMe's hooves were actually in great condition before I ever started the trim. The roll stayed very nice for being six weeks in between trims. I trim from the top and bring her toes back to the white line and then turn the hoof over so I can view the sole. Her hoof mainly needed attention in the heel area to bring back the heel purchase. Overall both Dottie and I are very happy with how her hooves are doing now. There was no soreness right after the trim six weeks prior when in the past she had been a little ouchy going over rocks. Dottie said she led her down a gravel road with no problems.

Here is SeeMe's left front hoof after the trim. I put a nice mustang roll around the wall edge about a 1/2" up from the bottom of the wall. I do not thin the wall but only roll the wall back into the inner layer of the wall back towards the white line. This helps the hoof not to flare and it allows the hoof to keep its "bowl" shape. With each step, instead of flaring to the outside and pushing the wall away from the hoof, this roll allows the wall to push inwards and absorb the concussion of each step. SeeMe's hooves are really starting to have a nice "bowl" (concavity) to them. The heel is nice and level and you can see that the ground has been dry since the frog seems a little dried out. This heel has hardly any contraction to it and is nice and relaxed with open heels.

From this lateral shot it is hard to see the wall where it meets the ground but I have relieved the quarters. There is a slight flare at the toe about an inch or so up but in time this will grow out and the wall will have a nice straight line down from the coronet band.

The oblique view shows the concavity of the hoof. You can also see where I brought the mustang roll clear around to the quarters but left the heels with just a slight rasping. Also right on the edge of the wall you will notice there is some wall separation there. This will have to just grow out. In a few more trims this will most likely not be there any more. The solar view shows a nice round shape to her hoof. I did not lower the heels down very far this trim. I stopped right before hitting live material at the seats of the corn. I wanted to keep a good 1/8" of wall above the sole all the way around. Going any further would have been too far. SeeMe's next appointment is Feb 7th.

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