Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

After scribing for a vet one day ,I have to say the most common cause of 
lameness has to be poor hoof management.  
I saw so many horses with incredibly long toes and way overdue trim and shoe 
schedules and owners who said they had another ride to do and they were 
stretching the reset for this reason or that.  If people would just think of 
the 
hoof as the foundation for the horse like a house foundation.  when your horse 
plants his foot down in the ground and pushes forward if the foot isn't 100% 
balanced your chances of injury go up.  Its as simple as that.  Horses will go 
,despite discomfort and pain.  They only show lameness when they can't move any 
further without limping. It is in their nature to compensate for our 
meddleing and artificially altering their foot and gait to whatever the current 
trend 
in farriery is.  
We do the best we can but we should have no doubt before we start a ride of 
any distance that we have the best possible foot on this horse we can 
reasonably get away with.  If you have any doubts that your stretching the time 
that 
your partner needs a reset or some alteration then err on the side of caution, 
please.  
All you have to do is watch the horses come in at a ride and get pulled for 
lameness. Notice a connection to the condition of the foot, is the toe too 
long?  Are the heels under the fetlock properly?  If not, there is a great deal 
of 
stress to the suspensory ligament if not all tendons and ligaments.    
Read Andrew Rooneys "Lameness Book" and you will have a drastic difference in 
the idea of locomotion of your horse.  
We all learn the hard way ,unfortunately for our horses.

Paula Blair
whose horses at this moment are all sound. I'm grateful.

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Arabians were bred for years primarily as a war horse and those
requirements are similar to what we do today with endurance riding. 
~  Homer Saferwiffle

ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/

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