I’ve got a 3yo Egyptian filly that is spectacularly
put together except for her right hind leg. From the fetlock down, the
foot curls in a bit and the hoof is vertical on the outside and tends to flare
on the inside. It’s not huge, and the hoof is “under”
the leg, just not centered. Since I’m lucky enough to have Gene
Ovnicek in my backyard, I had him take a peek at her to make sure I was
trimming her in the best way to help and get his opinion on what limits I
should place on her riding career. He wasn’t overly worried about
it and I was comfortable with that since I don’t ask a horse to do
something it doesn’t want to do or can’t physically perform.
He was the one that mentioned the term “windswept” to me, I hadn’t
heard it before.
We have just started doing a little light saddle work and
all is going well. She really is so well put together and moves very
nicely with no indication that the foot is troubling her that I’ve gone
from, “well maybe we’ll focus on dressage and do light trail work”
to “gee, I really hope this horse wants to do endurance because she can
really move well”. She could do dressage too, but I get really
bored only going in circles!
So my question is whether anyone has had any experience with
a foot like this and how limiting it could be or if we do a good job building
up strength slowly if she just might do well in spite of? I can take a
picture if someone wants to see how bad it is compared to something they’ve
already dealt with. Any ideas on building her up to deal with this would
be appreciated as well. Oh, and we’re not jumping right into
conditioning any time soon. I’m just going to do a month to get her
started under saddle, then maybe another month later this fall, then start up slowly
in the spring when she’s 4 with a goal of doing a ride late next summer
at the earliest. That’s only if she’s into it mentally, she
is still a pouty child at times!
