Hoof Care Day for the Herd

First though, a dorky collage I made, to show off my red yearling beast! My, how she's grown. 

Desire: Turns out, as lumpy as it all looked, there wasn't a whole lot of sole to get out...D used the dremel to smooth out any imperfections. Desire really doesn't have much concavity and her hooves are sort of looking  like they were when D first took over. As in, her feet looked better in the winter and after the spring grass are showing the dishing and thin soled flatness in the fronts...You can see her collateral sulcus grooves don't reach all the way down the frog at all, either, the full reality of which didn't quite hit me until I'd looked at all 4 of my horse's hooves in a row today..I feel like such a dunce on these hoof trimming days but I'm learning slowly but surely--right?!

Left front:

Desire, right front:

Comfort Pads in the Gloves..still may not be enough protection for her thing soles? Going to give her a week and then ride her in thick pads in Epics so I can try to isolate the lameness issue if it reoccurs. There is a distinct possibility that I'll be taking Blaze on the LD at Gold Country instead of Desire on the 50. Unless the next few weeks go perfectly, I'm not comfortable jumping into another 50 that fast. Blaze worked all last year and has been under light work this spring, I don't doubt he could cruise through an LD nicely and that way we wouldn't be totally out of a ride for July...we'll see.

 Playing the boot game..

Sheza: Sheza was quite good today, she came right up to be haltered, walked politely and investigated some scary objects instead of just losing her shit, and after one warm-up spazz for D she was quite good with her hooves. She grew a LOT of hoof in 4 weeks and her hinds are still growing out like point baby feet which is funny looking and kinda cute (but I prefer them well manicured!).

Left front, look at that depth and the grooves! A nice round hoof :)

Being a helpful baby for the itching post trimmer:

Love the blonde summer highlights. She could go all flaxen, I wouldn't mind!

The yearling is a bit too close to mom in size for my comfort...

 Hahaha sniper photo by D, and I looked really tall and Blaze looks tiny! shutuphe'snotpregant!!!

Blaze: his hooves are looking great! His heels have come down so incredibly much since we pulled the shoes. Getting a Glove on him when he first went barefoot was laughable, his heels were so high and contracted, there was no way. He is now going really well in taped (2 wraps), Power-strapped size 1 Easyboot Gloves on the fronts. He goes barefoot in the hinds, even in the LDs. THIS is how booting is supposed to be. He is good with his feet for booting, they go on well, stay on, and are HARD to get off. Hallelujah. Maybe I'll get there with Desire some day.

Left front:

Now look at Desire's Left front again:

Joey being gorgeous. It comes naturally:

 Joey: Joey was great today! While D worked on Blaze I groomed and fly sprayed him and ran my hands, the brush, and the spray all down his hind legs, even his precious right hind. I scooped poop behind his right hind--2 no nos, the right side and the behind, in 1 move!--and he snorted and watched but didn't move.

AND, today he had his first hooves-between-the-knees moments and first work with the nippers. Up until now D just got a few swipes of the rasp on each front, but today both fronts were up and nipped and rasped a little. When he started to get shuffley we backed off, happy with his progress. She also got a little nipping done on his left hind but she did't want to take too much to unbalance him since we knew she couldn't do much to his right hind. Sure enough when she went to his right hind his head went up and he tried to scoot away. We didn't push it much beyond handling the leg itself and called it a day. Much better than when he arrived and we could barely run hands down *any* of his legs!

You can see by his expression he is not entirely thrilled by his hoof disappearing between her knees, but he stood for it!

Up on the stand, good boy

So. Rest for Desire. Miles for Blaze. Sheza is giant and has great feet, and Joey is a good boy.