Trot, hooves, snow

The forecasted snow for yesterday never appeared. I stayed home because the weather sites were so insistent about that 100% chance of 3-5". Today they said the same thing - no, really, 2-4" of snow, 100% chance. I couldn't stay home another day, so snow be damned, off I went to visit Dixie.

The wind was howling at S's, so I'm glad I wasn't planning on riding. I picked Dixie's hooves, then worked on AareneX's method of teaching the trot out. It took a while to get a trot on the longe, but eventually we got it, from both sides. Then I had her start off on a circle but kept her going straight, just for a couple of strides. Lots of praise and we were done.

She had one very "good" spook, too. I never hard tie her to my truck; I just loop the lead around the cleats on the side of the bed. Yeah, she could get loose, but where's she going to go? Straight back to her buddies or straight over to the hay barn. There's a small risk that she'll get loose and totally lose her mind and hurt herself, but I'll take the chance.

I've got a plastic bin in the bed of the truck, with horse treats and beet pulp stored in it. I was rustling around in there (like she's seen a million times) and a piece of ICE fell off the lid while I had it raised. Dixie got all bug-eyed and bolted backwards about 10 feet, taking the rope with her. Then she stopped and snorted, and I told her what a good girl she was and slowly lowered the lid and walked around the side of the truck. She looked at me and at the bin for a while, then, all on her own, she sighed and dropped her head. I clicked and slowly walked over and gave her a treat. I'm so proud :) She saw a scary, got spooked, then calmed herself down.

Then I took hoof pics. I measured her feet, too, but I'm not sure if I measured right. I think I will measure them again next time I go up there.

The wonky foot (LF) still looks really weird and lopsided to me, but I am just not worrying about it. I've never had a horse that would fearlessly trot on gravel before. I've never had a horse with such a tight white line, and so little flare, and such round feet. The LF is asymmetrical, but it seems to work for her. It's endlessly amazing to me how her feet went from horrible to mediocre by going barefoot, then mediocre to amazing by living and riding a bazillion miles in the desert. Horses are remarkable!

Ok, pictures. Click to embiggen.

Right front is the high-heel hoof. I rasped a bit at the heels, but that looks like live sole in the buttresses so I left it alone. After I took these, I went back and rolled the toe wall a bit more. And her frog looks puny, but it just peeled off a layer last week.


The whole capsule looks long, but I am certainly not going to carve at her sole to make her hoof shorter.


Left front is the wonky one. This is after I trimmed a bit of the medial toe to maybe help with the breakover. I've been trimming a smidge of medial toe about once a week, but I haven't noticed a huge improvement.


The whole foot looks very weird in this picture. I don't know if it's the dirty walls, the way she was standing, the gravel, or if her foot IS weird. Shrug.



After I got pics and measurements, I headed back for home. Right as I got off the highway at our exit, it started snowing. I am such a southerner, I got the giggles about it. SNOW! Eeeee! Now it's pouring down snow and I'm trying to decide if I want to go to town tonight for the BCH meeting.