The long and the short of it

Riley has managed to pull three shoes off (LF, RF, RF respectively) within 5 days of each other over the last 2 weeks. To say that my farrier and I are frustrated would be a massive understatement.

Troublemakers.

Saturday, we planned to trailer Riley along with Prima (she was competing at Fairhill), but the morning started with a weird vibe. When I got the barn, E had Prima bathed but she had a quizzical look on her face. Something wasn't quite right. Prima was a bit footsore so we bagged the idea of going to Fairhill. No need to make that any worse. With the truck and trailer hooked up and a beautiful day we decided we could take advantage of the circumstances and put the boys on the trailer and go for a nice hack at The Laurels. Henry decided he's never been in a trailer before and made me chase him on with a pitchfork and Riley smashed me in the top of my head as I was fixing the front bar in the trailer (totally an accident) -- like I said, the day had a weird vibe. With Henry working himself up we decided to trailer over to a local tavern, get some lunch and some beers and see how they were doing after a little time to settle. Wouldn't you know they were as quiet as could be when we returned. Off we went for our hack. Except that Riley refused to stand next to the trailer for me to get on. Grrrr. We had a few discussions about this until I led him down the road to a little bank near the entrance to the park. He pulled the same shit again and I made him walk up and down the back until he was will to stand still next to it. Don't misunderstand me here, I realize it's a new, exciting environment and he might not be an angel for mounting, but when I stick my foot in the stirrup and he flies backwards... that is not cool. Finally he realized that I was going to make him work really hard if he wasn't going to stand still, and he finally stood patiently while I got on! So dramatic.

Cutest pony after his hack!

Our ride was really nice. Both horses seemed very happy to be out and about. We crossed a few streams, got in some trot sets, a little cantering and as we headed back toward the trailer we did a quick shoe-check. Guess who pulled his RF? Seriously.

He was understandably really sore on the blue stone and sound on grass. Sigh. Time to reevaluate his situation again. My gut tells me that we should pull him shoes now before the ground get hard (since he is sound enough on grass) and ride him in boots. I've done lots of research on boots and found some that I think will work for him (the farrier will make sure they fit today). This will give him a little bit of time to get over the transition (roughly 2-3 months until the ground gets super hard) and he'll still be able to get in some work. We'll keep the sessions short while his boots break in (and to help prevent him from getting too sore). We will keep him barefoot from now until next spring, in the meantime P will try to trim his foot back to a functional starting point in small measures.

When I called P today, he laughed when he answered the phone and said that he's never had a client like Riley! It was his suggestion that we pull the shoes and he liked the idea of using boots to keep him in light work. He said it's his inclination to pull shoes on horses like Riley, but not a lot of owners can watch their horses throughout the transition (admittedly, it was hard in July, but that was only for a month). I told him that we've taken all goals off the table and that I just want to get him healthy.

These are the boots we tried Sunday -- they are too big, and I exchanged them for a smaller size in the "sport" version

Test run in the arena -- he was sound despite the fit!

I'm going to get some good photos today to show our starting point. It will be interesting to see the differences over the next 6 months. At least he's a good sport about getting the boots on! I'm going to order the pastern wraps today to make sure he doesn't get rubs.

So that's all for now... I'll keep you guys posted on how things go later today. For now, just some cute photos of Riley, since I'm too frustrated to even think straight.

Riley making friends with Zee .

At least he's an easy keeper.

Best buds for life/ Henry makes Riley look like a pony.

ps. Don't forget to enter my contest!!!!!!!