A Hoof Update

It's been a while since I said anything about Speedy's latest abscess. In this case, no news was good news. Basically, I rode him on a Wednesday, saw him racing up and down the fence with Izzy on a Friday, and then got a text that he was lame on a Saturday.

​By the time I got to the ranch that afternoon, this was the day we had gone to Kernville, he looked sound at the walk. Usually, when Speedy has an abscess, you can see it at the walk. He never presents with I've-broken-something-and-I-may-never-walk-again lameness; he just looks really sore. The ranch owner has a pretty good eye though, so if she saw something, there was something to be seen. I jogged him out, and yep, there was a slight head bob. 

Unlike any of his other abscesses, I couldn't really pinpoint where it was. With the hoof testers, he was testing positive all around his toe. I used the hoof knife to scrape away some of the loosened sole, and found what looked like an abscess track traveling from one side of his hoof to the other. Without knowing exactly where the abscess was, I opted to simply poultice and see what happened.

He was sore all over his toe from one side to the other.

Once his hoof was wrapped, I put in a call to my vet to see what he thought. His number one concern was that this might be the early signs of laminitis, so he had me check the other front foot. I got no reaction on that hoof. Speedy was also standing squarely on all four feet without the classic toe point or leaning back to get off his front feet. There was no digital pulse, and his pain level looked to be a zero. 

Nope.

Dr. Tolley said that abscesses in the toe aren't as common as in the bars, although he had just dug out a pretty deep one that week. He felt that poulticing was the right course of action. While I had him on the phone, I asked him about using ​Ichthammol as a drawing agent instead of the Numotizine that I've been using. It had been recommended by several people. He was pretty quick to tell me that he hated using Ichthammol because it doesn't wash off. That was all I needed to hear.

I poulticed for three days and two nights. When I took the poultice off, Speedy jogged out sound. The next day, he was sore again, so I repeated the poultice. When I took it off several days later, he was sound and has remained so. So was it an abscess? I am not sure. Dr. Tolley thought it could also have been a small bruise. Either way, poulticing was an appropriate treatment.

After poulticing twice.

Of course, while I was poulticing one foot, I was also keeping my eye on the little hole in Speedy's hoof. For those that don't remember, my vet thought it might have been caused by white line disease, but my farrier found no signs of that. He felt it was more likely the remnants of an old bruise. For the first week or two, I scrubbed it clean with a stiff brush and coated it with Tea Tree Oil. Now, it's nearly grown out and hasn't caused any trouble.

It's almost grown out.

But because nothing in life is simple, Izzy came up lame last week too. As I was walking him to the feed room, my spidey-sense noted something was amiss. Izzy didn't sound right. You know what I mean. I've lead this horse about a billion times, so I know what his footfalls sound like. I didn't see anything thought, so I tacked him up. As we walked up to the arena my intuition again said that something was NQR. As soon as I mounted and asked Izzy to talk off, I knew I was right. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. I kept him walking, trying to pin point which leg it was. 

It felt like he was hitting the ground harder with his left front which suggested he was off on the right front, but that didn't check out. I asked for a quick jog and felt a slight head bob, but for the life of me, I just couldn't figure out which leg it was. I started to suspect it was the left hind.

Izzy's foot.

I walked him back and untacked him and called the ranch owner. I needed a second pair of eyes. There was definitely a head bob, and we both felt like it was in the hind. It was actually kind of funny. We both kept trying to reason it out. If his head goes down on the left, it has to be the right. But if his hip comes up on the right, it has to be his ...

Ultimately, we finally dragged out a lunge line. On the circle it was clearly the left hind. Why it took us so long to think of trotting him in a circle is beyond me. I couldn't find anything with the hoof testers, so I poulticed Izzy's foot too - on the same day that I had already poulticed Speedy's! 

I wasn't surprised by Izzy's abscess. We've had a really dry month followed by heavy rain. He's abscessed once each winter over the past several years, so this one fit that pattern. And only once have I actually seen the abscess erupt, and that one came out just above his heels. He's typically sore for a few days and then it fades away. 

Please play nicely!

The next day, the ranch owner saw Izzy rearing up on his hind legs as he played with Speedy. He was clearly feeling pretty good. On the third day, I pulled the poultice. I used that day to give everyone a soundness check. Each horse got lunged in the arena at all three gaits, and both horses came up sound. Everybody has been ridden several times since then, and they're both sound.

​Now if it would just stop raining for a day or two, we might be able to get back to work.