boat shoes graduate?

Big news in Charlieland: homeboy has officially gone two full cycles without losing a shoe!!! Wooo!!!! Granted, he's still basically on a 3-3.5 week cycle. But.... ya know, it's still better than 2.5 weeks haha!

(sob. also, between this and my post about how much this horse eats, you've gotten a real insider's view on the insane amount of care and maintenance going into this saintly beast. thank god he's such a good boy! #worthit)

freshly done + keratex-koated tootsies. and new le mieux!

Anyway, many aspects of Charlie's day to day care changed with the barn move. Obviously. Unfortunately the move also necessitated a slight shuffling around in Charlie's A-team of care providers. Specifically: our beloved farrier, who brought Charlie along from race plates to his current set of hooves, was unable to keep us on as clients after the move.

finally bought the guy his own dedicated xc boots. you could say it's getting serious.

This was sad news, as I really liked this farrier - particularly as he had been very thoughtful in developing a plan for Charlie, and had taken ownership and accountability over Charlie's hoof health. You may remember this past June, for instance, when he asked me to try Charlie in leather rim pads - something that's seemed to work well for the horse.

a surprisingly difficult picture to take - that's light shining through the boot perforations. my experience with the earlier generation of these boots (that isabel wore) was that they basically hold zero water and dry super fast

So switching to a new farrier (actually even just deciding on one in the first place) has been a little nerve-wracking for me. I'm lucky that the new barn has three different farriers who each come on property every single week. Which is.... actually really freakin awesome and reassuring.

But ya know. Everyone always has strong opinions about who does the best work or whatever, so it's been tricky trying to navigate that mine field. Luckily we've now gotten through our second shoeing with the new farrier (3wk cycle yo, time flies) and I think we're in a good place.

obvi haven't actually used 'em yet, notice tags still on. chose these boots bc 1) i loved the full set i had for isabel and, imho 2) these boots offer the most hi-tech protection for the best price currently on the market

In my ideal world, I'll have a professional who I can trust intrinsically to make good choices for my horse - to be the expert in farriery so that I don't have to be. I want the ppl who provide care for my horse to feel like they can be creative in addressing his needs, and feel like they can do what they think needs done.

But.... I also have opinions of my own. For Charlie's first cycle with the new farrier, she expressed her own personal disinclination for rim pads and preference for full pads. So this past cycle, Charlie wore full leather pads. Meanwhile, I personally have my own reservations about full pads... some of which felt merited when Charlie came up with a minor abscess and I kinda had my hands tied for treating it.

first impression is very strong tho. the strike plates (blue patches) are super interesting - they're fully flexible while also feeling thick, protective, and shock absorbing

So for his second shoeing at the new place, we opted to go entirely sans pads. The reality is that Charlie's soles and frogs were actually in reasonable shape when the previous farrier decided to try rim pads. His purpose had more to do with clearance and shock absorption, and perhaps a softer cushion to reduce crumbling in the hoof wall.

This makes me optimistic that the three weeks Charlie spent in full pads won't have softened his soles much or made them too overly sensitive. Hopefully, lol. Tho obvi I'll do everything I can to help toughen them up. #keratex4lyfe

lol he looks excited, no?

We'll see how it goes. Charlie's inconsistent riding schedule has persisted despite all my best intentions over these past few weeks, as he came up with an abscess basically right after our baller xc school and is only just now ready to rock 'n roll again.

Obviously the past three-ish weeks of limited and sporadic riding are not at all ideal going into what ought to be our 'ramp up' for the fall season. But.... well. That's kinda the silver lining of riding in lower levels, right? We don't need a ton of fitness to get through a BN event.

I would like a little more schooling tho. It would be nice to do Charlie a little bit of justice in the dressage ring. To be able to piece together some of his newfound abilities long enough to grab a couple good scores haha. It'll be what it's gonna be tho. We're officially in the two week count down to kicking off our fall season. Here's hoping we can use this period to make up for lost time!