happy feet

It was exactly this time last year, under extremely similar circumstances — extended periods of frozen ground and exclusively indoor-only riding — that we first observed a strange mystery NQR-ness in Doozy. It started off as a suspected bruise, but kinda spiraled from there.

happiest hand grazer <3

My immensely practical vet has an established method (almost, perhaps, scientific?? lol) for assessing this sort of thing, including evaluating and eliminating normal / common causes and solutions first before proceeding with more complex diagnostics. 

As such, over the next ~4 months we did a bute test, took time off, reintroduced work while limiting tight turns or small circles (tricky to do in a narrow indoor while sharing space), did multiple lameness exams with flexion tests, nerve blocks, rads… injected a fetlock, added hind shoes, put the mare on equioxx…. 

“but wait, wtf is that??”

And probably other stuff I’m forgetting too… Alongside, naturally, typical holistic wellness type activities like chiro / acupuncture, magna wave and saddle fittings. 

Throughout it all, the NQR-ness would come and go somewhat mysteriously. Either there or not there. Never getting worse. Not increasing over the course of a ride, nor would Doozy ‘work out of it.’ She was either taking lame steps, or not. Until, eventually, it disappeared entirely by mid spring and the mare remained consistently reliably sound ever after. 

friggin cats gettin their paw prints everywhere!

Until. Ahem. Midway through winter, after an extended period of frozen ground and exclusively indoor-only riding for a while now. In a recent ride, Doozy again took a couple of those same exact characteristically NQR steps.

being stalkerish in the hopes of being fed lol

Throughout all our diagnostics last year, my vet never felt like we could fully eliminate the possibility that the main issue was essentially a bruised hoof. My farrier seconded this opinion, with observations of a chronic pressure point in Doozy’s sole, most likely attributed to her imperfect forelimb conformation.*

(*In other words, homegirl has some significant twisting and crookedness in both front legs.)

anyway, onto the real point of the matter:
Doozy’s chronic pressure point, a result of her imperfect forelimb conformation

Doozy’s legs are not straight, and therefore her hooves are… well. Not exactly textbook. But she has a clean, sound way of moving — and my farrier has worked hard to ensure a level even footfall. Rads from last year confirmed that basically everything about the feet are healthy even if the ‘shape’ isn’t classically correct. 

But this little pressure point is basically always there. Well, not always always. It apparently becomes more pronounced in winter. After extended periods of frozen ground, when we’re riding mostly in a narrow indoor whose footing is fine but not exactly the most modern stuff in the world. And when maybe the hoof isn’t growing as fast as it would on summer pasture.

pictured: two imperfect forelimbs. the chronic pressure point is on her medial left front sole, so the hoof on the right side of this picture, on the inside closer to her midline. 

Adding pads was on our list of things to try last year, but with how her shoeing cycle intertwined with our other tests, it was never quite the right time to try. We wanted to do one thing at a time — like adding hind shoes! — to try to see what worked. And obviously, once she became reliably sound by mid spring, there didn’t seem to be much wisdom with continuing to tinker, ya know?

When I felt that funny feeling again tho, literally days before our recent farrier appointment, pads seemed like as good as any place to start. 

oooh Doozy’s gettin her own fancy boat shoes!!

Doozy doesn’t really react to the hoof testers on that pressure point. Which… Realistically she’s probably had that spot, or something like it, for most of her life. And recall, our nerve blocks from last year were inconclusive on whether her discomfort originated in the hoof or higher up. 

farrier likes using R.A.T.E. Hoof Packing under the pads, and generally prefers using natural materials vs synthetics like dental impression (tho it depends on the use case). past farriers have used magic cushion too

But our current hypothesis is that some combination of repeated and cumulative exposure to frozen ground + hard footing + exclusively small turns + limited hoof growth = exacerbation of her existing conformational flaws. 

one shoe!!

Other factors in support of this hypothesis include the intermittency of the NQR-ness, literally from one day to the next. And the fact that whether it presents or not seems to be related to where we are — as in, what ring, what footing. 

two shoes!!

All of this makes me hopeful that adding a little cushion via leather pads can mitigate the issue entirely. Sure, I might be rationalizing the known facts, rearranging them to fit this new narrative. But. Eh. It makes sense to me, my farrier and my vet, and seems like a worthy trial. 

As always, I am NOT a professional on ANY of this stuff. If you have similar concerns or experiences, it’s best to confer with the trusted members of your own team and circle. And also as always, unless I’ve remitted payment to you in the last 12 months, you are not among *my* trusted circle. Feel free to disagree with our approach as you like.

time will tell but i’m optimistic!

Realistically, Doozy is a thoroughbred with generations of human-engineered selective breeding. She’s pretty explicitly far from the typical adaptations you’d see in nature, where “survival of the fittest” drives gene selection. As such, she may require throughout her life various interventions to comfortably live out her days. 

and anyway. cats.

And that’s before we even consider the realities of what she needs to be successful in sport. Which, by “success” I don’t mean actually literally winning, I just mean being comfortable, capable, and resilient to the training, conditioning and exercise of it all. 

Especially with all her extra, errr, expressiveness… It’s integral for my confidence in our approach to training that I can reasonably rule out discomfort as a source of the behaviors we sometimes experience, know what I mean? Ymmv, obvi. 

So I’m honestly pretty excited by this little experiment. There was only one ride where I thought I felt the funny steps, and we basically immediately made this change in shoeing. If the funny steps never reappear again, I’ll be a very happy camper. If not, that’s fine too. Well. Not “fine” but you know what I mean. We’ll try the next thing on the list lol. 

At least we know from last year that… the mare never got “worse,” and in fact eventually became completely 100% better for all of late spring, summer, fall, and early winter. That’s a pretty confidence-inspiring history, so we’ll see what happens!