26/04/2024
TALES OF LOUIE - THOROUGHBREDS, SORE FEET & LIFE UNSHOD
Up until recently I had sort of the ignorant notion in the back of my mind that all thoroughbreds have sore feet. Maybe because it was so very unusual to see one that had a heel and some mass to it. I was told once crushed, it was over for the digital cushion and a life of therapeutic shoeing was all there was .
When I was on the track they would scrape and pare those little feet out every 4 weeks taking large chunks of sole and bar and anything else that might possibly lend some integrity to the foot. You would not see much growth of this hard little piece of keratin and collagen and what not stuff that was responsible for not collapsing into despair sandwiched between the 1000lbs of gravitational and the equally daunting ground reaction forces - what's a foot to do ??
On the racetrack a horse might never walk on a surface harder than a dirt path that gives way under these forces.
Foot sore ?? No worries just slap a shoe on it, it will be fine.
I was told over and over that Louie could never ever be barefoot.
He would be too sore
It was INHUMANE
I wondered if he was sore barefoot does that mean he is sore with his shoes but he just doesn't feel it as bad?
Periodically I would try to answer these questions by blocking his feet, would he look different ?? Would that help me 'know' if he was in pain?
The blocks did not change him and I was able to take that data and say well then his feet must not bother him.
But then why was he so braced in his front end ? so tight in his shoulders ?? still in extension with his spine and angry when I would move towards his chest to ask him to shift his center of mass back ( AKA pillar 2)
How could I ever know if his feet were hurting all the time and he was just 'coping' as many of them do??? This bothered me greatly to not be able to answer this.
I have learned that there is no better feeling in the world than the ABSENCE of pain - damn, it feels good to not be in pain !!!
I know now that for the first time since I have owned Louie he is not in subclinical foot pain. His stride, his posture, his demeanor and muscle tension are all completely different.
You can see in the pictures how he was 'bracing' against the ground - we have all felt that way if you have ever been in shoes that didn't fit right and you sort of energetically scrunched your foot so that it could not expend any more in the shoe - tensing the muscles in the upper part of the leg to support this
Louie spent 5 years doing that
Till we took off the shoes and gave him a trim that was able to biomechanically absorb and recoil to those gravitational and ground reaction forces
SO he could stop bracing against those forces that were trying to implode his foot
I don't claim to know much about being a farrier or a horse but I do know a lot about pain, and it sucks
Pain is low priority in a horse's world. It comes after minimization of dural torque, staying upright and the ability to respond to stimuli - it can be very very hard to identify the contribution of subclinical pain to the whole picture when working with horses - add this to their ability to check out into freeze state, we often have to be dedicated detectives to solve these types of issues.
And sometimes it isn't until after you finally solve the problem that you begin to realize just how bad things were.
Seeing Louie pain free and no longer bound and braced in his feet is likely one of the most interesting and exciting events of my career.
It excites me to begin to better understand LIFE UNSHOD, the transition, the management and the benefits !!!
Settled and sound for the win !!
Located in San Diego County, Elements Equine Bodyworks offers massage to the equine athlete. Our body It is not a replacement of veterinary care.
