Blog round up 2/27/12

....with commentary as usual.  

This guy always has GREAT things to say.  99% of the stuff he says here about moving up levels in eventing applies to moving up distance in endurance.  If you are an LD rider and you are thinking about 50's, or are contemplating a 100 - read this article.  Fatigue is your number one enemy - can you finish rides and maintain good riding position?  Can your horse carry itself at the end of the ride?  Have your foundation blocks in place and go for it!

Eventing-a-gogo's writer Andrea has a new horse and a new blog.  In a post here she talks about her mares feet and transitioning to barefoot.  Although Farley's feet don't look nearly as bad, and she's sound on gravel, I'm going through a similar issue with Farley's hooves.  ie - they don't look classically barefoot pretty like they have in the past.  There's a rim of hoof wall and a bit more heel than I would like.  In the past, I would have chopped (ie - rasp in a responsible way...) the wall off to be level with white line/sole - however my new trimmer is very conservative and told me he prefers to let the horses foot take shape on it's own, with "supportive" trimming.  Ie - the hoof will remodel itself, if it's given a chance and trimmed so that it's encouraged to do so.  Although I know if I took a rasp to her foot and made it pretty she would be sound because she has awesome feet, I am restraining myself.  In the past, she wouldn't maintain "pretty feet" on her own - every couple of weeks I had to chop toe off the right right and heel off the left front and the right front really wanted to flare at the quarters if I didn't keep up on it.  So, with some time on my hands until our next ride, I'm willing to try his way and take the slower route.  Maybe by letting the hoof find it's own shape, it will maintain better.  Can you believe I'm already seeing a difference in 7 weeks?  The flares at the quarters of the RF are already resolving themselves, the white line is tighter in all 4 hooves, and the LF is retaining less sole.  Her RF, which I've been using a size 2 on for over a year because I couldn't get a size 1 on it due to her hoof being a tad too wide due to the flaring, now fits. (she's borderline 1's on her RF and if there's anything at all going on, it bumps her up - so it's a good barometer for me of how the hoof is doing).  She still has a rim of hoof wall that annoys me - BUT, I can't argue with what her hoof is doing.  Maybe she needs to fix the flare etc. before loosing that rim of hoof?  Maybe by me making her hoof remodel "out of order" by insisting that the rim of hoof GO, she never really transitioned to a hoof that was capable of maintaining itself.  It's an interesting experiment and I'll keep you posted. 

Home made slow feeder for hay here

Karen has posted on the "what if" monster and the mental games that go into bringing along a new horse.  I've certainly been there and I have a suspicion that me and Karen are not along.