Beckie Mabbutt

I was asked to speak on a Panal at a riding club event at Coolham village hall tonight but unfortunately due to a handful of reasons it's been postponed. I will let you all know if it gets re-scheduled.

These pictures below are of an old event horse that is retired. She has been bare foot, but when she came to me she had bad seedy toe in one front, the other three feet were in perfect condition.

I managed to stabilise that foot, but never fully got rid of the seedy toe.

Then at a later date due to a severe knee injury on the other leg, she developed laminitis on this one foot due to an excessive weight load.

As all the other feet were great I've just been shoeing this one foot, with pads etc.

I want you to see the transformation in the wall angle and how over time this foot is becoming a lot stronger despite all the laminar tearing.

I hope in time I'll be able to share with you a picture of this foot with no damage at the toe.

I got an email out of the blue last week from a French Farrier Grégoire Fauquembergue that I visited and worked with for a day in France about 6 years ago. Grégoire and his previous apprentice Sam were coming over to England on Business and wondered if they could come out shoeing with me for the day.

We had a really good day assesing the horses and bouncing ideas off one another as to how things could be done differently.

I also got the opportunity to video a few of the horses with his high speed camera, so we could watch them move in really slow motion.

It was a great day and may lead to me visiting them again in France in the not to distant future.

This case study is of a horse I did about 6 years ago. She underwent a huge amount of trauma to one front foot and subsequently fractured some little chips off the solar surface of the Pedal bone.

The vets operated, scraping away all these small segments of bone, leaving her with an open wound on the bottom of her foot that needed protecting and the dressings regularly changed.

The whole foot needed to be sealed to prevent any dirt getting in, also dressings needed to be held in, so I made up a hospital plate that looked like this.

Then one month later, the affected area formed into proud flesh and was bulging out of the sole causing a lot of discomfort. This was gradually pared away by the vets.

Then amazingly just two months on from this the foot was looking a lot better. It's amazing how quickly the feet can recover. The sole always did grow in a different way in this area but it wasn't long before she was back to full work.

I was very lucky this month to have a speaking slot at a local conference. It was well attended with about 60 Farriers from the South of England. I was first to get up and share my presentation. My topic was "Hoof Mapping and how that relates to foot balance and shoe placement".

5 minutes before I was due to start I was busy chatting over a cup of tea and some biscuits. For me this is a huge break threw as normally I get so nervous eating isn't an option for many hours leading up to it. So practice is making it easier, I am getting less nervous.

It all went really well, and was followed by some good questions and feedback.

Roll on the next one!