Beckie’s Equine Letter
News, Case Studies, Questions & Answers
and a Lesson of the Month in every Issue
January 2006 — Issue 9
News for the Month
Well Happy New Year to you all. I hope you all had a great Christmas, and enjoyed my Christmas newsletter.
I have an exciting Lesson of the Month for you this issue. Hazel Blake, a local Physiotherapist, is going to teach you about how Physiotherapy can help your horse. Hazel explains what problems can be helped with physiotherapy and also how you can tell if your physiotherapist is qualified or not.
Knowing that many of you can benefit from Hazel’s work, I’ve arranged for Hazel to give a special introductory offer for anyone wanting to book a session. Hazel can only make this offer available until the 28th of February, so if you were thinking of having a Physiotherapist work with your horse, I would highly recommend contacting Hazel to take advantage of this offer. You’ll find the coupon enclosed with this issue.
Some exciting news: I’m off to the rocky mountains of Colorado in May, on a hands-on shoeing workshop. It is a five day advanced clinic only open to about 10 farrier’s from around the world. I feel very honoured to be going as it was invitation only, and there are just two of us attending from England—Dave Nicholls and me. It has been so valuable building relationships with these highly respected and progressive farrier’s. It has opened up lots of opportunities for me. The course is being run by Gene Ovenick. Gene is on par with God in my eyes! It was Gene that put the 15+ years research into wild horses and how they wear there feet. And as a result, he developed the Natural Balance concepts. It is going to be such a great experience. I really can’t wait :-)
At the end of November I went up to Stoneleigh in Warwickshire for a one day seminar. There was about 500 farrier’s there, which seeing there’s only 3000 in England was a massive turnout. There were 8 different lectures throughout the day from farrier’s of all nationalities. My favourite lecture of the day was by a Swedish farrier talking about his results correcting foals born with severe angular limb deformities. He uses different bandaging techniques on the joints in conjunction with extensions glued to the feet. All of this goes on before the foal reaches 3 weeks old—the timing is crucial. He’s been getting fantastic results with his methods.
I’ve got lots of educational talks to go to over the next couple of months. I’ll be sure to let you know about anything interesting I learn.
Thank you very much for all my Christmas cards and presents, very kind of you all. I’ll have to start doing some serious exercise now after eating all those chocolates and biscuits or I’ll never bend over and shoe any of your horses!
Beckie x
Lesson of the Month
Can Physiotherapy help my horse? By Hazel Blake
What is Physiotherapy?
The purpose of physiotherapy is to restore and maintain mobility, function, independence and performance. Horses, like people, are prone to joint and soft tissue injuries or restrictions. Even subtle changes in performance or behaviour can have a physical cause that can be helped by physiotherapy. Any horse, from the happy hacker to the highest-level competition horse, can benefit from physiotherapy. An animal physiotherapist offers specialist expertise in assessing and treating your horse as well as offering management and exercise advice.
What conditions is Physiotherapy useful for?
Physiotherapy can be useful for any problem relating to joints, bones or soft tissue. For example:
Spinal problems—pain, spasm or joint stiffness in the neck or back, sore/cold back
Injuries—to muscles, ligaments or tendons.
Joint problems—e.g. Arthritis/de-generative joint disease, injury, pain/swelling/stiffness in the joints.
Fractures—treatment and reha-bilitation following fracture to facilitate healing and restore function.
Sports injuries.
Performance difficulties.
Preventative physiotherapy to minimise recurrence of a problem.
Many horse owners choose to have regular physiotherapy check-ups to prevent problems from occurring and maximise the performance and well being of their horse.
What treatments are used?
A physiotherapist is trained to use a wide variety of techniques including:
Manipulation and mobilisation of joints
Soft tissues mobilisation, including stretching, trigger point therapy, myofascial release, neuromuscular techniques, massage.
Electrotherapy modalities such as ultrasound, muscle stimulation, laser.
Exercise regimes and advise.
How do I know if my Physiotherapist is properly qualified?
All Physiotherapists should have the letters MCSP after their names. This indicates that they are a member of The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and have undergone the appropriate training to treat humans. In addition, your Physiotherapist should be registered as a Category A member of ACPAT (Association of Chartered Physiotherapist in Animal Therapy) indicating that they have completed the appropriate post-graduate training to work with animals. All animal physiotherapists must work with veterinary consent.
For further information on physiotherapy and how it could help your horse please contact:
Hazel Blake (MSc Vet Physio, BSc Physio, MCSP, ACPAT (A), BHSAI)
Mobile : 07889 006110
hazelblake@horsephysio.co.uk
www.horsephysio.co.uk
Please find the coupon enclosed with my special introductory offer.
Case Study
From my work at Anvil Vets
Today’s case study is looking at the difference in shoe placement in relation to distributing weight evenly under the leg.
It is very exciting to see what difference a farrier can make to the way the horse stands and moves just by placing the shoe equally under the horses weight. Here’s an example that I will explain as I go.
Here is a hind foot that was presented to me at Anvil vets. The horse was in the practice because he had strained the suspensory ligament on his right hind. Interestingly, as you look at the foot it doesn’t look poorly shod; the heals are covered and it fits round the outline of the foot. However, now I’m going to prove to you how this horse probably could have avoided spraining his suspensory ligament in the first place.
If you look at the picture above you can see I’ve drawn a line across the foot. This line marks the weight bearing centre point. This is found about an inch back from the point of the frog. Ideally you want just slightly more of the shoe behind this line, and just less than half in front. This would mean the shoe is then placed directly under the horses limb and weight, taking a lot of strain off the back of the leg.
Here is the same foot after shoeing using that same line for reference.
You now can see the heals are still covered, but overall the shoe is now positioned further back with more shoe being behind the central line than in front. Both the toe of the foot and the shoe have then been slightly rounded, to ease the breakover, making it easier for the horse to roll over its’ toe.
Here is the difference with the old shoe laid on top. You can clearly see this horse had about a 2½ inch toe extension the way the old shoe was fitted. With the foot being shod in that way it’s no surprise to me that he strained his suspensory ligament. Every step he took was putting strain on the back of his legs. It really was the equivalent to walking in flippers. This is a perfect example of preventative shoeing. If he was shod with the shoe centrally under his weight in the first place he may never have got in trouble.
Questions & Answers
Q: “Will I still be able to ride on the roads if I take my horse Toby’s shoes off?”
Sue Eves
A: As Toby has pretty good feet it is worth a go. One thing I always say to people is to be patient. We are used to wearing shoes, if we took them off and tried to run across some gravel it would hurt. But if we built up to it and walked bear foot on gravel for 5 minutes every day our feet would get used to it, and we would build up a resistance. It’s the same for horses. They need to form a callus on their sole and this just takes some time. As long as you don’t go crazy with the road work and the horse starts off with reasonably good feet it normal works. It is very much a trial and error thing; some like it and some don’t and you only find out by trying. I do suggest doing it in stages and trying them for 6 weeks with out hinds and seeing how they go, and if they adjust well then trying them without fronts. The worst that is going to happen is he is going to get a bit foot sore, and we’ll have to put the shoes back on.
The horses bear 60% of their weight on their front legs so they’re always going to find this a bit harder to get used to. Be aware that you will have less grip without shoes so take it easy on the roads. I hope this was of help to you Sue.
Feedback
“I have a 14:1 Cob called Teddy. Teddy is a good all-rounder taking part in quite a few pony club events. He doesn’t have the best of feet but I wanted to see how he’d respond to not having shoes on his hinds. Teddy has huge frogs and Beckie said that if we were to take his shoes straight off there is a high chance it will make him lame, because his frogs would stand proud. Beckie suggested that a few days before we try taking them off it would be worth testing how much pressure he is willing to take on his frogs. Beckie came to the yard and taped on some polystyrene pads to the bottom of his feet, leaving the shoes in place. The theory behind this was to make Teddy bear some weight on his frogs, to see if he could withstand the pressure. Also, Beckie said it would actually push the frog up a bit within the foot. I thought this sounded like a good way to build up to having no shoes. The worst that would happen is he won’t like the pressure on his frogs from the pads, but this could be easily solved by just un-taping them, leaving him with his original shoes.
So far Teddy has shown no signs of discomfort from the 5 days in pads so we went ahead and took his shoes off and he seems fine. In the next few weeks I’ll be starting him off in the school, and then hacking him out, to see how he gets on.” Carol Stanley