Beckie Mabbutt

The Farriery Practice had another very successful client evening maxing out with over 50 people. I'd like to thank our speakers, Dave Nicholls, Ben Mayes and Kate Coles for doing a fantastic job.

The coronary bands go through different stages of looking very angry, although it looks a bit better four weeks down the line it is a long term problem to manage.

Below is an abscess that I have visited many times over the last few weeks. Despite good poulticing and coming 100% sound on many occasions to the extent we put the shoe back on and he came back into work, this morning he was hopping lame again!

This abscess although initially came out of the sole of the foot, we then found today it had tracked up the hoof wall. I had to pare a channel into his wall to release even more puss.

If you haven't followed this full case please click here to have a look at the whole process.

Look at this comparison, to show how a foot can recover. Beemer is now in full work, competing and jumping well.

I'd like to thank Liane Richardson for her patients, and Beemer for teaching me a lot. We got there in the end :-)

I had shod a new horse 3-4 times and each time he was lame on both fronts as a result of shoeing! We had a vet look at him, who confirmed that the feet were balanced and well shod, I wasn't trimming too much off, and I can't be going too close with a nail on both fronts every time. I'm not that consistent!!

We tried pads for extra support, but each time after the initial lameness he would come sound 4-5 days after.

I was very lucky, most clients would have just changed farrier, because every time I touched him he went lame. It must be me. But fortunately we got some radiographs taken to see if anything else was going on, and this is what we found.

Right Front

Left Front

Look at the angle of the fetlock joint in comparison to the lower joints. No wonder when I shoe him he's sore, any adjustment I make just knocks him off kilter and he takes a few days to adjust.

This is a great example of how you can't always tell from the outside exactly what your up against!

So knowing this I suspect it's predominantly the ligaments either side of each joint that is sore when I adjust the feet. So my aim now is to accommodate for the conformation that he has as I'm not going to change it.

By beveling off and aluminium Lever Reduction shoe on the outside, although not 100% sound after shoeing we had him completly sound on a lunge within 12 hours! We can work with that.

I'd like to really thank Caroline and Gemma Briance for believing in me and looking into this further, it really is appreciated.