Beckie Mabbutt

Here are a couple of pictures of a youngster I do that broke her long pastern of her hind just below the fetlock as a foal in an accident in the field. I was asked to trim her by Arundel vets after the surgery to reassure her foot was well balanced and not going put stress on the brake. She's now a 3 year old, completely sound and there is no real external signs that anything ever happened.

Here is an example of how you can glue on a shoe in cases where you couldn't use nails. For this to work well it is all about the preparation making sure the foot is really dry, and when you think it is dry; dry it some more! I don't think this will ever take over from nailing shoes on as it's expensive and not really suitable for our wet climate, but it's certainly got it's place when nailing isn't an option.

This picture is Lesley Chamberlain on Princess just before her dressage test. This was quite a significant day as I first met Princess lame due to Laminitis so she's come along way. Well done Lesley - 4th out of 15 with 61.73% is excellent.

This last week I organised a Farriers Christmas meal for the ELPO (Equine Lameness Prevention Organisation). I kept it a little bit educational and we had two main talks, one by myself and the other by Mike Williams.

The topic for the evening was Frog related issues and the morphing of tissue of the foot resulting eventually in Foundering. I presented a case study of horse that I experienced this with then Mike followed by explaining the three stages of this condition and how to go about treating it.

It was a very successful evening, and I think things learnt by all attended. Here are a few pictures from my talk in sequence of the foot losing any solid structure.