Where Did the Weekend Go?

I can't beleive it is Sunday night already!  It seems like I didn't even have a weekend.

Most of my weekend was focused on getting my horse ready for visitors with pet allergies, but some of it was spent doing some other things as well.

I looked at a horse this weekend.

She is very very cute, and seems to have a great mind about her. She is only 2 though and has been handled very little.  I mean very little.  The first time I saw her she had never had her feet trimmed, and was just being halter broke.  This time she had finally had her feet done, (but had to be sedated to make it happen) and I was able to teach her some of the simplest of moves (cross the front end, move the hind end, etc) in just a few minutes. She is also very affordable.

Here is the down side.  She is a toe first landing horse already, and it seems as though that front white foot is starting to turn out.  Strike 3, is that she is not register-able.  Some may say that the feet issues can be trimmed out, and that is most likely true. The other thing that most will say is that you can't ride papers. That is also true, and many folks don't even need papers to breed, so it isn't that any of those things are deal breakers by themselves.  But put the 3 together, add in the fact that this is a horse that will require daily handling to get a good start on life, and top it off with the heightened potential for me to get hurt, and it does change things quite a bit.   I have decided to pass on her.   My last free/very cheap horse (who also landed toe first) is still the most expensive horse I have.  And although I know so much more now than I did then....I'm just not willing to take on that project. I don't give the horses I have as much time as they need.   So, moving on...

In the midst of my cleaning today, I took a break from working to go out and do some muscle toning exercises....aka hoof trimming.

I do not have a hoof stand yet so I am forced to use a car jack stand.  It has a nice cradle for the hoof and I figured out how to use one of the gators from my ripped up easy boots, to strap on the fetlock and use as padding. However it still is not as stable as I would like it to be.  But it suffices for now.

I managed to get all four of his feet done, and was quite pleased with my work.  I had some issue with my nippers, and my knife complete sucks, but I did the best I could.  TC helped by sharpening my nippers and knife the best he could, but they are poor quality and you can't change that.  It is time to ante up and get the proper tools if I am going to start doing this on my own.  It will make my job go faster, and perhaps then I won't hurt so bad afterwards.

I took his high heel down a little more, brought his toes back, and tried my hardest to make sure everything was even.  I wasn't positive if I was successful, but he seemed to be moving okay when I was done.

Shortly after that, my barefoot trimmer showed up to do Sassy.  I pointed out what some folks from the ABC hoof care group had mentioned, "That her bars looked as though they were growing out over the sole."
Not that I told her what to do, I asked her what her thoughts were, and if she agreed.  She took her knife cut away some bar and sole, and showed me a nice straight bar line on each side.   I was actually very happy with the trim she did this time. There is a nice concavity to it and she is no longer jam packed with sole.  She pointed out that Sassy grew a ton of sole in 4 weeks, and she cut it out this time. She asked me to please not mess with her feet for the next four weeks. She says it isn't because I'm doing anything bad, but she can't see what her feet are doing, if I keep messing with them.   I promised her I wouldn't, and I won't.

Afterwards she took a quick look at the work I did on Trax.  She was very impressed, and said that I did a great job with the lack of good tools I have to work with. She asked if she could go in and do a couple of things, and I said sure.  She used the file to open up the heels in his upright foot and reminded me to be diligent about treating his center crack for thrush. (which I have not been)  He is making good frog contact to the ground now after the trim, so hopefully we can get that fixed.   She gave me a few pointers on how I can be more successful in my trim with him, just using the file. So that was helpful too.

After we were done checking him out, we did some power tool training.  She stood next to him with her grinder and if he stood still a quiet he got a treat.  It took a minute but we did finally get him to relax enough for her to pet his side while running the grinder in her other hand. it was a huge step for him, and I was very proud of my boy.

Now it is time for bed, for an hour or so, and then off to the air port to pick up our guests.