This year, I feel so irresponsible with letting him out on so much grass. You know you want the best for your horse and what horse doesn't love eating grass?! This Spring has been rough and the reality of it all is how much work can Shorty really handle after all we have been through. He's been very suitable for dressage, when he is sound. Any jump work requiring real air time and an actual front feet landing is surely out of the question for him.
Right now he is moving correctly and well, he's just been still showing some soreness on the left front foot. Once he was 100% sound beginning of April, we did try to give him up to 2 hours of turnout in a small paddock with grass. My barn owner did it very strategically beginning with 30 minutes each morning. But up to 2 hours he lost his soundness again and has really not gained it back as fast as the last time. He also sprung a shoe mid April around this time and the farrier came to fix it and we adopted permanent bell boots! We are now turned out on dirt ONLY. Took him off grain. He now gets two quarts of alfalfa pellets split into 2 feedings and 3 flakes of quality hay in a hay bag spread throughout the day.
In addition to his diet change, my plan has been to exercise him very lightly so that he at least gets exercise and loses weight! I think part of the problem is he has gained quite a bit of weight from February to March when he was eating SO much while turned out. So no matter how little grass he was getting, his body was just not able to metabolize it correctly at all.
He has successfully lost weight in the last few weeks and is looking more fit. As far as the left front foot goes, we did find an ouchy bruise on the toe of that foot underneath the shoe/pad at the end of this cycle just this week! Very likely has been part of why he's been so consistently off on that foot, but it’s impossible to say when it began to be an issue. That shoe was the sprung shoe that was reset April 17th and he was off on that foot on hard ground between that time and April 22nd. He was really moving well in the arena but just not sound on grass or anything harder. We did not do the same pads again and I am hesitant to know whether those pads caused the bruise or what. We've tried the Castle Impak pads for 2 cycles now. We did leather pads this time with equi pak underneath and we know he did well with leather pads last summer. I left him alone for about 48 hours after the shoe change and I hacked him out today. I am thrilled to say he felt just fine riding out on the grass! No complaints or bad steps going in either direction. So just like that he is sound. Should I be so lucky that it was just a bruise this time that can totally be fixed/healed!?
Riding April 22nd:
Can see the bruise at the toe here. His heels have totally moved back and opened up with our current farrier though! Frog has literally doubled in width. We were ALMOST able to go up a shoe size this time. He had to widen it quite a bit as his heels have spread every reset we have had.
This is what Shorty currently looks like. I think we are pretty close to an ideal weight. His coat is amazingly soft and shiny!
