Lutine's Recovery

Finally, a photo of Puissant Chef!

2009-04-11T12:19:00.002+02:00

Just did a little search on Google again for Puissant Chef and found this wonderful image and story on the LIFE magazine website. It won't let me copy the photo though, so you'll have to follow the link:

http://www.life.com/image/3431277

Mud-Ex seems to have worked

2009-02-07T11:09:00.002+01:00

When I dicovered the little patch of mud fever on Lutine's leg a few months ago, I got some Mud-Ex herbal mix off Global Herbs to start mixing into her feed. Our horrendous weather has continued - it's definitely the wettest winter for a long, long time as even our farming neighbours are commenting and shaking their heads. So Lutine's paddock is wet, wet, wet. She has the large barn to come under and I've given the horses the biggest deep straw bed I can muster under there so they do have a place that's dry and warm to go, but still they have to go into the mud every day. This meant that trying to tackle the mud fever from the inside was even more important.

Well, the Mud-Ex seems to have worked because she no longer has any mud fever! I suppose it could also be down to the intervention of my acupuncture vet. At the beginning of December, Lutine's leg became swollen owing to the mud fever (Swelly Nelly strikes again) and so my vet treated Lutine with acupuncture for her swollen leg and for the underlying issue that was related to the mud fever. And now it's all gone and hasn't come back...

The Mud-Ex powder stinks so I mix it into her feed and then sprinkle a good dose of Top Spec Dr Green supplement on it. This supplement is to 'tempt fussy feeders' - Lutine's not really fussy but even I'd balk at eating this stinky herb stuff! Plus, it has plenty of B vits and probiotics to help her immune system along.

Whatever the reason for the mud fever clearing up, I'm thankful and grateful to see the back of it!

Almost feels like home

2008-12-03T20:56:00.003+01:00

It's been raining almost continuously for 3 weeks now. The girls are off the big field and in their winter paddock, which now looks like a swamp near to the barn. Luckily, they have a hard path from the barn to the water buckets to walk on, plus the barn in which to hang out so they're not constantly stood in mud. However, their legs have been getting muddy every day and, of course, that means Lutine now has a little patch of mud fever on one fetlock. There's no swelling or lameness so it's really just the beginnings of a patch. I washed off the mud today and found this patch so the legs were dried off and copious quantities of Sudocrem were applied to all her legs up to and including the fetlock, above the 'mud line', as it were. I'm not going for the hibiscrubbing/picking routine because I know that it makes things worse in her case. Seems to irritate the skin even more. I've put enough Sudocrem on and I know within a few days the scab will fall off.

Have also just started using, about a week ago, a new product against thrush. Usually Lutine's frogs fall to pieces in the winter as she's always been prone to thrush. However, I used NAF's sole and frog spray for a week or two until this new product arrived, Sole Paint from Red Horse products in the UK. It's completely fab stuff. I got it because it persists better than a lot of other products and has had really good reviews in the UK, which can be extremely bog-like even in summer. Sure enough, I washed off her feet today, ready to apply a second coat of Sole Paint and there's not a scrap of thrush in sight, despite the horrendous weather. Her feet haven't had the chance to dry off properly for more than a week at least so to not have any frog problems is brilliant. The current frogs are tatty from previous thrush attacks and I was painting the product right into various flaps and crevices but there was no tell-tale black stuff in any of the crevices. I think I used it initially for 2 days in a row about Tuesday and Wednesday of last week and have just renewed it a week later. Brilliant! All my horses are going to have this stuff painted on their feet one a week now, as a preventative - though Lutine is the only one I have that has persistent thrush. We are going to have an exceptionally wet winter this year, I can feel it in my bones (and our local farmer friend agrees with me!).

Boing Boing Bounce Bounce

2008-11-16T18:09:00.001+01:00

Small improvements...

2008-11-16T16:01:00.003+01:00

Lutine was seen by a qualified equine veterinary acupuncturist three weeks ago and her eyes have improved steadily, though slowly, since. Today, even in fairly low light, she found her bucket of food more easily than before. Also, her eyes are less over-sensitive to light and seem to be much less painful. The vet is back again at the end of next week to do another acupuncture session and I am hopeful that we may well get back to riding her sometime before the Spring.

Otherwise she is very well in herself and happily romps around the field with the rest of the herd.

A New Challenge

2008-10-07T11:41:00.003+02:00

I'm afraid that the uveitis has claimed much of Lutine's sight over the summer since the last lot of photos were taken and so I haven't ridden her since. However, I'm hopeful that she can recover some of what was lost; I have another horse with the same condition who has recovered some of her lost sight recently. At the moment Lutine's eyes are clouded inside by the inflammatory debris from the recent acute phase of uveitis but I know from experience that it's possible to clear this debris to an extent. The retina can also be damaged but again, I've experience now of using various things to kick start the retinal cells again. So for the moment I am keeping my fingers crossed and working hard to stabilise her eyes and to recover whatever sight is possible.

Picture Fest'

2008-06-22T23:03:00.002+02:00

OK, we had a bit of a play around in the field with my husband taking photos. Enjoy!

Disappearing Shivers Symptoms

2008-06-17T15:36:00.003+02:00

How very interesting..... since starting on the homeopathic remedies, Lutine's Shivers symptoms have almost completely stopped. Normally, I would see her hike up her left hind leg and then stomp it down at least twice, if not three times, a day. She would also snatch up the leg and it would quiver when I asked her to pick up that foot. But I think that, in the last two weeks, I've only seen her do the leg hike thing once and there seems to be almost no 'cramping' reaction now when asked to pick up her back leg. She's not yet perfectly comfortable bringing up that back leg but it's 200% better than it was. Also, I seem to catch her stood up square behind a lot more than previously, whereas she always used to be resting one hind leg or another beforehand.

The only other thing that has changed in that time is that I reduced her food from 500ml of oil per day over two feeds to 300ml per day and I took out a little scoop of the Fibre Plus nuts. I dod that because she was looking far too 'well conditioned' than was good for her! I am going to email Dr Valentine to see if reducing calories in this way might alleviate Shivers symptoms.

BTW, I also rode her the other day and we were doing rein back to trot/rein back to walk transitions with no problems in the backing either.

New Homeopathy Prescription

2008-06-06T13:32:00.002+02:00

Chris Day, a UK Holistic Vet, has reviewed Lutine's case and has prescribed her some homeopathy so we've just started that today and will see how it goes. I do find homeopathy interesting. It's one of life's illusive phenomenon, for a start, and my scientific head doesn't quite get it... but that doesn't mean I have to discount it either. Primarily, I don't discount it because I've had some quite astonishing 'well, would you look at that!?!' moments with homeopathy, where acute symptoms just totally disappear within 3 doses when they're issues that generally take several days to sort. The other major aspects for me are that homeopathy is very safe so where you get a remedy wrong, you're highly unlikely to provoke dangerous side effects or cause an overdose and also, it's very cost effective. The major cost is for the intial consultation, which is no more than a regular vet consultation anyway, and then the remedies cost very little.

Lutine's new prescription is phosphorous 30c once a day and rhus tox 30c once a day. What I found interesting was that the list of conditions and features of the remedy fit the picture so comprehensively but more than that, there were things that suddenly made me think 'oh my goodness! Yes! that's true about her too!' i.e. things that I hadn't mentioned because I'd forgotten and yet there they were, in the remedy picture too.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how she gets on.

Illustrious familiy members

2008-06-05T17:14:00.003+02:00

Have been researching Lutine's thoroughbred ancestry, which I guess was always going to be gratifying as it's one of the most well reported and recorded breeds out there. Turns out her Great Great Grandpa on her mother's side was a great racehorse called Puissant Chef, who won 7 group 1 races in his career, including the Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe and the Prix Royal Oak, both in 1960.

Can't find a photo of him for the moment but did find this archived report of the race:

Puissant Chef (15.10 new francs for 1) charged from behind a tight pack on the final turn in the Prix de l'Arc de Triompheat Paris and galloped home three lengths ahead of Hautain to win 539,342 new francs ($114,000). With Maxime Garcia up, the 3-year-old ran the 2,400 meters (about 1� miles) in 2:43.9. The Aga Khan 's heavily favored Charlottesville finished sixth. Owner Henry Aubert immediately accepted an invitation for Puissant Chef to the Washington, D.C. International on November 11.

Other photos:

Indian Gold

St Simon

Lord Lyon (on left)

Herod

Eclipse

Darley Arabian

Godolphin Arabian

Magic Hoof Gunk

2008-06-03T13:07:00.002+02:00

I've been using a great new home made hoof solution to keep on top of Lutine's issues with thrushy frogs and it seems to be working a treat. First of all, I gave her hooves a couple of blasts with White Lightning Hoof Gel but then the weather turned wet again meaning I couldn't use the Gel anymore. So since then I've been spraying her soles and frogs with my home made solution once a day when I pick out her feet and her frogs are now looking better than I've ever seen them.

The recipe is 1 parts cider vinegar to 2 parts tap water and then a big glug each of Hypericum tincture and Calendula tincture. Enough to put quite a colour into the ACV solution. I have the solution in an old coat shine spray pump and give the hooves a good scrub and spray with this at least once a day. The other day I went to pick out her feet after missing a few days and she had some thrush creeping back in there. One pick out and spray and the next day it was totally gone.

The effect on her frogs has been great. Not only has the thrush gone away but the frogs are growing back at a rate of knots and the central sulci on all four feet are much broader and shallower. Also, finally her bars are starting to straighten out and quit overlaying the sole, which we've always battled with previously. I will post photos of the new frogs and bars when I get the chance.

BTW, we're on heavy clay ground here. I say this for info as I'm quite convinced that the bugs depend on the soil type and therefore different solutions seem to kill the bugs better in different geographical areas.

Much better tonight

2008-05-13T10:22:00.002+02:00

Had a hack out again last night and Lutine's behaviour was much better. We only had one spot of napping and that was because of a field of cows (albiet the cows were 100m away LOL) Luckily, my hubby was with us so he just got off his bicycle and came over and led her past them. She bounced a bit but it was no big drama and then we were able to carry on. We even had a practice at standing nicely at the top of the lane waiting for hubby to get up the hill and then again in the village as we stopped to say hello to a neighbour. Don't know what might have caused her to turn over a new leaf but she'd been on Top Spec Calmer for 2 days and also the roaring breeze had tuned down to a much more gentle level.

The View from Up Top

2008-05-11T00:14:00.004+02:00

Had another bouncy and somewhat argumentative ride out with Lutine. It was our most demanding hack out yet where we tackled several big ascents and descents and she was still powering away and just about settled on the last 500m home. Not quite as sweaty this time, though there was a heck of a wind blowing. The strong breeze seems to be a permanent feature of where we live this year, for some reason. She still feels very strong and sound and though she's sweaty, it has to be said it's pretty humid and warm so not entirely surprising. I did write to Beth Valentine about this a few weeks ago and she said,

"I would not worry about the sweating since she is otherwise doing so well. It is when horses stop sweating that we worry! Sweating helps her to cool, and as she builds muscle and exercises more she’ll create more heat during exercise. So, that may explain the increase in sweating, which should then be considered a very good thing!

Beth V"

So alongside the fact that she's so well and that she exercising fairly energetically, it's not something to worry about. Obviously, I'm watching her like a hawk for any signs of being sore and stiff. But she's not puffing abnormally or showing signs of running out of energy - in fact, she's got lots of energy in the tank. Research by Dr Stephanie Valburg recently concluded that exercise was even more important to EPSM horses than oil supplementation so all I can do is keep feeling our way forward and trying to listen to Lutine. She was less nappy tonight and much more happy to follow my hubby and the children on their bicycles and I actually got her to stand still and wait at the top of a long hill while they made their way up. This is usually my long canter hill where my other horse and I used to have a gallop and Lutine totally powered up it tonight in trot.

Still feeling great but we do napping...

2008-05-09T11:19:00.002+02:00

Rode last night and she felt great physically but now we're starting to do napping. Sigh.. it's so not ideal to be trying to hack her out on her own but I'm so stuck because there's no one else to ride out with and our field has waist high grass in it at the moment, waiting to be cut for haylage. She's not uncontrollable when she naps. It's just planting, backing up and refusing to go forward at certain points and we're having the discussion every time and I'm making her go on a little bit then praising her for it. Last night she napped right down at the bottom of a neighbouring lane - just decided she wouldn't go any further - I think because she'd seen the traffic on the road another 100m on and was worried we were going into the traffic. So we had a discussion, with her planting, trying to back up and spin round and me backing her up in the opposite direction, circling her, bumping her forwards and sideways. She also threatened to jump down the ditch at the side of the road until I said 'well, fill your boots. Jump in the ditch then' and she put one foot off the edge, thought better of it and hopped back on to the lane. She's such a clever minx! She works out when you're worried about her doing something and then goes for it to try and distract you from what you are trying to get her to do. But she has a better survival instinct than to really chuck herself in the ditch. Obviously, if we had been really risking a wreck I wouldn't have called her bluff on it but she could have hopped into and out of this ditch quite easily without hurting herself. But AGH! for a hacking partner. :-/ She did finally walk on after a 10 minute interlude and then after 10m I stopped her, gave her loads of praise and scratches and waited until her head dropped and she sighed and then we turned back home.

Feeling Really Good Again

2008-05-05T11:21:00.002+02:00

Took Lutine out for a hack last night and she felt really well. Did a fair amount of trotting on the road (she had boots on all round) and she just felt totally sound and so powerful. Bot oh my! She really doesn't 'do' cows. Our neighbour has put his cows back out in their fields, complete with a bull who insisted on following us next to the fence whilst bellowing and roaring loudly and Lutine FREAKED! I was leading her past them on the way out and she was a lunatic, absolutely frantic. I got on after we'd passed them and she was fine though she insisted on trotting away from them smartly for 200m after I'd mounted. Then when we came back and got to the same spot, she absolutely threw her toys out of the pram and flatly refused to go past them, to the point where we had some fairly interesting shennanigans including her crouching right down and saying 'I'm going to leap right into the air you know!!!!!!!' Sigh..... so we had to double back and take the long route home where there are no cows but there was a big steep hill to climb and it took an extra 3km or so. She was totally lathered in sweat when we got home so I walked her round while she cooled off and then popped her thermatex cooler on until she dried off. Then I took her a feed with oil in it about an hour later and tucked her up in front of a bail of hay.

This morning she seems right as rain and not at all stiff or sore so that's a very good sign.

Crossed fingers may have worked...

2008-04-30T11:15:00.002+02:00

After the Ice Tight and bandaging her leg looks pretty normal again now and her tendon down the back leg feels nice and hard all along its length. She's also sound on it, no short stepping or dragging.

Please keep your fingers crossed for Lutine!

2008-04-28T13:34:00.002+02:00

What a worry. We had another attack of the Swelly Nellies by the time I came home on Saturday afternoon. I gave her some homeopathic Apis Mel and some Lymph Blend in her food and by Sunday morning it was still fat in the lower cannon and pastern and sore too but she wasn't lame on it. Carried on with the Apis and by Sunday afternoon it had stabilised so I decided to take her for a walk to get the circulation going. By the time I came back the swelling had reduced considerably but it became apparent that there was a swelling to the back of the leg in the tendon area............. AAAAAAGGGHHH!!!!!! It's not a large swelling but it's sore and it's distinctly in the area of the middle of the superficial flexor tendon. I've put cold gel wrap on it under a bandage, given more lymph blend, diuretic herbs and MSM plus continued on the Apis. So I will have another look at it at the end of the afternoon and maybe get the vet out tomorrow.

I'm really hoping it's just some swelling from her regular lymphangitis problem and not a ruddy tendon injury.

You've no idea how blinking fed up I'm feeling. :-(

Happy Birthday, Lola!!

2008-04-23T10:40:00.002+02:00

Happy Birthday to Lutine, who is 9 years old today. I'm not in France at the moment but I will ask my husband to give her some treats this evening by way of celebration (I don't think he'll stretch to singing her 'happy birthday' though!)

One small stride of canter.....

2008-04-16T22:35:00.002+02:00

....a giant leap for Lutine.

OK, corny I know. We had a little ride in the field today and Miss L was quite lively as usual. She does get a little anxious about being away from her friends in the paddocks and of course, they call to her while we're riding in the field and get excited themselves. We were trying to do relaxed walk but it's better, at least initially, to try and match her energy and do some trots and then see if you can bring her back down as she settles. As we did a bit of trotting up the slope and across the diagonal of the field, I sat twice to change the trot diagonal and that moment of sitting had Lutine mistake it as an aid for canter! We only did a stride or so (and heck, it felt like there's quite a nice canter waiting to be discovered!) before we dropped back to trot. But still, it was good of her to offer. I take it as a sign that she must be feeling OK about the riding. And we got the nice relaxed walk shortly after, where I could feel both her hips swinging and her lumbar area unlocking. Felt good.

Video of us trotting around today

2008-03-17T23:24:00.007+01:00

Lutine was in fine form as we went for what should have been a leisurely walk in the field after her exertions yesterday. She was on her toes because my dog was chasing hares in the next field and so I got my camera phone out and took some VT whilst we were messing around. It's a bit wobbly - but not bad considering we were both hooning around on an uneven grassy surface.

Another Milestone Reached!

2008-03-17T11:19:00.002+01:00

Yesterday we passed another one of my (fairly arbitrary!) milestones. I had set us the informal goal of being able to go on a regular hack out, a proper circuit, for at least an hour. I remember thinking 'when we can hack out for an hour, it will mean we're right on our way to getting back to fitness'. Well, yesterday we all went out as a family, my husband and the children with their bicycles and me with Lutine. I walked perhaps the first couple of kilometres with her as there were some steep hills and valleys, but once on the flatter ground I got on and rode. She was really up for it the whole way and I think, in total, I probably rode her around 5km and walked about 4km. We were out for over an hour and a half and she didn't have any periods of feeling though she had to stop or feeling stiff and sore. We even had a few little trots and I was having to hold her back a bit! She was quite sweaty on her neck and under her saddle so I got off and walked the last couple of kilometres home, having loosened her girth, and then she had her cooler rug on when she got back and her oily feed an hour later once she was cool.

So the litmus test is how stiff she is today. My husband just suggested doing a little bit of in-hand work in the field to ease her off, with maybe some stretching, and I think he's right. I did some photonic therapy on her last night and gave her some homeopathic Arnica too. Perhaps she'll get some more of that today as well.

Oh, and I trimmed her feet on Saturday and guess what I found.... the remnants of a little micro abscess under the bar of the front left hoof. Fits with the gimpy footedness of 6 weeks ago....

No photos though as I was busy with a lively Lutine and hubby was occupied with two children on bicycles.

Loading Training Continues

2008-02-11T10:02:00.000+01:00

We're progressing with our loading training. This time we got to the point of having the butt bar up, putting up the rear ramp whilst the front ramp was still down and then waiting calmly for the front bar to be taken off before walking down the front ramp. She was a bit nervous when we did up the rear ramp and bar and wanted to keep turning her head to look. I fed her lots of little pieces of apple to keep her looking and thinking forward. It's funny really as she has definitely travelled before - she came here on her own in a 1.5 place trailer. Maybe when she was doing shows before, she went in a lorry with other horses, plus she was so ill and weak when she arrived here, that might be why she wasn't making much fuss about being in the trailer. Anyway, photo fest below:

Amazing!

2008-01-31T19:56:00.000+01:00

Took Lutine for a walk down the little stony lane that runs along the side of our property. She was wearing her boots all round and I've now put the firmer red comfort pads in too see if they offer a bit more support. The medium density black ones had totally squashed down whereas the red ones are resisting very well. I think that she's really quite a big horse - must be around 525kg+ now - plus she's tall at 167cm/16.3hh and the medium density pads were just not offering enough support and comfort.

Well! Lutine absolutely stomped down the lane with the biggest, most swinging stride I've ever seen her do and what was even better was that she's all but stopped doing that funny hop-into-trot transition. The osteo had commented that this was related to the D10 and D18 osteopathic lesions but I'd not been completely sure. It seems she was right!

Gimpy foot is almost better

2008-01-31T13:19:00.000+01:00

I went away with work for a day and a half and Lutine was left in the sand round pen with hay and water during that time (of course, the rest of my family were here so she was being looked after and fed as normal). As I came back, I could see immediately that she was much better. No limping as such, just the slightest lift of the head as her foot went down. I put her Easyboots on her front feet and went to put her back in the normal paddock but she decided to have a hoon about and was trotting and cantering about taking big long strides, again with only the slightest indication from her head carriage that she wasn't fully weighting the front foot. I think now she must have just bruised her foot and this was being aggravated by not being allowed to rest it properly.

This is a good sign though - she recovered this time after just a couple of days' rest. I remember when it used to take two weeks for her to get over a set back. I am going to put her boots on all 4 feet later and just take her for a walk down the lane, see how she gets on.

That 4 letter word beginning with W...

2008-01-28T14:48:00.000+01:00

I made the mistake of uttering that 4 letter word-that-should-never-be-spoken within Lutine's earshot

W-O-R-K

And what should I find on Saturday? A horse limping about with either a stone bruise (in other words, self inflicted and probably intentional!!) or an abscess. I could kick myself for being silly enough to actually PLAN to do something with her on the Sunday. Anyway, one of the other horses was picking on her and this was just going to aggravate the sore foot so I've put her in the round pen on the flat sand base. She's getting better, bit by bit, though if she spots me watching her I'm convinced she gimps about just a bit more than necessary. And then her back left leg started swelling in sympathy - just for good measure.

Luckily, I had an order of Global Herbs in today so had some stuff at hand to give to her (Restore plus Lymph Blend). I'm getting so used to her now and, by hook or by crook, that horse is going to get to W-o-R-k soon!!

Couple of good articles for navicular and pelvic misalignment

2008-01-25T17:27:00.000+01:00

Sorry, you'll have to cut and paste 'em.

The first is on navicular:

http://www.alternativevet.org/WS133-07.pdf

But then there's a link to pelvic misalignment, which the osteopath found on both visits with Lutine:

http://www.alternativevet.org/WS108-07.pdf

Interesting in that it says the pelvic misalignment is often on the opposite diagonal to the affected 'navicular' foot. In the old vet report I have in her passport, the limb being examined and X rayed is the front right leg - so that fits. However, that foot doesn't actually cause her any trouble any more! If anything, it's her front left foot that has niggled her. But, given the first osteopathic evaluation that showed all the stiffness/blockages in that whole leg, plus the lesion at D10 on that side this time, could it be that we're dealing with residual issues to do with her compensating somehow? Interesting thought...

As for a brief update - well, she's still on her 3 day rest period but for sure, I'm finding her stood square at the back now much more often and she's even been resting the left hind leg (was almost always one hind foot further forward than the other or resting right hind). I also think that she's holding her tail higher when she walks, which I hadn't expected as it was never held to one side which is the most often quoted indicator.

Osteopath results

2008-01-23T17:44:00.000+01:00

It's so interesting to have someone else to talk to about Lutine! Anyway, the osteopath came and did an evaluation and then some movements to help Lutine. She noted that her neck was much freer and had not regained the 'lesions' (dunno the appropriate term in English for this) from before but she noted that the pelvis was more forward on her left side than her right side and hence wasn't fully mobile and wasn't being used symmetrically. This fits with the issues she has had in canter where on one rein she uses both hinds together rather than stepping under with the leading hind and supporting herself on it. Also it had caused an irritation at L6, which in turn was irritating the sciatic nerve. This potentially explains the 'shivers' type leg-hiking Lutine sometimes has on that left hind leg and the reason why she struggles to hold it up for the farrier. Finally, there were a couple of niggles along the dorsal vertebrae. Again, the blockage at D10 on the left side fits with the little hop she makes in the trot transition on that side. But it was so interesting to see her do proper carrot stretches all the way round towards her flanks. I never thought I would see her neck so flexible!

So the programme is now 3 days of rest followed by 8 days with lots of walking, up and down hills especially then a return to work but with lots of straight lines to allow her the opportunity to regain strength and symmetry in the left hind leg.

Photos show her visit paper from March 06 and today.

March 06 (two months after arriving here)

Today

Equine Osteopath coming on Wednesday.

2008-01-21T14:22:00.000+01:00

I've got the equine osteopath coming on Wednesday this week to see Lutine. I want to get her checked out in time for the better weather, which I am sure is just around the corner! When I first got her she saw the osteo then too and it was notated that she had a sacroiliac subluxation. I definitely want to get her pelvis, sacral and lumbar area checked and in good order.

Laminitic hooves?

2008-01-17T13:34:00.000+01:00

Near hind after mustang roll.

Off hind after little mustang roll applied.

Prior to mustang roll.

These are photos of Lutine's hind hooves on the first day that I went to see her in Jan 06. The extensive bruising was evident in all of the white hooves plus there seems to be such a clear event line and angle deviation in these two hind hooves. It does make me wonder again about whether she was, in fact, laminitic when I first went to see her.

Bars and heels

2008-01-17T13:11:00.000+01:00

I may have won my bet with the farrier! We had an in-depth discussion the last time he was here, just after Christmas, because he had trimmed away her bars (to normal levels for an 'average' healthy horse) and had left her heels longer than I liked. He trimmed her heels a bit more at my request and was adamant that her bars weren't overtrimmed. I agree that he hadn't trimmed her bars too much per se but it's too much for this horse. My experience of trimming her myself for almost 2 years was that every time you try to remove those ghastly big bars and the ridge around the frog apex, she goes sore and they grow back in double quick time!! Plus, she does better in terms of soundness and how she uses the leg and foot when you just leave 'em be, within reason. We also discussed that the heel height needed to be lower because she needs to develop the caudal (heel) aspect of the foot and when she's left with high heels the reverse happens; she gets hoof contraction and central sulcus infections.

Sure enough after he'd trimmed her she was moving very short and gingerly in the paddock and he said 'that's cos you made me over trim the heels' (they were about 2mm above level of live sole at the turn of the bar) and I said 'that's cos you've trimmed off those bars!' so we agreed we would wait to see what the horse grew back in double quick time as an indicator of what should have been left.

Tee hee - the heels haven't grown back a lot but the bars have popped back as though they were never trimmed! This is how it looks after around 3 weeks post trim.

There's something about the photo that makes the heels look really uneven, but they're not. The heel on the left side of the photo is just blending into the background.

Here's the concave view showing the huge bar that's just popped straight back.

The interesting thing on this foot though is that she's started shedding an enormous wadge of frog, almost the whole thickness of the insensitive part is peeling away from the heel forwards. I checked it and it's not stinky or black under there - in fact, the new stuff looks in good order but it's a heck of a piece to shed!

Swelly Nelly Strikes Again!

2008-01-17T12:49:00.001+01:00

Last episode of swelling.

After a bit of a walk around the field to get the circulation going.

Swelly Nelly is her other nickname. I think it was over the winter of 2006/2007 that Lutine had 3 or 4 episodes of swollen legs. The first couple of times I did the usual thing of calling the vet, and so she was prescribed 3 - 5 days of diuretics, antibiotics and bute (equipalazone in France) each time. But the episodes were recurring every month and I was not happy about giving such drugs each time. So, the next time I saw her pasterns starting to fill I started giving her photonic therapy every 12 hours until the swelling stopped getting worse and then every 24 hours thereafter and, sure enough, after 3 days the attack had gone without the use of any drugs at all. I then started her on Global Herbs Lymph Blend, which I increased as the next episode kicked off, alongside the photonic therapy. This time, after 12 hours the swelling had stopped increasing, it was much milder than before and had completely gone within 36 hours.

Then, of course, we had the horrid 'skin explosion/creeping crud' issue over the summer, which has taken a while to shift after all manner of treatment, including several weeks of conventional vet treatment. That's now completely gone with no trace left on the near fore and there's just the tiniest streak of scabbiness on the inside of the off hind left. We've got muddy, wet fields at the moment after several weeks of rain and, though the girls are mostly under the barn where the ground is dry, they do get exposed to the mud every day. This hasn't made a jot of difference to Lutine's legs so I am again convinced that the Crud is not some kind of mud fever.

Anyway, Swelly Nelly started to swell again just before Christmas. This time I used only Apis Mel 15c, 3 times a day, for the first 48 hours and then photonic therapy for a couple of days and again, the problem had gone completely within 4 days. I re-ordered the Lymph Blend and also started her on high doses of natural Vitamin E - she gets 5250 iu in her feed per day, split over 2 feeds. This was the recommendation of a friend who used to have high level event horses - she'd found vit E useful for one of her mares who had similar issues with leg swelling/lymphangitis. High levels of Vit E is also indicated for EPSM and isn't toxic in these quantities. Anyway, since that episode and despite the very wet mud for the last few weeks, her fetlocks, pasterns and cannons are 'drier' than they've ever been with hardly any puffiness whatsoever.

Lutine playing in the mud

2007-12-04T23:27:00.000+01:00

We often have very dry spells of weather over here and this autumn was no exception. We had almost 8 weeks with very little rain - just a couple of overnight spells but nothing meaningful. So when the rain arrives, the horses tend to go mad and rush about, rolling in the mud and having great fun. Lutine is no exception to this! Here she is playing with her great friend, Mascagne, who is also the little horse that joined her on her illicit escapades in the grazing field. What I like about this video is that Lutine is looking after Mascagne, who is only partially sighted. They are playing together carefully whilst the other horses in the herd rush about in a wild gallop.

Lutine Playing in the Mud

2007-12-04T23:26:00.001+01:00

More EPSM thoughts

2007-11-30T16:58:00.000+01:00

We've been having some consistently low temperatures overnight, coupled with clear skies. Still, it's not been all that frosty - down to 2 oC or 3 oC. However I thought Lutine was looking really quite stiff in a morning and she had started hiking her hind legs again, just every so often. That's a bit of a giveaway EPSM indicator for her. The other thing she'd been doing is consistently standing next to our round pen with her butt up the slope - I'd noticed it and thought 'why are you doing that?' but didn't have many thoughts about what it could be about.

Anyway, I reckoned the cold was probably not so good for the large superficial muscles of a horse with EPSM so I have started rugging her overnight if the temperature is going to go below 5oC. It's a bit tricky though as, even though she's so think skinned and has a fine winter coat, she will get too warm under her rug if it's not below 5oC and then she starts getting damp. So I tend to have to go out at about midnight and pop a rug on her and then take it off before 9.30am maximum. It does do the trick though - she's far more supple and active in a morning if she's stayed snug overnight.

The other things fell into place as I was reading the Rural Heritage website forum, where Dr Beth Valentine answers a lot of questions regarding EPSM horses. There were several other messages recently from EPSM-horse owners with similar signs to Lutine's. Dr Beth noted that EPSM horses can require up to 20% additional oil over the winter to keep them loose and they do better being kept warm, even if that means bringing them indoors and therefore restricting exercise, which is not usually recommended. Glad that I can keep her warm enough just with rugging, it would seem. Someone else was also pointing out that their horse was standing with their butt uphill and Dr Beth commented that it's a favourite way for them to relieve some weight off their hind end. So there we have it. I have duly increased her oil and noted the requirement for warmth.

The forum for Rural Heritage can be found here http://www.ruralheritage.com/messageboard/virtualvet/index1.htm

A lot of the threads also demonstrated that regular, structured exercise, as opposed to turnout, was vital, so we've started long reining around the field again. Our lanes are too dangerous for us to go out on our own, so we will stick to the field during the week and then hack out of a weekend when my husband is around to come with us, glare at drivers etc.

Some good signs

2007-11-19T13:08:00.001+01:00

I had a lovely day with Lutine yesterday. We spent a couple of hours re-learning about trailer loading - she was a doll about it. She wasn't too confident about going in at first so we worked at increasing her confidence bit by bit with two or three sessions during the day. Eventually we got to where she was perfect going up the ramp and standing inside while I took down the front bar and then led her out through the front ramp. Over the next few sessions we will cement this and then progress to having someone put up the bar at the back, then having the front down and so on... all until she's happy going in and standing in there with a haynet for 15 or 20 minutes at a time and then we can think about starting to take some little trips. I don't think it will take long. The main obstacle is getting organised and hooking the trailer to the 4x4 regularly so we can practise.

Then a lovely thing happened. I went down in the field to take down the last bit of strip grazing fence and open up the last corner of what is now pretty brown, dry grass. The horses always get a bit excited at the sight of strip grazing fencing coming down so they all raced down after me. Lutine also saw and set off at a trot down hill, no trace of lameness even on the slope and then she picked up a canter on the left lead and cantered down the hill all the way to the bottom. Her left foreleg is the one she was always 'off' on, the one that seems to have had the damage/problem, and she habitually always picked up right canter and never down hill as that put additional pressure on the joints. Anyway, there she was, sprinting down the steepest part of the hill on her 'bad leg'. I wish I'd had my camera with me - but that's always the way it goes. Missing the camera when you most wish you had it.

Winter Suppertime

2007-11-17T18:36:00.000+01:00

I do still love tucking up my neds for the night. I know, it's a bit sad and anthropomorphic. We've been having very cold clear weather - down to -90C last night, for example. Lutine's winter coat is so fine and silky, it's really not up to very cold temperatures and, added to that, I want to try and keep her muscles and joints warm and supple so that there's less of a risk of her injuring herself. So I've got her high neck rug out of the barn and she's had a feed, rug and lots of hay all night. Nothing nicer than seeing your contented horses munching away, snug and warm for the night.

Great Alternative Veterinary Resource

2007-11-16T14:48:00.000+01:00

I spent rather too long over the last few days reading through the website of UK vet Chris Day, which can be found here:

http://www.alternativevet.org/mainmenu.htm

When we were in the UK we used to live fairly close to this place. I really wish we were still there sometimes. Would be great to have access to this kind of multifaceted professional.

Madam Filling Her Face

2007-11-16T14:43:00.000+01:00

Madam Haybelly filling her face. The angle of the photo and the fact it was taken on my phone (which does distort images a little when you're up close) makes her belly look rather rounder than it is.

Holistic Therapy Time

2007-11-16T14:15:00.000+01:00

Seems like we're getting through quite a few holistic therapies for Lutine at the moment. She's still having Gloria Garland's ERU Maintenance mixture (from http://www.wholehorse.com/) and her eyes are looking absolutely great. There's not been any further deterioration in her eyes in the last few months and the vet had a look in them yesterday and said 'well, she's going to struggle to read the newspaper but other than that, the damage seems limited to the scarring she had previously'. Also, the white/blue scar on the right eye has faded almost to nothing so I am really keeping my fingers crossed that we can hold off major damage to her eyes and any more loss of vision. She doesn't seem to struggle too much with vision except for finding her bucket of food in the dark; overall she got off pretty lightly with the uveitis.

The vet came yesterday and did her second lot of acupuncture. He inserted 5 needles in total, two on her front left leg, two in her lumbar area and one on the right hind in the outside of the hock. He also did a bit of osteopathic manipulation on her back legs, pelvis and sacroiliac area. For some reason, every time he's done some acupuncture on her she then goes down in the field and has a bit of a trot and canter about. It's as though she's trying her body out and seeing whether anything feels different. The vet also asked what our riding programme was and agreed that she does need to be in regular light work to help her to progress; I'm always rather relieved when the vet confirms what we're doing. I don't always agree with vets but I don't rule them out completely!

You can see from the photos that the creeping crud has all but gone now too. I cut out alfalfa from her diet totally and the weather has been dry and very sunny (though cold) but the crud has been healing all on its own. No need for any creams or lotions or any other treatment. It's gradually sloughing off revealing new hair growth underneath. The purple looking stuff on her legs is actually elderberry juice from some elder bushes she'd just walked through. I may well still get some sun covers for her white legs for next summer just to avoid this problem coming back again.

Also a couple of weeks ago, we had another friend who is quite 'spiritual' in her approach come over and do some crystal therapy with Lutine. This friend is also a cranio sacral therapist and so it was interesting to hear what she had to say about Lutine, including that she felt as though she'd had an injury to her cruciate ligaments in her knee on the front left leg. I showed my friend the scar on Lutine's front left leg and the scar on her forehead under her forelock that gives the impression that she's had a fall. Our friend also felt as though the healing process was just waiting to start with Lutine.

Finally, a week ago we had a visit from a friend who is a trained Classical Homeopath and she recommended a homeopathic remedy to Lutine for me (Silicea 200c). This one was recommended as it is suited for getting rid of scar tissues in the body, for the ill effects of vaccination (I think over-vaccination has a role to play in Lutine's chronic illness), because it has an affinity for healing all kinds of tissues and because Lutine is, apparently, a typical 'Silica' person: sensitive, tall, long legged, silky hair. I found it a really interesting process to go through all the questions with our friend. The homeopathic remedy arrived yesterday and so she had her first dose then. With the 200c, we only have to repeat the dosage every month though! So I will be very interested to see how all this goes.

Two Naughty Girls

2007-10-12T16:55:00.000+02:00

Lutine's a bit of a cheeky Miss on the quiet. Her latest trick is shimmying under the electric fence I use to divide up our field in order to strip graze the horses. She then runs up and down because, by then, she's too excited to figure out how to shimmy back the way she came! She then has to wait until I get up in the morning so I can let her back into the paddock with the others. Anyway, last night she took one of the other horses, Mascagne, for a bit of a razz around too - partners in crime! By the time I went to let them back in, Mascagne was steaming with sweat but there wasn't a drop of moisture on Lutine!

The Creeping Crud

2007-10-10T15:14:00.000+02:00

The vet came today to do Lutine's first lot of acupuncture. The crud has started to look better over the last week anyway - see the photos. However, as the vet was doing the acupuncture, I noticed that there was a patch of funny scabbiness/dandruff over her chest muscle too. Apparently there's a bunch of lymph tissue in this area so perhaps it's come from something exiting the lymph nodes via the skin. The vet had a look but didn't comment much on it. What he did say was that 'it' is on the move - the outward appearance had changed but also the reactive meridians were different this week.

Anyway, he put in a needle on the front of each coronet band in between the 11 o clock and 1 o clock points, on all four feet. Then he put a needle in the governing vessel meridian on the point just after the withers on the way up towards the ears. She also had two needles on the inside of each hind leg, half way up the thigh. The vet also did a bit of cranial osteopathy on her pelvic/sacral region.

It was quite strange at one point - he put the needle in on one side and she hiked up her hind leg on the opposite side and her 'jumper's bump' - prominent sacrum - suddenly smoothed out, making a nice round rump for once...

OK, so the vet says to keep an eye on how things change - look for changes in behaviour, any changes in the skin or other signs and he's coming back in 15 days for another session with her.

Keeping fingers crossed!

Lutine's Bobo Jambes

2007-10-05T18:42:00.000+02:00

Bobo Jambes are 'sore legs' in French. Lutine started with a little 50p size patch of what I thought was 'mud fever' - a common type of dermatitis associated with wet or muddy conditions - by the end of winter on her white front foreleg and a couple of little crusty bits on her white hind leg. It seemed to be responding well to home treatment of antiseptic washes and Sudocrem. Then, a bit bizarrely, as soon as the warm weather arrived and the ground dried up, her hind leg blew up suddenly, to the point where serum was oozing through the skin. At the time the vet was duly called and she was given antibiotics, anti inflammatories and a diuretic. That took the worst of the problem down but it didn't go away. A couple of weeks later I called the vet back and this time was given topical antibiotic and steroid lotion. I must have used that for 5 or 6 weeks and again, the problem diminished but never really went away.

During the summer, there were a few weeks where I didn't do much to it and the condition stayed fairly quiet. Then I tried another popular remedy that didn't require water and antiseptic washing to lift off the scabs, thinking the washing had been the problem. Immediately that the scabs came off, the legs started swelling again and revealed angry, red skin underneath. I covered this with zinc oxide cream and it seemed that keeping the sun off the sore bits helped. But I resolved to call the vet back at this was clearly an ongoing thing now and not mud fever.

There's a condition called pastern leukocytoclastic vasculitis (PLV), which is a form of autoimmune disease and it also has the same symptoms as mud fever, is exacerbated by sunlight, associated with the pink skinned areas on horses and also reacts badly to other treatment. I figured this was a possibility but wanted the vet to have a look anyway. The traditional treatment for this condition is oral steroids, which basically suppress the immune system and stop the scabs appearing but steroids are powerful drugs that can cause other problems in horses, not least laminitis. I was keen to avoid steroids if possible. I'd rather Lutine have scabby legs than laminitis.

Anyway, the vet came and spent quite a while checking Lutine's acupoints on the two affected legs. Then we had a discussion. He said even if we took samples and biopsies to look for bacteria and fungus etc, we'd probably find something but they wouldn't be the cause of the problem. I mentioned the PLV and he said 'for sure, this is part of the whole picture of autoimmune issues with this horse. Yes, we could give it a grand diagnosis and called it an autoimmune this and a photosensitivity that but at the end of the day, conventional medicine can't cure it. It can only deal with the symptoms on these long standing chronic issues'.

Then he pointed out some other stuff that I'd seen but not noticed, if you catch my drift. The scabs run in lines along the meridians in Lutine's legs and the vet confirmed that the associated acupuncture points were also reactive (front leg on left, hind on right).

Now the weird thing with this vet is that he's really shy about coming forwards about the acupuncture. I thought I'd better just ask him outright if he thought a course of acupuncture would be helpful and he said he thought so and then started waffling about 'but it will need several sessions, but we'll see how it evolves in deciding how many sessions and how close together they should be' And finally, I was able to pin him down to coming back on Wednesday next week to start a course of acupuncture for Lutine.

I do think that all these outward signs are just manifestations of this core systemic, chronic ill health she's had. Fingers crossed that the acupuncture helps.

My Bag of Tricks Arrives

2007-09-12T15:08:00.000+02:00

My new box of tricks arrived from Easycare this morning; an Easycare Comfort pad system. Basically, there are three different densities of pads for the inside of Lutine's boots, three different density frog supports and three different densities of frog pressure pads. You can mix and match to get the most comfortable support and protection for your horse.

I added a medium density comfort pad with a soft frog pressure pad to Lutine's boots. The medium density pad was the same as we were already using and she seemed comfortable on her soles with these. I then added the soft frog pressure pad to give her frog a more forgiving surface to bump into as she stands on each respective foot. I decided to use the soft pad as Lutine goes a lot more comfortably on soft ground and the aim is to make her comfortable to move and encourage a heel first landing.

Here are her pads:

She started moving much more comfortably as soon as I put her in them. I put them on her at the bottom of our field and then led her back up to the barn to dress a bite that one of the other horses had given her. She seemed, even then, to be landing less toe first on the near fore. Once I'd dressed the bite with some 'spray on sticking plaster' she had a drink at our water buckets and then proceeded to trot back down the hill with one of my other horses. She wasn't totally sound, still a bit sore on that near fore, but at least she was willing to break into trot downhill! She has been avoiding that avidly since our ground went hard again. I am happy enough with her movement in these boots now that I will start riding her again on the lanes.

Lutine started her Whole Horse herbal mix for movement this week too. It has a component for arthritis, a component for tendon repair and a digestion component. She's only been on it a couple of days so it's too early to tell its effect yet. I also have some more 10:10 Joint Support in the post for her - she definitely improves when she's on therapeutic levels of Glucosamine and MSM and deteriorates when she's not on it.

Serious mileage required

2007-09-03T01:10:00.000+02:00

I think everyone I speak to is converging on the idea that the next stage of rehabilitation for Lutine is a serious amount of mileage, ridden or hand walking, but all done at walk. Below is a reply from an AANHCP Field Instructor that has been kind enough to discuss Lutine and her feet with me a few times before now.

So my first post was meant to be a direct answer to your query about navicular. The second was to illustrate that some horses just take a long time to come right. Many of the horses have come working sound sooner than I might have expected. This is always pleasing but the reality is it takes 8-9 months to grow a new hoof and 4 years for a hoof to fully transition.

The first year is about that new hoof, but after that, if you maintain the hoof, the walls start to build mass actually becoming thicker.

I took a moment to go back and look at the pics I have of Luntine’s feet from when we talked a year ago. The feet were poor. The wavy event lines indicating a poor history of foot care and a ‘blow out’ through the front of the walls on both feet just beneath the coronary band [in fact, these were bruises from overtightened Boa boots]. Assuming diet , exercise and trimming were brought on line we would still be looking at 9 months to grow that hoof out.

I’m aware from following your posts on the eye problems your horses have been having that you and yours have not had an easy year. I certainly hope that the situation is finally improving. However from a hoof point of view, I would assume the immune system has been under stress ( there’s a British understatement) and the effects of any drugs have all produced a situation where the horses metabolism was not optimal for good hoof growth.

I assume that your exercise regime was not optimal in this period.

I would be interested to see pics of the present hooves; Are the hoof walls consistent good quality ( no event rings or deviant toe angles) do they feel smooth to the touch or are there little underlying bumps that can be felt but not seen?

Given Lutine’s history perhaps she’s not doing so badly. I can’t remember where we got to with the pads I sent. I have found I get better results by trimming the outer edge down, so that the pad is more of a dome.

If she’s just a bit off at the trot, I’d boot up and put some serious walking miles on her.
Also all the gravel crunchers I’ve had, developed high concavity. I have come to believe that concavity is higher with higher toe angles. The toe angle come from building a good digital cushion above the frog ( this seems to jack up the P3 and the concavity follows).
So when I’m not happy with the frog/digital cushion I use boots with V pads under the frog.

Some times a horse sound on harder going at the walk but going short or footy at the trot may have weak heel cartilage. I will walk extensively with such a horse without boots and boot up for trot work/dressage.

It can get a bit despondent when the hoof doesn’t go to my schedule! Luckily Deb is usually around to remind me of where the hoof started and how far we have come . At least you're riding now, remember the trim is just the base, diet and milage are the two factors that forge a wild horse hoof.

Hope this is helping Kev

Other professional trimmers have also expressed this view. But, most importantly, this is a view that's also shared by our vet, who's seen Lutine 'in the flesh'. His comment was that she was fine for being ridden and that we were going to have to carry on with gentle, appropriately progressive, exercise and not just stop whenever we have a minor hiccup or else Lutine would simply fail to improve in the longer term.

Anyway, bearing this in mind we walked out again tonight, with Lutine in boots and pads on her front feet, and she was back to being sound in trot on the roads 'sans cavalier'. Remember when it took 5 days for her to get over the head bobbing the last time? now it took just 2 - I did say I was looking forward for when it took more 'effort' for her to start head bobbing and less time for her to get over it.

I am going to recommence riding her and concentrate on keeping her in walk and just getting her fit for regularly hacking out in walk. So we're looking for fitness to do lots of miles at a walk pace with the aim of rebuilding her musculoskeletal system and general health.

Patience and The Nature of Healing

2007-08-31T12:51:00.000+02:00

I think patience has got to be the number one quality one needs to see through the rehabilitation of a chronically sick horse. After doing 4 little light hacks, Lutine showed up with a minor, but noticeable, amount of head bobbing again in trot when being ridden on the road. She wasn't head bobbing in trot in the field minus a rider though, and she wasn't lame at the walk or even shortening her stride at the walk with the rider. Now, we've been long reining on the roads and the hard surfaces for weeks in the walk and with a little bit of trot with no sign of head bobbing and even without boots. So the addition of the extra weight of the rider had obviously had some sort of effect. I decided to write to some of the barefoot professionals that I know to ask about their experiences of rehabbing 'navicular' horses and whether there just are some horses that will never come sound. Bless them, to a man (or woman!), they sent me some wonderful, detailed and constructive replies. Here's some exerpts:

From Paige Poss, awesome lady who runs http://www.ironfreehoof.com/

Wendy, I have been reading some of the different things that you have done to get this horse well. I am learning a lot from you and Lutine. I think you are doing a fabulous job. I have to tell you that occasionally I do run across a horse that is beyond my help, but it is never just about the feet. You asked about navicular horses, but in reality, it is "sick" horses that are so hard to heal. I just gave up on a lovely mare that I have been trying to help for 2 years. I was just her trimmer for the first year, but I actually owned her this last year. I was treating her with many different modalities and was getting marginal results. The reason I gave up is that she felt terrible most of the time. The relief she got was always very short lived. Like you describe Lutine, Colleen was completely toxic. I think she had been compromised her whole life, but that is a whole other story. I think you have come much further with Lutine. It sounds like she is doing well much more that she is doing bad. That is great! OK, on to your real question. Yes, I do see navicular horses that take a very long time to heal. I mentioned this on the list a long time ago, but no one commented that they see the same thing. I think this may be what is going on with your horse. I have noticed this many times over the years. As the foot begins to heal and the horse begins to use the back of the foot more, the deep digital flexor tendon will want to work properly. Working properly means that it will need to slide over the navicular bone. What happens with a lot of navicular horses is that they form adhesions between the DDFT and navicular bone. When these start breaking apart, the horse gets sore. I think of this as a type of healing crisis. I don't want it to happen, but when it does the horse comes through it better than ever. If she likes having a job, then I would continue with light work even if she is lame. I don't know what your boarding situation is like, but if you can keep her working.

I am going to attach some pictures of a horse that clearly had issues with the DDFT. This horse also was a foundered horse. Many times the horses that are deemed "navicular" really are laminitic also. I think you already feed her like she is a LGL. Am I remembering correctly? This is a picture of the DDFT on the front foot. It does not look like it was stuck to the navicular bone, but it was clearly not healthy.

Here is the next picture. This is the same horse. It is just his healthy back foot. Isn't it amazing the difference in color? Clearly the front foot was not as healthy as the back foot. I think that over time with proper management these tissues would heal. I just wanted you to see what may be going on inside your mares feet. I would continue to have patience and let the healing continue. Paige

I am going to send you a few more pictures that show how much damage there really is to that foot. The bone on the left is from the healthy looking back foot and the right is of the unhealthy looking foot. This is looking at the top of the coffin bone and navicular bone, so it is a weird shot. What jumps out at me is that not only the tendon is an odd color, but all the tissue looks damaged. The bone is yellow, the tendons and lateral cartilages look yellow. I know that I often see a pumpkin or yellow tint to some feet that are compromised. I have often thought it was serum from an inflammatory reaction, but I don't know this to be true. It is just my anecdotal theory. Keep in mind that both of these feet were from the same horse. Both feet were kept the same way. One is not damaged from sitting out too long. Both dissections were done the same day.

Just to reflect a little on what Paige was saying, here is some information from an orthopaedic medicine website about tendon adhesions and their formation:

Problem: Precise digital function requires smooth gliding of flexor tendons within their sheath. Tendon adhesions following injury or repair limit gliding, thereby decreasing active range of motion of the digit as compared to passive range of motion.

Etiology: Violation of the tendon surface, whether traumatic disruption or from attempts at surgical treatment, results in production of adhesions via the normal inflammatory response. The limited space between the profundus and superficialis tendons and the theca, is a primary contributor. Once adhesions develop, tendon gliding within this confined space is affected, and active digital motion is diminished.
Pathophysiology: The process by which flexor tendons heal is debatable. The conventional theory is that peripheral fibroblasts from the surrounding connective tissue invade the zone of injury and serve as a source of reparative cells. In this theory, the tendon itself is believed to have no intrinsic ability for repair. New evidence seems to indicate that the epitenon cells migrate into and across the zone of injury along a fibrin lattice, and collagen fibers, formed by the epitenon and endotenon fibroblasts, bridge the laceration site. Vascularization of the repair zone is from within the proximal end of the tendon by proliferation of vascular channels. These studies suggest that the tendon possesses the intrinsic ability to participate in the healing process.
Peripheral adhesions attach to the repairing tendon, potentially limiting tendon excursion during flexion and extension. Although adhesions may add strength to the healing tendon, it is unlikely that adhesions are an essential component of the reparative process.

I find this interesting too because this is from a website about adhesions in the tendons of human digits (i.e. fingers) and actually, here we're talking about the equine digit - after all, the DDFT is the 'deep DIGITAL flexor tendon'.

We're off the lead rein. :-)

2007-08-28T15:15:00.000+02:00

The first few hacks I had with Lutine, my husband has walked beside us and kept a long-ish lead rein on us, just as a safety net. This was for a few reasons: it's not ideal to take a young, green horse out on the roads, even very quiet roads, on its own - would be much better with an older, steady horse as nanny; plus Lutine has a cow phobia that already caused one accident with my other horse and she's been nervous about being on the lanes ever since that car hit us just before New Year. But OK, I will admit - since getting hit by the car whilst walking her out, my confidence took a bit of a rattle too. So the lead rein was my psychological safety net. But on our little hacks we'd had some spooking and the odd bit of jogging and jumping about but she remained well under control and my husband said he was leaving slack in the lead rope all the time, so it was her rider she was listening to.

We did our hack out last night without the lead rope though my husband came along on his bicycle. Even having the bike there seems to help these young horses get a little bit of confidence and having my husband there seems to encourage the drivers to slow down for the horse. They take more notice of him than they ever did of me! (blimmin' chauvenists!) Just after the place on our lane where we were hit in December, another car came down the hill with a clanky trailer attached. Both of us were feeling tense - but we were in luck. It was a neighbour of ours who was very obliging and stopped the car while I turned Lutine, walked her back past the trailer and then proceeded to follow him down the hill. And bless her, she really did hold herself together and listen to me.

So another little step - we're off the lead rein and recovering our confidence.

The Healing Crisis

2007-08-20T17:58:00.000+02:00

At last, I found the references to the process of healing Chronic Illness. Here's the link: http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/philo1.htm#healingcrisis

Some of the relevant stuff I found:

"Constantine Hering was a German Homeopath who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1830's. He observed that healing occurs in a consistent pattern. He described this pattern in the form of three basic laws which homeopaths can use to recognize that healing is occurring. This pattern has been recognized by acupuncturists for hundreds of years and is also used by practitioners of herbalism and other healing disciplines.

According to the first of Hering's laws, healing progresses from the deepest part of the organism - the mental and emotional levels and the vital organs - to the external parts, such as skin and extremities.
Hering's second law states that, as healing progresses, symptoms appear and disappear in the reverse of their original chronological order of appearance. Homeopaths have consistently observed that their patients re-experience symptoms from past conditions.
According to Hering's third law, healing progresses from the upper to the lower parts of the body. For instance, a person is considered to be on the mend if the arthritic pain in his neck has decreased although he now has pain in his finger joints.

As the symptoms change in accordance with Hering's Law, it is common for individual symptoms to become worse than they had been before treatment. If healing is truly in progress, the patient feels stronger and generally better in spite of the aggravation. Before long, the symptoms of the aggravation pass, and leave the person healthier on all levels."

"Understanding The Healing Crisis Ginger Chalford, Ph.D
The body has an inherent desire for perfect health. We have the ability to earn our way back to that state, no matter how "normal" or bad our health is now. But in the meantime, the body must go through an elimination process to achieve good health. The elimination process is often referred to as the "healing crisis." Once the healing crisis starts, reactions may be mild or severe. Expect ups and downs as it takes awhile to get good health back.

In a healing crisis, every body system works together to eliminate waste products and set the stage for regeneration. Old tissues are replaced with new. A disease occurs when the body cannot make it through its natural healing crises for one reason or another. The body is "locked" into a destructive and shut down place, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
Symptoms of the healing crisis may at first be identical to the disease it is meant to heal. But there is an important difference: elimination. A cleansing, purifying process is underway and stored wastes are in a free-flowing state. The body, mind, and spirit are no longer "locked." Sometimes pain and symptoms during the healing crisis are more intense than that of the chronic disease, but it is temporary and necessary. "

Our First Hack Out!

2007-08-18T18:42:00.000+02:00

And we're off! I have been long lining Lutine in the field and around the lanes and also having little rides in the field. She's just been feeling so well and strong - you really get a sense of her carrying you now whereas when we first got on her last September, she just felt that little bit weak and I wasn't happy carrying on. Anyway, along with my husband I walked her down to the bottom of the valley, past the neighbouring farm and then rode her home. Just a little 15 minute ride home but she felt so great and was keenly striding out and offering the trot all the way home. The ideal way with such a green horse would be to take her out in the company of other, more experienced horses but we don't have that facility at the moment. When we get a trailer big enough to take Lutine, we'll start trailering her over to our local riding centres and go on some organised rides.

But, you can see how absolutely wonderful this felt by the GREAT BIG grin on my face!!!

More gratuitous pics of our little hack below:

EPSM and the Digestive System

2007-08-16T16:03:00.000+02:00

I made the mistake, at the beginning of Summer, to cut down Lutine's oil and protein ration in her food because she looked as though she was getting rather too sleek (a touch fat). We have a lot of protein rich birdsfoot trefoil in our field and I was just worried that by her getting too big she would stress her joints more. Anyway, withing a couple of weeks she'd lost a noticeable amount of muscling over her hind end and she'd been walking stiffly behind again. I've started her on Whole Horse chinese herbs http://www.wholehorse.com/ for the uveitis but then asked for Gloria Garland, the herbalist, to come up with a formula for helping Lutine's stiffness problems. Gloria sent to me a few samples to try on Lutine with applied kinesiology (muscle testing) and the combination that came out the strongest was the 'Easy Mover' (for joint stiffness) combined with the Tendon Support formula and a digestive herb called Shen Zu. Shen Zu is a herbs used to help the digestion deal with carbohydrates and sugars. I mentioned to Gloria about how this all fits in with the EPSM and so Gloria sent to me another sample for a combined digestive health formula and I will test that too when it arrives.

In the meantime I read an article she'd written about Chinese herbs and digestive health . She wrote:

"The earth element, the stomach and digestion, is the source for all the qi of the body. Also referred to as “central qi,” it creates all the cells, tissues and all energetic and physiological functions of the body.

Keeping the earth element strong
A horse with a weak earth element can manifest in several ways: ulcers, poor physical development, chronic colic or diarrhea, declining condition in old age or poor muscle development, muscle tone or wasting.

When the central qi is strong, the body functions more effectively on all levels, stress is better managed, illness and disease are better handled and recovery from injury is faster.

The hay, grain, vitamins, supplements and water we provide are the raw materials for the central qi factory. They become transformed into the building blocks of the body. A strong digestive function can help our horses’ live longer, healthier lives.

Enhancing the earth element with herbs
In addition to a balanced diet, mineral and de-worming program designed to fit your particular horse’s needs, some of the following Chinese herbs are helpful for digestive health:

Shen qu (Massa Fermentata) This enzyme and vitamin B-rich herb enhances the digestion over all by facilitating the digestion of starches and carbohydrates found in high amounts in hay and grain rations.
Mai ya (Fructus Hordei Germinatus) This herb protects the stomach and promotes the digestion of starches, especially wheat and rice based products. (caution - avoid use in large doses with lactating mares).
Gu ya (Fructus Setariae Germinatus) Also digestive enzyme-rich, it is very good for horses prone to chronic, gas colic as well as for weak or older individuals."

I found what was said about the weak 'Earth Element' very interesting because it described all the associated issues Lutine has, especially the extraordinary amount of time it seems to take her to recover from pretty minor issues (like the mud fever she had over winter). Also, the fact that this is associate with 'central qi' and that weakness in that can result in fatigue and metabolic issues.

The full article can be found here: http://www.wholehorse.com/articles/digestive_health.htm

In the meantime, she's gone back on to her usual high oil, protein rich diet and if she starts looking too gross we will increase her exercise this time. I won't make the same mistake twice - but this was another experience that really underlines her EPSM status.

Lutine's siblings show jumping

2007-08-16T15:52:00.000+02:00

Went to a show yesterday and two of the horses jumping there were by the same stallion as Lutine. He's a well known National Stud stallion so that's not really a big surprise but what I found interesting was that both horses were very similar to Lutine - chestnut with socks, a white blaze and slightly flaxen manes. And they were a bit chunkier than the other horses there - which is interesting from the EPSM perspective as this condition effects heavier muscled horses more, apparently.

aka The Ginger Plonker

2007-08-16T15:48:00.001+02:00

We do adore Lutine - but she is a bit of a goofball. We've nicknamed her, affectionately, The Ginger Plonker because she gets up to the daftest things.....

'Honestly, I was there minding my own business and my fly mask just did this all by itself'

Hurrah! Massage photos at last

2007-08-16T15:41:00.000+02:00

The Equine Sports Masseur starts coming

2007-05-24T17:22:00.000+02:00

And I forgot to take photos at Lutine's first session!

I have a friend who is just about to qualify as an Equine Sports Masseur (sp??) and she was looking for case studies for her final exams so I volunteered Lutine. Typically, this friend is about to move back to the UK and then open a multi-disciplinary rehabilitation yard but at least she'll be able to give Lutine 5 or 6 sessions of Equine Sports Massage before she leaves. I had the vet out to see Lutine a few weeks ago when I thought she'd tied up and he said 'there's nothing really wrong with her that I can see except that she's all 'unpacked' from not having worked properly for so long and she needs rebuilding right from the start. Expect that she's going to have times when she's stiff and sore but you're going to have to work her through it an extent'. Hence the opportunity to get several sessions of ESM for her have been a God send and should be really helpful.

At the first session, my friend basically said that Lutine was stiff laterally in her neck and was also stiff in her hind quarters. Not much wrong with her back as such - but then, she's hardly ever been ridden. I noticed that Lutine seemed a little stiff and sore after her session yesterday. She looked like I do the morning after an aerobics session! But today she's moving more freely again and I noticed that she's landing better than usual on her front hooves.

My friend is coming back next Tuesday so I'll take some photos and post them.

Exit Stage Left!

2007-05-10T11:11:00.000+02:00

This was quite funny really. I'd long lined Lutine around the field and then attempted to get on her to ride whilst she was looking and feeling rather keyed up. There was a storm approaching, the wind was getting up and Lutine was watching her herd mates tuck themselves under the hedge. I sat on her - she felt like an unexploded bomb and started hopping and shaking her head as soon as my backside hit the saddle - so I decided to practice my emergency dismount procedure and avoid a show down. My husband was just in the process of taking a photo of me sat there when I suddenly disappeared off the side!

I need to take into account the fact that, although she's just turned 8 now, she has the education level of a newly started horse and probably has less than 50 hours riding 'on the clock'. No point getting into an argument because I'm hell bent on riding her no matter what and too proud to simply get off if she doesn't feel happy.

Just after my emergency dismount, the heavens opened and it chucked it down with rain as the squall blew in. Lutine had been right that riding wasn't a good idea, afterall.

Lutine Goes Walk-About

2007-05-04T23:04:00.000+02:00

This is just one of those milestones - and maybe it's seems a little mundane but I just think it's so significant. We've started long reining out on the lanes around us - and Lutine is striding out perfectly, even breaking into a trot regularly of her own accord.

But she's doing it all without hoof boots!

Today we long reined out for about 40 mins up and down the hills around us. She didn't put a hoof wrong, didn't gimp a single step and she strode out like a good 'un all the way, ears pricked! We last long reined out on the lanes the day before yesterday and there were absolutely no ill effects afterwards. Today she arrived home as happy on her feet as she left and, when I looked at her feet, there was actually very little wear to them! (So much for getting a council trim in...)

Here's she is - gazing in the direction of home and her pasture buddies where we stopped for her to have a nibble of grass.

Lutine's first polo mint

2007-04-22T10:46:00.000+02:00

My auntie came over from the UK and brought a packet of Polo mints with her so we thought we would see if Lutine liked them:

Long reining begins

2007-04-22T10:39:00.000+02:00

We've now been long reining around the field for, I think, the last week or so. At first, we were both equally knackered by the time we'd done a few circuits (it's a 10 acre/4 hectare field with plenty of slopes). Now it's just me that's knackered and Lutine's fine! She seems to be really well in herself and is coming on brilliantly. I think I may have to start riding her around the field soon instead of long lining because I can't keep up with her! She's getting fit far quicker than I am. I guess it's a bit tougher for me at the moment because we're growing our hay crop in this field and so the grass is really, really long - it's great exercise because it's like walking through water! I think that it's also good for her psychologically because it's helping her to become more confident and independent, encouraging her to stride out ahead of me without needing me right up at her shoulder. Yesterday evening, we long reined all the way back up the lane at the side of our field, back through the garden gate and stopped in front of the house.

Video of Lutine's Sire

2007-04-20T16:21:00.000+02:00

Found this on the website for the Haras Nationaux (National Studs). It's a page with a video of Veloce de Favi, Lutine's sire. Just click on 'Veloce de Favi' to see it.

http://www.haras-nationaux.fr/portail/particuliers/consulter-nos-offres/etalons-nationaux/les-etalons-en-video/index.html

Changes in Body Condition

2007-04-20T13:55:00.000+02:00

I like looking at the wonderful changes in Lutine's body condition. Will also get some new photos this weekend that show her as she is today. If you click on any of the photos, you will get a larger image where you can see her condition more clearly

At the start - you could see all her spine, every rib, her scapula is clearly defined and you can see her sternum (breastbone) protruding. When I put my arm over her back, I could feel the internal heat escaping through her fine skin. She had no body fat to keep herself insulated at all. I rugged her with my other horse's 5ft 9" rug to keep her warm. Lutine should have taken around a 6ft 3" rug but she was so thin, the right size rug would have buried her:

After one month, she was starting to put on some weight but her hind end was very skinny indeed and was totally lacking musculature:

By March 2006, she was looking less skeletal:

This is Lutine in May 2006 with her new summer coat through. She's looking a lot better, but still has a skinny rump:

This is her in September 2006, her weight was fine but she was missing condition and muscle tone. I'd started her on the Top Spec balancer plus carried on with the 500ml of oil per day as per the EPSM diet recommendations a couple of weeks prior to this, so we still needed a bit of time before the diet changes started to show through:

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And now, here she is today, munching at the grass in our garden. I'm now having to keep a careful eye on her putting on too much weight! Currently, she has ad lib hay, Top Spec Comprehensive Balancer, a small amount of alfalfa chop and Top Spec 10:10 joint supplement. She's also doing a minimum of half an hour long reining almost every day of the week and she is permanently turned out (no stabling):

Some riding photos from last autumn

2007-04-20T13:33:00.000+02:00

Do excuse my very unfashionable joddies and the ropiness of it all - we're not looking too bad for having a little pootle in the field seeing as it was about the first time time she'd been ridden for more than 5 minutes in 3 years.

Frog Development

2007-04-20T12:09:00.000+02:00

Just wanted to show some photos of the changes Lutine's frogs have gone through since we got her:

Here's the start point:

You can see the the hoof is so squeezed together through contraction that there is a crack all the way up through the heel bulbs, well above the hair line.

Second photo showing near side frog at the outset. Doesn't look tooooo bad - you would think you can see the bottom of the central sulcus from here. errrrr no - it started to open up and suddenly I found I could put my index finger down the crack up to the first knuckle!

This is the offside fore after a few weeks (March 2006) you can see that the heels bulbs are moving apart though they're still pretty contracted.

Heel bulbs have moved even further apart in this photo.

Now for the nearside fore: As you can see, the crack is starting to open up.

It's that deep, you get an echo from it!

Fast forwarding to August 2006:

Off fore, much better shape - but it's a bit wimpy. Doesn't look particularly calloused or tough - sure enough, they fell apart in the wet weather over winter.

But I will expect them to improve year on year, especially as she gets back into regular exercise rather than just turn out in the field.

Healing Chronic Illness

2007-04-20T11:37:00.000+02:00

We've had lots of 'interesting' experiences over the winter with Lutine's health. It started in the Autumn. Lutine went lame again after staying out on the green grass for too long in the autumn and, just as in May, this lameness became an abscess which took a couple of weeks to resolve. This time the vet came out and drained the abscess, leaving a hole in her sole which in itself was a bit of a problem. But gradually that went away and then the next thing was that she started with lymphangitis again. I think it was in one front leg and one hind leg on the same time - called the vet and she was given 3 days of antibiotics and Bute, which seemed to do the trick and the lymphangitis went away. Then we had two successive flare ups the two following months. In the meantime, Lutine also developed Uveitis, a chronic eye inflammation and was therefore on medication for that too. I could see the awful results in her feet. Within weeks of the Bute, antiobiotics and other anti inflammatories, she had a red founder line on all four feet, ridges in the hoof walls and bruised soles. This was the first time she'd had this sign come back since I had her so it kind of indicates to me that a l0t of her previous medical treatment was contributing to her overall chronic problems.

I decided in January that I would buy a Photonic Therapy kit for the horses. www.photonictherapy.com.au This is basically a form of acupuncture that uses light to stimulate the points rather than needles, so I could use it to support the healing of any problems (humans and other animals too) . In January, Lutine started again with swollen pasterns and I knew that the lymphangitis was starting again. I REALLY didn't want to give her more Bute and antibiotics - they were causing problems with her feet and the darned problem was just coming back time after time. So I started using the Photonic torch on her every 12 hours and within three days the problem had gone away again. I then started her on Lymph Blend from Global Herbs (www.globalherbs.co.uk) to see if we could ward this thing off for the future. The lymphangitis tried to surface again another couple of times over the coming three months but each time, by increasing Lutine's Lymph Blend dosage and by giving her photonic therapy, the swelling went away. The second time it happened, it went away within 12 hours.

The next thing that happened was that, just as it seemed her eyes were healing from the uveitis, she decided to rub them on the hay bale and give herself corneal ulcers. This resulted in several weeks of antiobiotic eye drops and finally, I used some chinese herbs to get rid of the final bit of corneal oedema that was left over.

Since the end of Winter, Lutine's not had more attacks of lymphangitis but then, in the last few weeks, some mud fever erupted on her hind legs. Now, when she started with the lymphangitis, I checked her thoroughly for problems like mud fever or for cuts or scratches that could be triggering the problem and I couldn't find any. So we are now dealing with the scabs from the mud fever - it's quite mild and is healing nicely just with daily application of Sudocrem.

Finally, as the weather came better and the ground dried up, we started doing some more work, first on the lunge line and now long lining. After about a week, Lutine went through a muscle crisis of some sort - at first I thought she'd 'tied up' (exertional rhabdomyolisis) but the vet took a blood test and the results came back normal for the muscle enzyme indicators for tying up. The vet also ran a full blood panel, which came back as normal. Anyway, since then we changed over to long lining rather than lunging so she's now working on straight lines rather than circles, which is less strain on her muscles and joints to start with. I also keep supporting her with the photonic therapy and she's just doing wonderfully now. I will post updated photos and videos soon.

It's interesting though because I read an article about healing for chronic problems and apparently, these healing crises are quite common. The article (which I can't now find again but when I do, I'll post a link) said that the progress usually goes from the inside out (e.g. bone problems followed by muscle problems followed by skin problems) and from the top to bottom (e.g. a shoulder problem followed by a hoof problem). Certainly, my experience with Lutine has followed this for the most part.

At the moment, she'd doing brilliantly, looking absolutely glorious and I can't wait to get some photos and vidoes of her up.

Gratuitous Pretty Pictures

2006-12-28T17:12:00.000+01:00

Just some pretty photos that I took during the autumn of '06.

Back in the Saddle

2006-09-07T12:08:00.000+02:00

On Saturday 2nd September, I decided the time was right to try and re-back Lutine. Lutine was originally started as a 3yo and did a summer of hacking and showing but it's been 4 years since she was ridden and I didn't want to make any assumptions about how she would react.

First of all, I introduced her to the saddle and she was mildly curious, not at all freaked by the tack. So then I saddled her up and took it off again, once from each side. No problems. Totally relaxed. Then I asked her to come and stand by me at the mounting block and I leant over her, patting the other side, from each side. Still no problems. Put my foot in the stirrup from each side, no bad reactions, not 'in denial'. So then with the help of hubby, got a leg up and lay over her while hubby led us in a biggish circle in each direction. No problems...

Then, the big step. Up, tummy over, foot in stirrup, other foot over and in stirrup, say hi to Lutine in each eye, be led round whilst crouching, slowly sit up, be led around then with hubby still holding on to the rope, take over the steering...

A couple of circles in walk and whoooaaaaa, come to a stop. Totally unfazed by it all.

She whickered to me as I dismounted and boy! did she get lots of cuddles and praise!

However, she seemed to be happy to be ridden, very gently and my husband said she'd whickered 2 or 3 times, when I'd got off. Hope it wasn't that she was saying 'thank gawd that lump's got off me!'

The only problem was that, as I sat in the saddle, my husband went to take a photo with our digital camera and said 'camera's not working!' - I'd forgotten to put the memory card back in! Agh!

So, on Tuesday, a friend came over to ride with me and we had a go at putting her on board Lutine for a 5 minute wander around the round pen again. Once more, Lutine seemed totally happy about this and this time, I'd remembered the SD card!

The plan from now is to start taking her out on the lead rein with my other horses so that she becomes fitter and then to teach her to long rein and get her exercising gently over poles. She needs to develop her hindquarters and also her second thigh, especially on her nearside hind as that seems to be the weaker leg.

Magical changes

2006-09-03T00:16:00.000+02:00

Lutine's hooves have been producing some wonderful changes over the last few weeks. The first little sign was a small area of crumbly sole that appeared on the lateral (outside edge) of her offside fore hoof. With the kind of natural hoofcare approach I've been using, the healthy sole is sacrosanct and is not trimmed and we look for changes in the natural sole plane to tell us where and when and how we can trim the adjacent wall or other structures. Lutine had a medio-lateral imabalance on this hoof, and it had been there at least 3 years. I found a vet report from 2003 in her passport when she was given to me that noted this imbalance at the time and recommended remedial farriery to sort it out. The photos I have of the hoof when I first went to see her in January 06 show the imbalance was still there. However, by trusting the sole, finally it decided the time was right, the coffin bone had migrated to a more balanced position and the sole powdered up a little, allowing me to finally work on that imbalance.

This is something that I love about natural hoofcare. The French have a saying "Compose not Impose". That's exactly what, for me, good hoofcare is about. As with all good horsemanship, you 'set it up and let it happen'. We always seem to get in trouble with horses when we try to dictate and control through mechanical means according to a man made frame of reference. I like the saying 'Rarely does wisdom dictate one thing and Nature another'.

A couple of weeks following this little event, I picked out Lutine's feet and noticed that on 3 of her hooves the soles and the frogs were starting to shed out a significant amount of material. This was very exciting! (OK, it's very quiet where I live and I don't get out much! :-D) In particular, Lutine was forming crumbly sole around her overlaid bars, meaning I could finally get to trim them without invading healthy sole and in the heel corner area, meaning I could potentially lower her heels a little, which in turn would bring them back, away from the centre of her foot. What was also very significant was that all this crumbly sole was also leaving a lot more concavity in its wake, meaning Lutine's feet were becoming stronger, tighter and with the coffin bone much higher within the hoof capsule - all 'tucked up safe and sound in her hoof'. :-) Finally, the whole outer layer of her frogs on each front hoof sloughed away, revealing a new frog that was healthier with a more well defined central sulcus.

I was sweating a bit about what exactly I needed to do with these hooves now. Instead of just diving in, I returned to my books, papers and articles and developed a plan of action. I wouldn't dump the heels on to the new frogs because those guys, whilst a lovely new shape, needed to get a little fatter and more callused. Also, if I did that I would be in danger of creating the 'low heel, long toe' situation I'd been trying to get rid of for 8 months. I would work on smoothing and trimming the bars, check the toe and wall height relative to the depth of the collateral groove at the frog apex, and then make sure I kept rolling that toe back to keep encouraging the flared forward toe to grow out. I also made frog shaped inserts out of some gym mat material for Lutine's boots to provide extra stimulation and vibration damping for the new frogs.

Now for photos (Jan 06 on left, Sept 06 on right):

Off fore

Near fore

Holy Cow!

2006-08-24T16:45:00.000+02:00

One of those minor set backs, but very telling.

Since Lutine was looking so sound and happy, I decided to start trying to walk her out on the lanes for 10 minutes a day, without boots, as the smooth tarmac is a good surface for building strong hooves.

Luckily my husband came with me the first time we tried to walk past the neighbouring farm. Lutine doesn't 'do' cows! Ho my Lordy! Anyone would think they were horse-eating space monsters. She was dancing about, she leapt over a ditch at one point and, even worse, I found out that Lutine likes to come over the top of the puny people leading her when she gets worried about something - a bit like when Scooby Doo dives into Shaggy's arms... but with a 16.3hh (167cm) horse, it's not funny! So, I quickly realised some schooling effort had to go into Lutine before we recommenced the handwalking.

However, all the blasting about and silliness on the tarmac had left its mark. It must have reignited some inflammation and Lutine started head bobbing slightly in trot again out in the field. :-/ This head bobbing lasted about 5 days and then gradually disappeared until after about 8 days, she was no longer doing it. I was glad it hadn't lasted longer than 8 days. Hopefully, as she gets stronger and sounder, these episodes will require more strain before it has an effect and will heal more quickly until she's about the same as the other horses.

When I think about it, the things that frighten her vs the things she's sanguine about are a rather poignant reflection of her life so far. She absolutely does not mind: travelling in a trailer (she's seen a lot of vet hospitals in her life), having injections, having the vet examine her, being stabled, eating medication, having her feet looked at. She FREAKS about common-or-garden items around the countryside such as cows, bits of farm equipment, little yappy dogs, flappy washing lines. My other horses are pretty much the opposite in terms of what they're used to.

A friend and I rode out with two of my other horses plus Lutine on the lead rein the other day though, and she was much better with the cows so long as she could 'hide' in between the other horses.

Sound on the 20m circle

2006-08-24T16:35:00.000+02:00

This was one of those lovely surprises you sometimes get along the 'road to barefooted soundness'. When I'd first got Lutine, someone had advised me to have some standardised 'tests' that I could use to chart her progress. One of the tests I had was Lutine trotting a 20m circle in our sand-based round pen. In the early months of January, February and March, she was definitely head-bobbing lame on the 20m circle. I'd stopped doing this test because, for a start, the circle puts extra strain on the joints and I was trying to get rid of inflammation, and because it used to depress me watching her head bob!

One breezy evening in July, I'd put her in the round pen to eat her food and she decided she was fed up of being in there, plus she was feeling scatty owing to the breezy conditions. When I looked over to see if she'd eaten up her dinner, she was prancing around the round pen looking very sound. I went and got my lunge whip so I could direct this movement a little more effectively and asked my husband to take some video tape.

Well, being 'lunged' in the round pen was very exciting for Lutine! She was bowling along at the trot and breaking into canter, on both reins. No sign of the head bobbing! And, to top it off, she insisted on jumping over a small group of poles laid on the floor every time she went round, even though stepping over them was perfectly feasible.

Sound on the 20m circle and happy to take canter on both reins! Yeehah!

I do have video footage and one day, when I work out how to edit it and upload it to the Net, I will put it up on the blog for people to look at.

EPSM: Another piece of the puzzle

2006-08-24T14:23:00.000+02:00

Obviously, when Lutine arrived she was very thin and wasted but even though she put on weight quickly with a proper diet, she still lacked muscle development. On top of that, she sometimes used to do this weird thing where she hiked up her back legs as though she had a cramp. She would snatch them up and wave them in the air uncomfortably until stamping them down. I used to watch her do this and think 'hmmm, what IS that about?'. Anyway, by chance I was reading about a condition known as EPSM on the internet one day, as you do, and lo! they could have been describing my horse to a T. I read several articles concerning EPSM from the ruralheritage.com website, written by Dr Beth Valentine, an American veterinary pathologist and they seemed very relevant so I emailed Dr Beth with Lutine's story, her symptoms and photos. Dr Beth's comment was that EPSM was a 'strong possibility' for her and that a diet change could help. EPSM can only be confirmed by muscle biopsy, which I will have done later in the year when there are less insects about, and in the meantime the dietary changes were simple to make and not dangerous.

EPSM stands for Equine Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy and it's basically a metabolic condition where horses can't use energy in the form of muscle glycogen (I think that's the right way to describe it). What it means in practical terms is that Lutine shouldn't be fed cereals and starches/sugars and she needs to get at least 25% of her calorific intake per day from oil, with the rest from fibre- or protein-based sources. Dr Beth thinks that EPSM may have come about as we've bred more and more high-performance horses; I've spoken to several different equine nutritionists who think it can actually be caused by inappropriate diet, high in cereals, leading to mineral deficiencies and damaged gut walls. Either explanation could fit to Lutine.

In any event, we started her on the high oil diet and she has gone from strength to strength, literally. I've also now just started her on a feed balancer by a company called Top Spec (www.topspec.com) plus their 10:10 Joint Support supplement. When I spoke to Nicola Tyler, Top Spec's senior nutritionists, she explained how high cereal diets acidify the horse's hind gut and lead to the gut walls becoming more permeable. This allows undesirable toxins though in to the bloodstream, which can negatively effect the horse's system in all kinds of ways. On top of that, by not having the necessary minerals and trace elements in such an unbalanced diet, Lutine's cells did not have the necessary tools for correct metabolism and in itself this could create the inability to use muscle glycogen, inappropriate glycogen storage in the muscles etc. The food I am giving her now gives her optimum levels of all vitamins and minerals for cell metabolism, plus a hi-tech yeast and another ingredient called a mannan oligosaccharide (MOS) both of which help to restore and maintain gut health. Nicola thinks there's a possibility that Lutine's gut will heal in time, though it may not. However, I think we're on top of this issue now.
She's looking extremely well these days compared to how she looked in the photo above but I'm hoping for even better! (p.s. sorry for weird paint effect on photo. Something must have gone wrong during upload but you can still see how wasted Lutine's muscles were.)

May Was Difficult

2006-08-24T01:36:00.000+02:00

Everything was going great until May time. We had a big thunderstorm and I was watching the horses dashing about in the paddock, all excited about the rain and wind, with Lutine prancing about on the soft ground. The next morning my husband went out to check on the horses and when he came back inside, he said 'was Lutine's really lame yesterday evening?' 'No', I replied. Well, she is now....

Lutine was hopping lame on her off fore. I checked it over and couldn't find any obvious injuries and given the previous evening's high jinks, the likely candidates were a stone bruise or a tendon/soft tissue injury. It could even have been an abscess starting up because of the sudden wet weather. So, I isolated her from the other horses so they couldn't bully her while she was unable to move out of their way. I put her in our sand-based round pen with hay and water, then started cold hosing the leg in case it was a soft tissue injury plus gave her homeopathic Arnica. She was horrendously lame when doing turns and was very sore on a straight line plus she had digital pulses on both front feet. I actually started to think it was the dreaded laminitis come to visit...

She improved daily for a few days but I still called in the vet to ensure there wasn't a serious mechanical problem. The vet diagnosed a stone bruise, most probably got when she was hooning about during the storm, so I carried on with arnica. During the day, she would go out in her boots with pads in the bottom (field was dry and hard again by this time) and into the sand round pen on a soft surface overnight. The main thing was to prevent further traumatic damage and inflammation to her foot. Then, we went through 3 cycles of her coming sound over 3 to 4 days and then going hopping lame again for another 3 or 4 days, which is very indicative of a grumbling abscess. The vet had warned any haematoma might abscess so I wasn't entirely surprised. At the beginning of the 3rd cycle, I called Ainsworths homeopathic pharmacy in London who sent me an individualised remedy for the suspected abscess. After 3 doses, she went sound and stayed sound. In all that time, even though I'd done hot poulticing to try and draw any abscess that might have been forming, I'd not seen any pus drain out of the hoof. However, about 5 weeks later, I was trimming her hoof and lo and behold, a long, thin sub-solar cavity revealed itself as it shed itself out. The abscess had been near her toe in a long, thin cavity and had completely reabsorbed, as shown in the photo above.

Lutine's Hooves: January 06

2006-07-02T17:34:00.000+02:00

The photos above show Lutine's hooves how they were in January when I first got her. From left to right they show: sole on off side front hoof, sole on near side front hoof, heels on off side front hoof, and front off side hoof from the side. I couldn't figure out why the vet couldn't understand why she was lame... maybe I'd missed something in the translation from the owner.

There were lots of things I could see straight off: looking at the underneath of the hoof the frogs were way too small and were contracted, there was flared hoof wall, white line infection, seriously overlaid bars with infection nestling underneath, signs of old abscesses (apparently she abscessed with every change of shoes). From the sides - well, where do you start? The hoof was basically a cylinder shape and it should not have been. The heels are far too high (and they were imbalanced from side to side, the hoof wall was uneven in its thickness, and all four hooves had signs of extensive bruising in the walls. The owner again said 'we don't know why she has those bruises but she always had them and we can't get rid of them'. As well as all this, when I felt for the lateral cartileges, I could only just about place my thumb between them meaning they too were hugely squashed in on themselves inside the hoof.

I trimmed her hooves the week before she came to live with us, basically lowering the overall heel height by about 4mm to start, removing any overlaid bar where it was possible to do so without cutting into the sole and by removing some of the flared hoof wall and finishing with a bevelled edge. Then I gave her old owner (they had given her to me by this point) a bottle of boarx solution and asked her to scrub Lutine's feet with this when she came in from the field in the evening. From then on, the basic trimming approach has been the same: removing overgrowth where it's possible to do so without making Lutine's foot sore, re-establishing balance as far as possible and keeping any infection at bay.

On top of that, I asked the old owners to change her diet while she was there. Until then she'd been given a traditional French sports horse diet: about 80% cereals (mostly barley) and a small amount of hay overnight in her stable (maybe 3 or 4 kg per day). I believed, at the time, that this was going to be an important part of her rehabilitation but I had no idea just how important this would prove!

Lutine Comes Home

2006-07-02T16:01:00.000+02:00

Lutine arrived home with us in mid-January 2006. The photo to the right shows how she looked when she arrived with us. Actually, the photo doesn't do her justice. She was even skinnier in real life! I had never seen a horse where you could see the whole length of her spinal column and count every single rib. I installed her safely in a seperate part of the paddock and gave her as much simple grass hay as she could eat. It's important with starved horses not to feed them too much, too quickly and so she was left with just hay and water for a few days. I then started to give her four small feeds per day of lucerne (alfalfa) pellets and wheat bran.

Just how malnourished she was brought home to me within a couple of days as Lutine developed swollen pasterns from the increase in protein in her food. I was worried at first but within a day or so, the problem receeded and hasn't been an issue since. I had been advised about Lutine's diet by an equine nutritionist, who had informed me how important good quality protein would be. The lucerne was critical to Lutine being able to rebuild the muscles she had lost.

Within a few weeks, even though it had been very cold and started to snow, Lutine was looking much happier.

Lutine Du Manaou: The Story Begins

2006-07-02T15:21:00.000+02:00

Lutine Du Manaou was born on 23rd April 1999 at a small Anglo Arab sports horse stud in south west France. She is by an approved French national stud stallion, called Veloce de Favi, and her mother is also an approved French sportshorse called Titania d'Echez. Lutine was destined for 'big things' in terms of her competitive career, and she started this off by becoming French national champion Anglo Arab foal in September 1999 at Pompadour.

Things seemed to be going well for Lutine. She was looked after carefully according to all the traditional 'best practise' for sports horses and, at the age of 3, she was started under saddle very gently and did a summer of trail riding and competing in some appropriate young horse classes at some of the big shows (showing, known as 'Modeles et Allures' in French, and loose jumping only) in south west France. However, in September 2002, she went lame. No one could find out why she had gone lame but, at the age of 3, she was showing signs of a horse ailment called 'Navicular Syndrome'. For the next 3 years, she was given every kind of treatment the local vets and farriers knew of and nothing seemed to work. In addition, she was getting thinner and thinner, weaker and weaker until, in December 2005, she went to the local equine hospital for the 'last assessment'. The vet, an equine specialist, took more X rays, examined her and officially decided that she was still lame, they had done everything they could for her and knew of nothing else they could do. His advice was to 'ride her in straight lines until she starts to limp, then have her put down (euthanised)'. So, her owners decided that enough was enough and, after Christmas, she was to be put down.

I ended up taking on Lutine because of a series of unlikely events. Lutine's co-owner, a lady, was very upset about the situation. To her, having the little stud was a dream and Lutine had been a dream horse. She couldn't bear to see Lutine so poorly and, mixed in with her concern for the horse, was the loss of the thing that represented the epitome of her personal dream. The lady ended up speaking about her plight with another person who's father had been on a natural hoofcare clinic I had hosted and it was she who contacted me about helping Lutine. I said I would 'just go to see her' and, of course, that meant that I came home with a new horse.