It's About The Horse

Mandy'sMarty · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 10:51 pm Post subject: Mandy's 'Endurance Feet'.

The following post appears in the 'Mandy's Latest Endurance Ride' thread in the Horse General Chat section of our forum. Because it concerns her feet and their adaptation to different endurance ride venues, I thought I would include it here, too.

One of my specific goals for the Camp Osborn ride was to test Mandy's ability to run barefoot and to test the health of her right front foot.

Since Mandy's return to endurance competition last June, we have experimented with different forms of hoof protection, and no hoof protection, and with limiting her speed in order to keep her hoof boots from coming off during a race.

At the Yellowhammer Ride on October 1, we arrived with Gloves glued on all fours. As we were walking up to vet in before the ride, one of her front Gloves came off. The adhesive had not bonded properly because of the temperature drop during the application 35 hours prior. I pulled the other front Glove off, put my spare Epic on one foot and borrowed an old Epic for the other. Mandy lost the borrowed Epic somewhere during the second loop, completing that ride barefoot on one foot.

RF Medial Side View. Borrowed Easyboot was lost during Yellowhammer 2011 Ride. It had been shimmed
with vet wrap and duct tape to snug the fit. Mandy ran half of the LD ride on this bootless foot.

I ran Mandy in the Raptor Run Ride October 15 specifically because the course footing was described as "little rock and generally good footing".
It turned out to be one of the most challenging rides we've run, particularly due to the harsh, rocky footing. Mandy ran very well that day and showed me she preferred running barefoot. However, her feet were battered. Self-trimming was evident particularly where her front feet were flared with some hoof wall separation.

RF Lateral Side View. Photo taken 10/24/11, nine days after Raptor Run.
Remnant black Vettec Adhere glue visible on hoof wall.

The footing at last weekend's Camp Osborn Ride was excellent for running barefoot. Minimal native rock and no harsh, loose gravel roadbeds. Very sandy soil mixed with red clay on road beds. Rich loamy soil on forest trails and trails across cotton fields. Occasional sandy beds.
At the end of the ride, I checked Mandy's feet and was impressed with how polished they appeared. And her soles and frogs had become rock hard. They appeared and felt different from the feet that had been living on a moist, muddy pasture just days before.

Note the shape of her frogs on her front feet. The left frog is more open at the central sulcus. The right front frog is perhaps slightly taller and it is beginning to show some bending over. I believe that this is Mandy's way of protecting the internal structures of her right front foot.

I believe that Mandy's right front foot had been compromised for years before I found her. She says it was from an injury to her navicular bone when she was two. It left her with a tiny bone chip that began floating around in her hoof capsule the year before we met. Although it probably was re-absorbed within a year or so, it apparently set up a pattern for Mandy to avoid landing heel first. It wasn't until her founder rehabilitation of 2009 that Mandy re-learned to trust heel first landings. Proper heel first landing stimulated her internal structures of that right front foot to repair and remodel itself.

A couple of months ago I started riding Mandy barefoot on the very rocky terrain and gravel roads at Dawson Forest. I speculated that her feet were more concave during the moist winter months and perhaps better able to avoid the impact of rocky footing. I wanted to help accelerate the conditioning of her feet and internal structures.

Research by Robert Bowker, VMD, PhD indicates that the healthier foot has a digital cushion composed of fibrocartilage rather than fat and elastic tissue. He believes it is created by the correct stimuli, i.e., exercise. I intended to accelerate this process by riding Mandy barefoot on challenging footing and terrain.

Mandy has been telling me that her right front foot has indeed responded to this recent conditioning exercise. She says the digital cushion of her right front started to transform almost a month ago, becoming more fibrocartilage and less fatty tissue. I believe the different appearance of her front frogs illustrates how she is using her right front frog for more support until that digital cushion becomes denser and more supportive internally.

Left Front immediately after the Camp Osborn Ride Feb. 11, 2012.

Right Front immediately after Camp Osborn Ride.
_________________
Marty

We must be willing to let go of
The life that we planned
So as to have the life
That is waiting for us.

~Author Unknown