The most exciting caseous material ever

Last Saturday Ben and I went for a really very pleasant tack walk. We meandered down the road from the farm and then got a bit swarmed by yellow flies. This led to a bit of trotting down the road to lose the 10+ flies we had acquired. He was FANTASTIC and trotted politely and then walked politely.

Later that day, JT's working student texted me: 

She'd cleaned some of that white goo away before photographing, but said that when she took off his Easyboot there was a disgusting smell

Yay!!! Weird that it ruptured out of the frog, but maybe it was centrally located and so putting pressure both medial and lateral?? No clue. 

BUT! He feels sound and great! We've been adding in a bit of intentional trotting to our tack walking now. He's progressively getting his mind back in the groove too, yesterday our ride only had a middle section of flailing as opposed to Monday where it was mostly flailing. Yesterday he really seemed to respond to reassurance as well; Monday he was a tightly wound spring that couldn't relax. I'm doing 30-40 minutes of walk with 5-10 minutes of trot right now. I was trying to just do 5 yesterday, but once he spooks at something one of the best ways to get him to settle again is to put him to work for a few minutes, so we had a few extra trot circles. We're going to stick to just 30-60 minutes of walk and 5-10 minutes of trot until he gets front shoes with pads. Slow and steady to build him back up again, mentally and physically. 

Until he gets shoes back on he is also restricted to his 5-6 hours of turnout in hoof boots in the morning. It's just too hot to leave him out longer and it is just too wet to go out overnight with boots that trap ALL the moisture on his feet. But the second week of July we'll have shoes back on and can go back to full time regular turnout. A few weeks after that, I'll move him to the GY's. 

I was using the super long line/lunge line so I could stand in the shade while he grazed. He's just the most handsome <3