Proper Alignment

Butterball and I have been on a bit of a farrier journey lately. Ben has been with his trimmer since August, more on that later as I always promise. But, I swear we're getting close. Butterball however, has been with three different farriers in that time frame. I'm crossing my fingers we've got the match right now with the third. 

I had noticed him standing over at the knee shortly after he was done last time. And he was mildly positive to hoof testers across his frog. He still looked sound. But part of the trick of him and Ben is that they move very well and have large, elastic gaits. So soundness isn't quite enough. Instead there is a constant evaluation of are they moving as well as I know they can. That feeling that he wasn't quite as floaty as he had been, combined with adding spurs while jumping because he just felt sticky, made me start to question his feet. 

My friend shot some rads for us, and unfortunately my feelings had been right. 

The alignment down through P3 isn't great and there's a load of toe there

Ben Ben's right front for contrast of how the angles should look

He's had that little bit of side bone since he was three

Same problem as the right

Ben also got some rads shot. And as shown above, his angles are perfect, but he was still positive to hoof testers. But it did give me warm and fuzzy feelings about my trimmer. She always asks how Ben has been doing and then really listens to the answer and thinks about what we could do better for him. 

My friend tactfully recommended I try out her farrier. I have to coordinate with people anyways since there is no electric at my barn, so we made plans to bring Butterball back a few days later when her farrier was coming out. 

And now he has 3D pads! 

Right

Left