The vet came by yesterday  to stab vaccinate my herd of horses plus I wanted him to do an evaluation of Sterling since he has been off on his right front for about 2 weeks. Rewind a little bit here. Sterling had a small quarter crack on both of his front hooves at the beginning of the year. 2 trims ago my farrier didn’t think it was much to worry about. Sterling historically has pretty good feet, especially for a thoroughbred. The quarter crack on his right front was getting decidedly worse so I had the farrier come out a bit sooner than usual and he chopped of Sterling’s toe to mitigate the growth of the quarter crack on his right front hoof. When I got home the day he got trimmed I was a little taken aback at just how much hoof was cut off! As a result I really expected Sterling to be sore the next day, but he was still normal and sound even 2 days later.

Fast forward to day 4 and he was CLEARLY off on his right front.

I sent this video to my vet. He advised bute (a horsey NSAID) for a few days and see how he is. At day 3 he was not as noticeably lame, but definitely still slightly off. I made an appointment for the vet to come over to look at him and do annual vaccinations. It worked out to be exactly 2 weeks after he exhibited lameness. I haven’t been riding him at all in the meantime.

We lunged Sterling in both directions and the vet confirmed that he is still off on his right front. The vet blocked his right front foot, which means he gave him a shot in his foot to make it completely “dead” for a short period of time. This allows the vet to see if the pain goes away with the numbness and confirm that is where the pain is located. We do this since horses can’t tell us where they hurt. We again lunged Sterling in both directions and the vet saw definite improvement, but noticed that he is still ever so slightly off and that it happens with both front feet depending on which direction he is going. In all likelihood this just means that Sterling is starting to show age in his front coffins, which I’m advised by my vet isn’t a big deal. It just means we may need to start injecting his coffins to provide comfort as he ages and gets some aches and pains. The injection provides him pain relief and only needs to be administered about once per year. It is more or less the same as giving him a horse version of aspirin or ibuprofen every day.

Before we got that route we will adjust his hoof care and will have the farrier put on these crazy named shoes.

The Kerckhaert Aluminum Horse Shoe

If this solves his problem then we will put off the injections for at least a little while. In the meantime, Coco is getting ALL the rides and is thus showing tremendous improvement in her education. Have any of my horsey friends used Kerckhaert shoes? Thoughts, opinions, feedback with similar issues?