Well, my equestrian odyssey is taking a slightly different course than I'd planned. Lyric has what we affectionately call a "funky foot". His entire life there's been a flare on his right front foot. He's been sound on it, so we weren't overly concerned about it. Gayle (my trainer/trimmer) saw it for the first time a week ago and explained what was causing it.
It turns out that the flare is a secondary effect from the real problem, a more upright inside wall. Because the inside portion of his foot grows more upright, it pushes his entire hoof structure up on the inside, resulting in a lowered outside edge to the coronet band. Normally, the resulting flare would just sort of self-trim while the horse walks, but since Lyric has nice, strong hoof walls, it just keeps growing out "funky". The problem with this is that it is stretching his outer hoof wall away from the inner hoof, resulting in a stretched/distorted white line. He's getting weekly trims on the front foot to slowly lower that inside hoof wall and take off the outside flare. The hope is that as we do this, the hoof structure will realign itself, resulting in a horizontal foot. What that means for me, for the moment, is soaking his foot twice a week in a solution that requires an airtight seal around his leg.
I'm hoping that all of this will go well, and so far Lyric doesn't seem to mind his new foot. Of course, it's hard to tell because last week just before he got his first trim on Saturday, he started showing all the symptoms of an abscess. Lyric is many things, but "stoic" is not one of them. He's very much one of those horses you'd swear had broken a leg when he gets an abscess. I soaked it and by Monday he was sound enough that I rode him lightly. Well, this morning he came in slightly lame, and by 3 he was dead lame again. So I'm back to soaking his foot in Epsom salts. Tara, the barn manager, is giving him some bute and found an Epsom salt poultice that I'm going to borrow and see if we can get it to drain. If not, I guess Lyric will be getting to meet his new vet sooner than anticipated!
Today wasn't totally depressing, though! I drove out to the "local" tack store. They didn't have what I was looking for (a cheap lunge whip), but I picked up a small bag of horse treats to see if Lyric would eat them. Turns out he loves them (to the extent that he knocked the bag over trying to fit his muzzle in while I wasn't looking). So at least now I know what to bribe him with while we're doing our foot soakings!
