'Shoes off' Day for Jedi

The day finally arrived - Jedi's first taste of barefoot in what seems quite a while. You can see from the pics below that his feet had started to show the effects of shoeing over a period of time, with cracks, large chips, under-run heels and an unnatural shape starting to really compromise the effectiveness of his hooves:

Off fore, very upright and boxy but otherwise ok.

Near fore: a lot more problematic. Big chip and quite a bit of flare at the base.

Near hind. The massive chunk out of it turned out to hide seedy toe

Off hind. The big crack is a worry. The angle is a lot lower than the front feet. Should be the other way around.

The crack in glorious close up.

Front heels. Not too bad for a long-term shod horse but still contracted.

Off fore. Not too bad - heel still quite big, heels not very contracted at all.

Excuse the poo! This is a hind foot - see the contracted heels?

Near fore heels are a bit more contracted

So, Kirsten the Wonder Trimmer pulled Jedi's shoes and found seedy toe in a couple of hooves, the ones with the big crack or big chunk missing. After resecting those hooves and blasting them with some hydrogen peroxide they look a bit sore and mangled. Hopefully, the seedy toe will die in the dry heat of the summer. It's horrible stuff!

Jedi is quite tender and walked very gingerly back to the paddock, as expected. He was quite good on grass, though stepping a lot shorter than usual, but very sore on the gravel road when we had to cross it. Early days, but I'm going to get some boots for his front ones at least for the next couple of months. There's a lot of riding to be done this summer with training, clinics and the first couple of comps of next year happening in February/March. Riding and exercise really does make a big difference in rehabilitation time, I've found, so I'll be booting him to help him out.

Some photos post-shoe pulling, with late afternoon shadow thrown in for a higher degree of difficulty: 

The hooves look pretty much the same as when shod. A few weeks to let the hooves settle will probably result in some noticeable changes. Will keep you posted!