Barefoot thoroughbred suddenly gone footy...

[tobiano1984]

A bit miffed that after a wonderful year and 5 months of barefoot-ness after coming out of racing, including schooling, lots of hacking, XC training, showjumping and dressage competitions, my 4 year old TB has suddenly gone all footy.

He moved to a different field last Monday, and came in lame on Friday (he might have been lame on Thurs but I didn't bring him in). At first I thought it was a kick, he is a pain at the moment and really full of himself so is forever coming in with lacerations and knocks (usually self inflicted!) - and he had a little cut and lump on his shin. He's the sort who goes lame for anything. I then thought it might be an abscess as he has a little hole in one frog, but after soaking and investigating it doesn't seem to be anything, and he's not got a hot foot and you can poke it hard with the hoof pick and there's no soreness. He also doesn't seem to be able to make his mind up about which leg is sore, and it's not nodding/hopping lame, so now I'm thinking it's a footy thing. Just a bit confusing as he moved from a lush rye grass field that I thought would be worse for barefooters (they'd been out there about a month), down to some nicer grass fields - sown with a variety of grasses and much less lush. But then it's been crazy growing weather recently so maybe that's made all the grass sugary.

Just seems a bit odd as he was fine on the same fields last year, and in fact last year the fields were fertilised as well so would have thought if he was going to be be footy it would have been then. The week before last he was happily hacking out on roads and stony tracks with no issues at all.

I'm not ruling out an abscess/other issues and am keeping a close eye on it - but after speaking to my trimmer (who now lives 100s of miles away) she thought it sounded like diet-related.

So assuming that is the case, what can I do about it? I could bring him in but he'd get pretty fed up being stabled 24/7. All the fields are growing like crazy. I guess I could move him back to the previous field where he was OK...although then you have the joyous TB issue of him needing lots of food to keep weight on! He's looking great at the moment.

As it is, he's not crippled but just looks a bit sore - i.e. he will still chase the pony about mercilessly but then potter off to the water looking a bit uncomfortable. All the others in his field are barefoot but are cobs/ponies and never had any issues. A TB I had last year, same age etc, got a bit footy at this time of year but was only noticeable when ridden on uneven surfaces, he was fine out in the field - whereas this one was fine being ridden the week before but this came up when he had just been in the field for a few days...

 

[Goldenstar]

The change of fields does suggest it's the grass .
Have you gone over his soles with hoof testers to see it there's any evidence of bruising ?
Perhaps the ground has just got a bit harder and they galloped around a lot when they moved fields.

 

[Orangehorse]

I had my trimmer this morning and she said my horse was the only one she had seen for ages that didn't have at least a slight pulse. That isn't to say that all the others were lame, but that there was something going on and a warning. The grass has shot up, after the cold spell and some rain it has suddenly come warm and everything is growing like mad.

Try extra magnesium oxide, fence off the grass if you can and only extend the grazing at night, when the grass has been growing all day and using up the sugars. Some people with very sensitive horses keep them in during the day from about 9.00 to 6.0 p.m.