Foot lameness rehab?

cptrayes

cptrayes

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I'm looking for a horse with a diagnosis of navicular, ddft inside the foot or impar ligament strain to do a barefoot rehab on this year.

If you have one you've reached the end of the road with, shoes and drugs wise, and you need to find it a new home, please PM me. I will need to own it so it will need to be sensibly priced for a lame horse.

If you want to know more about me first, google me, I post under my real name.
 
My thoughts exactly.

Do you need to own it because what you are planning on doing to it would be illegal if it belonged to someone else?
 
What an odd post. There's nothing illegal about taking a horse's shoes off and allowing the feet to grow in a natural way. What on earth did you think the OP was going to do? Rehabbing horses using barefoot is purely about restoring the foot to how it should be - there's nothing surgical or invasive done, quite the opposite in fact. It's all about allowing nature to cure the problems that human interference has caused.
 
Are you guys trying to pick a fight?

I want to rehab a horse who will otherwise be retired or shot. Do you have a problem with that?

I have to own it because I do not rehab horses as a profession and have no insurance cover should anything happen to it while it is on my premises. Nothing I will do to it will be illegal or anywhere borderline illegal, owned by me or owned by someone else.

It is a medical experiment with, on the basis of the current program, Project Dexter, being carried out by Rockley Farm in conjunction with Liverpool University Vet Hospital, an extremely high chance of success, which if successful will help a redundant horse.

Now can you help me or were you just muck stirring?
 
The only problem I have is if someone is unnecessarily prolonging the life of a horse which really should be PTS. especially if they have a debilitating painful condition. If the program is backed up by veterinarians with the horses best interests at heart then it is excellent that some correct research is going to be done. My experience of barefoot peeps has been somewhat scary and i do think that it is something which in the modern domesticated horse won't ever quite be sufficient. It may suit some horses however we will never have the same strength in the hoof due to the fact that horses in the wild travel miles and miles and miles over undulating terrain every day whereas our domesticated chaps are sometimes in but even when out will only cover a small areaa when grazing. This makes it hard to obtain the perfect barefoot hoof and results will vary greatly depending upon breed characteristics as with many of the modern breeds they have not been bred for their foot strength. Only my thoughts......rubbish them if you will. I have no argument with someone who is doing a controlled experiment which (if successful) could aid in recovery and ease many horses issues.
 
Isn't it fabulous ITA? Project Dexter should publish this year, and when it does I predict that Insurance Companies will pick up on it in no time (anything to avoid a payout!) and start requiring a barefoot rehab before they will pay out on loss of use.

Equitune you could do with doing some more research. Barefoot has moved on a lot from your experience of it. If your experience was recent, then your practictioner did not know what they were doing. Take a look at uknhcp.myfastforum.com and you will find out about hundreds, if not thousands, of working barefoot horses. Read Feet First (available on Amazon) and you will learn a lot about horse health, shod or not.

The nine horses that I have personally barefooted have varied in breed from pure TB, one straight out of aluminium racing plates, to IDx through warmblood. One of them evented affiliated at 3ft 11 nine months after two farriers told me he would never work barefoot. All have performed at rock crunching level on stones and with masses of roadwork. Five have competed at affiliated eventing. Two have hunted. Yesterday I hunted again, as normal for a Saturday, on a barefoot horse. On Tuesday he will do two hours on the roads.

My knowledge leads me to believe that there is almost no horse with navicular or a tendon/ligament issue inside the foot who should be put to sleep before trying a barefoot rehab. The oldest and worst that I know of was 18 and had been lame 6 years on bar shoes. He is sound as a pound at 23 and still jumping. His scans are clear - i.e. he is cured, something that vets will tell you is not possible.

The shame of it is that there are vets and farriers who either do not know that or do not want to believe that barefoot cures "navicular" it and are still recommending people have their horses killed. (Some of that advice is so that people can claim on their insurance, of course).

So, if you have a horse I can rehab, please let me know. If you want a contract which says that you can have first refusal on buying it back if I cure it, you can have that, as long as I own it during treatment and the sale price covers all my costs. If you don't want it back, I will keep it and drag hunt it if I like it enough. If not, I will retain ownership and control but loan or lease it to a barefooter for the rest of its life. If it remains lame (I consider this unlikely, given the evidence I know of) I will return it to you as a paddock ornament with no charge, or have it put to sleep, your choice.

Does anyone have a horse they would like to give this chance of a fulfilling life?


PLEASE people start another thread if you want to discuss the merits of barefoot. Don't bung this one up with discussion so that I miss my chance of a prospective horse finding me.
 
Cptrayes, please don't take this the wrong way, but I have a mare who would probably be a suitable candidate (not that I am willing to send her anywhere), however I would rather pay to send her to Rockley Farm than to sell her...I suspect others may feel the same?

Also, I googled you and nothing came up!
 
I don't understand why you have posted. Send your mare to my friend Nic at Rockley by all means.

If anyone CAN help istead of telling me they can't, please PM me.
 
I think what cptrayes is offering is a chance for a horse who otherwise would be pts. I have a horse currently suffering from navicular and will do anything i can to put him right. I am lucky that i have the funds to do this and he is currently undergoing barefoot rehab, however, if funds weren't available i wouldn't think twice about selling him / giving him to someone who could potentially cure him, and she is also offering you the chance to have them back. Surely that has to be better than making the heartbreaking decision to pts. I have seen horses rehabilitated and i know there are vets out there who will support owners in doing this. Please don't judge this person, she is after all wanting to help the horse!
 
I have a horse that was due to be pts for navicular, the vets had no further answers other than more box rest. It was purely by luck I discovered barefoot podiatry and gave it a shot as a last resort. My vet wasn't even interested in the progress reports the EP sent him. I don't know if he noticed my horse came second to his own at a dressage competition yesterday. In short, barefoot podiatry can make lame horses sound. Vets don't yet universally recognise it, so the more cases that prove it, the better for the profession and the better for horses.

cptrayes I would take you up on your offer if I was in that position and if anyone doubts you, I would not be one of those. I wish you success in finding a horse to give a second chance.
 
my experience is pretty recent and scary. although it is a bad example it demonstrates the need for proper qualifications for these barefoot people!

I have years of experience and have an exceptionally science based background in relation to horses. I would be very wary personally of using the words cure and treat as unless you are a vet it is not advisable to do so!!!! I would also caution whether navicular can be cured??? I am sure some cases can improve as much of the time navicular is a disruption in blood flow.....which I am sure you are aware. However it must depend upon the degree of damage etc etc.


You give examples of horses out doing ok barefoot and that is fine however as I am sure you are aware you fail to mention how many horses have tried it and not succeeded?!
 
That's what would make this an interesting experiment as cpt is publicly proposing to take on a horse at the end of the line, and the results will be there for all to see, success or failure. cpt has enough confidence of success to put the work in, in the interest of demonstrating the effectiveness of the method. An MRI scan at the beginning and end of the project would be useful. I would have my own horse scanned again if I had a spare £1000, but am happy enough just to see her sound.
 
I have a horse which went lame last year, after x rays i was told he had holes in his navicular bones and had navicular disease.

He was toe walking badly, and i was advised to put him in bar shoes which i did. This made no diference, and i did my own research and with the support of my farrier i took the plunge and went barefoot.

He was really crippled for awhile and it took him a few weeks for his feet to start to toughen up.

9 months later he is compleately sound and on absolutely no medication. I took him on a 2 hour hack today and he felt as good as ever!

I was lucky i have cheap grazing and was able to give him time, im pretty sure he had some soft tissue issues going on in there too, which have now healed.

The more i look into barefoot, the more i find it fascinating.

I was advised to have my beautiful horse P.T.S. how many other horses are pts every year, without being given a chance.

I fully support the barefoot movement, its ignorance if you don't understand how a foot should function properly, and very clear to see the damage shoeing especially from a young age can potentially do.
 
I wasn't knocking cptrayes or the barefoot idea. In fact I have spent a lot of time reading up on it and fully support the idea/methodologies - I made the decision to turn my mare out, shoes off, when my vet wanted to keep trying varying shoeing/pad arrangements. She is much better for it although still not sound. She's certainly not end of the line though.

I was merely suggesting that if I had the choice to pay to send a horse for rehab or sell it for rehab, I would go for the first option. Why can't you offer some form of livery agreement? No disrespect for OP but I have seen the 'buy back contracts' before, and have been disapointed to find they amount to nothing. I wouldn't personally want to run that risk, no matter how genuine the person seems.

And I am genuinly interested to find out more about cptrayes, however as I said, I googles him/her and found nothing. Cptrayes could you suggest where I should be looking?
 
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my experience is pretty recent and scary. although it is a bad example it demonstrates the need for proper qualifications for these barefoot people!

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You are out of date. National Occupations Standards now exist.

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I have years of experience and have an exceptionally science based background in relation to horses. I would be very wary personally of using the words cure and treat as unless you are a vet it is not advisable to do so!!!! I would also caution whether navicular can be cured??? I am sure some cases can improve as much of the time navicular is a disruption in blood flow.....which I am sure you are aware. However it must depend upon the degree of damage etc etc.


You give examples of horses out doing ok barefoot and that is fine however as I am sure you are aware you fail to mention how many horses have tried it and not succeeded?!

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OK , if you insist lets make this a discussion.

THE WHOLE POINT Equitune is that I am not aware of ONE SINGLE CASE where a proper barefoot rehab (with diet, turnout, work and metabolic issues adressed) has been tried and NOT resulted in a cure. And if you don't call an 18 year old with holes in his navicular who is scanned as not having those holes, and who is sound and jumping and drug free after being unsound 6 years in bar shoes a CURE - then WHAT do you call it?

Your explanation of the cause of the syndrome does not fit with the research I am aware of. If that research is correct, then it is not caused by a disruption in the blood supply, it is cause by a toe first landing which causes erosion to the ligaments which causes erosion to the navicular bone, if it gets that far. Research has shown that there are always lesions in the ligaments but the lesions on the navicular bone come later or not at all. Shoes cause the toe first landing, which is why removing them cures the disease.

The problem we have is in spite of the mounting evidence there are Vets and Farriers who are STILL refusing to engage. You sound just like them!
 
Alsxx if you do me the credit of telling me your name then I will tell you my forename and google will work and you would find my daily blog and my competition record and some old stuff about my career. But you aren't interested in finding me a horse, so I fail to see why you need to know a single thing more about me. I am a private idividual, I do not trim for a living.

Your mare needs WORK if she is to become sound. Your research has not gone far enough.

You clearly suspect my motives and don't understand me at all. I am not prepared to take responsibility for any horse on my premises that I don't own. I wouldn't have a livery here if I was down to my last penny, it is too worrying to have a horse owned by someone else to look after. It is bad enough for Nic, if you read her blog when a new horse arrives, and she does it as a living.
 
If you look on my profile you can find out who I am, and then you could probably find out as much about me as you liked, I do not keep a particulary private profile on HHO. As I said before, I am genuinely interested in what you do, I have read ALL of Nic's blog and find it increadibly interesting, so I would actually be interested to read about what you have been doing.

I cannot find you a horse as I know of none suitable other than my own. Why don't you contact some vet practices or farriers to see if they can put you in touch with some hopeless cases. Not all vets and farriers are against what you do, although I suspect most are through ignorance.

I don't suspect your motives, its just I personally would not want the arrangement you describe (see my reasons why above), and I suspect others could feel the same. I was purely suggesting this as perhaps you would have more luck finding a suitable horse if you were prepared to be more open about 'terms' - I see you are not, so fine. Take this however you please, I have said more than once I am not knocking you, but please feel how you wish.

And yes re my mare, she does need work - however she also had a tendon sheath synovitis which is one of the reasons she has been turned away for a year, to let that settle down (as despite treatment it kept flaring up whilst she was on the cycle of box rest - assessment - box rest - assessment).
 
I have just sent my horse down to Rockley, he is probably as far from what people consider to be an ideal barefoot candidate as you can get (sensitive TB, ex racer shod since he was 2, long toes underrun heels, MRI'd to soft tissue damage in the hoof).
He has only been there 2 weeks so is right at the beginning of his journey and if anyone is interested in details of his progress I am happy to update.


Equitune
When looking into Rockley, I asked if the horses on the website were just the success stories. Not because I doubted them but because I wanted to know the statistics to protect myself. It's heartbreaking having a lame horse and I didn't want to get my hopes up to have them dashed again.
The horses you see under the Research page on the website are all of them since the project began.


We had got to the stage that vet advice was to bute him up and use him for light hacking and restrict turnout so he couldn't hoon around the fields. This is a horse that hates being kept in even in bad weather.

From a welfare point of view I wasn't prepared to accept that a solution and decided to send him to Rockley to see if they could help.
However I am lucky in that I can afford to do this, Rehab livery there compares really well to Hertfordshire normal livery prices and I'm at a cheap yard on 5 day. Someone on full livery would probably save money.

However not everyone is in this position.
If I hadn't had the funds what would my options have been.

Retirement livery, permanent loan as a companion, pts?

In that case I would consider a situation such as the original poster suggests.
Of course I would do research, get references, visit the facilities as I would do if I was rehoming him as a companion but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

My only qualm would be if he came sound (I like the idea of first refusal to buy) and I couldn't afford to buy him back and someone else would get to ride my gorgeous boy. However as the alternative was poor it still would have been the best thing for him.

Good luck with finding someone.
 
I'd love to be kept up to date with his progress - best of luck and well done to you for taking the leap when the experts were telling you to give up. I hope you get your boy back 100% sound - I have every faith that you will. All my horses are now barefoot and much healthier and happier for it.
 
Hi criso, my horse is also down at Rockley at the moment. He's been there 3 weeks, he isn't your usual barefoot candidate either, he's a warmblood type. Visited him last week and he seems very happy! Fingers crossed for both the horses, will have to say hello to your's when i visit again.
 
" I would actually be interested to read about what you have been doing"

I have been eventing and hunting barefoot horses, for fun, trimmed by me,` for five years. That and a lot of research. I am unqualified but I believe that my horses are some of the hardest working barefooters in the country. I have watched the progress of many "navicular" horses barefoot and I am very keen to do one myself. Ideally I would like to keep the horse, but I may not be lucky enough to find one big enough or talented enough for what I want to do, and in that case I would make sure that it has the right home and keep responsibility for it to ensure that nothing happens to it.

I have the feelers out everywhere, not just here, but some people have a daft idea of what a lame horse is worth, or would prefer to have them put down or retired than sell them to a stranger. While I understand that completely, I do wish I could return a crippled horse to a fun life, since I have both the knowledge of how to do it and the facilities to make it work.
 
I am very open to any novel/alternative treatments that may offer horses with caudal hoof pain a chance, because I know how frustrating treating them conventionally can be. However I am not convinced that it is suitable in all cases, I do not believe that all trimmers abide by the occupational standards as there is no legislation in place to ensure they do, and I have seen some pretty scary examples of the work of ley trimmers.

So I'm not anti-barefoot, but I would question the ethics of advertising anonymously for a lame horse to buy in order to practice/experiment on. And, since you have posted on an open forum, I find it rather strange that you are responding so defensively, and taking such offence at posts commenting on and enquiring about the nature of your offer.
 
And the ethics of having a horse shot who could be saved?

I am not anonymous. I hate the anonymity of the internet, which has allowed people on this forum previously to be extremely rude to me when posting about barefoot. I post under my own name.
 
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I am very open to any novel/alternative treatments that may offer horses with caudal hoof pain a chance, because I know how frustrating treating them conventionally can be. However I am not convinced that it is suitable in all cases

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Caudal hoof pain is the posh word for pain in the heel region, for people reading this who do not know the medical jargon.

I'd be very interested to know what things would make you think a barefoot approach should not be tried in a horse that would otherwise be put to sleep? Serious question, not a jibe, particularly since I may have one arriving here tomorrow instead of keeping his appointment with the vet. (Crippling and uncontrollable pain, obviously, but aside from that?)

I have realised what has got some people on the offensive on this thread. Some of you have responded as if I am a complete stranger expecting you to give me your horse. Of course not. If you DID have a horse for me I would expect to be questionned to the hilt and my facilities inspected. What got my goat is that you do NOT have a horse for me and yet still feel entitled to question me as if you do. On a public forum, of course you are entitled to do so and of course I am entitled to answer.

If anyone wants to ask me questions, as some of you have done by PM, I'd be happy to help you find the answers, but not under the guise of being made to justify what I am trying to do to help one horse this year.
 
I wish you well cptrayes, please keep us updated;

Looking forward to a talk by Sarah Braithwaite at the end of March
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and don't get the impression that i am anti barefoot!! my own mare is currently managed this way very successfully however I have seen a number of other horses which have not been so successful.
 
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