Help! Sudden farrier phobia

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toomanyhorses26

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My tb has been shod all of his life and by the same person for the last three years - without problem and with little fuss. The last time he was shod (before xmas) he created with mini rears ,spooking and pulling back - and a couple of days later when next ridden he was lame(not major barely een 1/10) poulticed the foot ,v small amount of pus and the horse was sound again within a week. Presumed that when he was nailing the shoe on - it either hurt as the abcess was already formin(he has typical tb feet and has had abcesses before) or the nail wasn't in quite the right place and gave him nail bind. Am inclined to go with the first as he came sound and the shoe wsn't taken off. Fast forward to today and the same thing has happened but my farrier couldn't get even close to him - big rears. pulling away ,broken headcollar,leadrope etc. Obviously the previous shoeing has affected him more than I realised but to have such an extreme reaction seemed a little OTT even by his standards. He is happy for me,my riding instructor and a few of my friends who I commendeared tonight to bang his feet with a hoof pick,pick them up ,pick them out etc etc so I don't think there is any pain there . Any tips or advice would be much appreciated as this isn't one I have ever had to deal with before
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Were you there the last time and times before that? Could the farrier have been rough with the horse?

Other than that perhaps theres pain somewhere, not necessarily in the hoof. Dnt want to scare you but laminitis, arthritis and navicular can all cause a horse to be difficult to shoe.
 
I wasn't there and generally I am not because he does our whole yard in 3 groups so it is dealt with by the yard manager/stable girls etc although he has said he won't shoe him without me being there now. It is a possibilty that he could have done something to him but when I am spoken to the girls that were there at the time - they have all said that they didn't see anything - when I have been present for shoeing in the past I haven't ever seen any rough treatment either so although I would like to think not ,it would give an explanation as to why the reaction was so extreme. If it was any of the above things though would I not see something in his ridden work(he works 5/6 days a week mixture of flatwork,lunging and jumping) ?
 
Not always. I know a horse that was perfectly sound but became a nightmare to shoe. The farrier didnt exactly help because he dropped the feet quickly and was a bit rough, kept saying the horse was an arsehole! I didnt believe him and advised the owner to get x rays done, the horse turned out to have navicular and arthritis.

ETA- also advised a change of farrier and the horse became an angel to shoe!
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Thats my gut feeling that something isn't right - he can be your general stereotypical tb but he doesn't normally act out unless there is a reason for it - but it is just a case now of rnarrowing it down to physical pain or expierience of something not nice .
 
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