Horse failed vetting - footsore. Opinions

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1timeonly

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I had a horse vetted today, the horse is barefoot and has been for over 2 years (horse is 6, has had shoes on before). The vet failed him as he was footsore over the shale and also on 10 mtr circles in trot in the school. She said that the horse should have had fronts put on a long time ago and that a lot of the weight was on the bulbs of the heel and sore as a result. (He's also quite flat footed). He passed trot up, flexions before and after exercise. Had to take him to the road for trot up as the only hard surface they had was the shale which he was sore on! As the feet concerned her she got the owner to ride lots of 10 mtr circles and serpentines. He was fine on 20mtr and 15 mtr circles but obviously the pressure on his feet when doing the 10 mtr was pronounced. She told the owner he needed fronts on now regardless of anything else, but she has told us she's fairly sure that shoes will solve the issue - although would need 6-9 months of good farriery to get them where they should be. She said if shoes were put on then she would come back out (if we wanted) in 2-3 weeks once he was used to the shoes to re-do just that part of the vetting. Would also need lunging on a hard surface which can be sorted out. If we went down this route then i would want my farrier to put the shoes on. I wouldn't be happy with the farrier who's been doing his feet to do it given they are not in great shape from him. Would you feel this is a worthwhile thing to do? The horse ticked the boxes in every other way so am loathe to walk away if its a fairly easily solved issue?

Horse buying is such a nightmare!!
 
If this is a genuine barefoot horse owner I doubt very much they would have shoes put on the horse for you, so you could have
The horse re vetted. ( I hope I have understood your post correctly). Personally I'm not sure why the vet failed the vetting on her saying the horse was foot horse, and then saying shoes would help the issue??
 
The horse was failed on the small chance that it is a bigger problem. Shoes (front and back) on a footsore horse should cure it of its potteriness (that a word?) completely in about 2 to 3 days.
Worth a go I'd say. If it's still lame after 48 hours you may forget it though, something else's the matter. If it's sound well then there's no real need to re-vet as it passed all the tests in the first place :)
 
The owners have said they're happy for a set of shoes to be put on and re-vetted. I think the horse has been barefoot as not much road work done rather than being a case of in the proper barefoot club. TBH if they weren't happy for that then i'd have walked away as at the end of the day there's no point paying for a vetting to ignore the advice they give you.
 
Flat and sore feet aren't a farrier issue, they are a diet issue or possibly a metabolic disease issue. The current farrier can probably shoe it fine.

It is such a shame for barefoot that people present a horse like this for vetting when it is unsound. I've had five barefoot horses pass 5* vettings, there is no excuse for it. If the horse was not sound on a school surface, then something should have been done before now.

Yuo do not have the time to get the diet right to sort out the feet. If you want to buy it then you will have to ask for it to be shod.

Do be careful, though, and check with the vet (yours and hers) sore and flat feet can be symptoms of insulin resistance, Cushings and EPSM as well as just a horse with an incorrect diet.
 
If they are happy for shoes to go on then I guess you have nothing to loose, would be interested to hear if it is sound the circle, please keep us updated.
 
niamh said:
...or a symptom that it's a thoroughbred ;)
Click to expand...

Nope, sorry. One of my five was an ex racer who I took the aluminium plates off and another was a "typical" flat footed TB. Their problems are caused by early shoeing and massively high carb diets, not much by genetics.
 
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