Heat is back in Tris’s heel, and he’s on bute until further notice to keep him more comfortable. At this point, we are in a waiting game: within the next 2 weeks the farrier will fly up (he winters in Florida) and when I know the date I will get it off from work and call the vet. We’ll have a big ol’ budget-busting day of x-rays with the vet and the farrier both there to make sure alignments are ok, then trim from the x-rays, etc. I continue to hope that he will come sound with a trim, as his heels are so long and underrun and awful, and in the next trim or two the lower of the two abscess holes will come to the toe and some of the pressure will ease. I could be fooling myself. In my uglier moments I think that this will be it, that we might get him sound at the walk but not for riding, and I’ll have to retire him. In my better moments, I feel confident that I’ll be riding again this spring or summer.

In the meantime, it’s been too blasted cold to visit. Tuesdays are stitch circle, so I don’t go anyway, then yesterday I lost all willpower when the thermometer did not rise above 0. We are projected for a high of 2 degrees today, which  means by the time I get to the barn it will be back below zero. He’s snug in his blanket, the barn staff has proven to be outstanding about communication and would let me know immediately if something were wrong, so I have elected to stay home and warm.

I’ve picked up a few books about horses from the library, and will be reading those and watching horse movies to review here in lieu of actual content while Tris’s soundness is still in a holding pattern.

For those curious what a nastily under run & long heel with deepening sulcus + frog cleft looks like…ugh.

But from the shape of it you will see why I am counting the days until the next farrier appointment.

My friend Judith came out to work on Tris yesterday. I was glad to have her experienced eye on him – she’s known him as long as I’ve had him, and she has an outstanding perspective and knowledge of equine body mechanics.

We walked him out a bit for her, and he’s quite ouchy at the walk and to her eye, compensating with a swing of his left hind. She also detected heat in the heels, coronet band, and a bit up into back of the pastern of that foot, and noticed something which I had seen in the past few days: the sulcus of his frog (the grooves beside and on top of the frog) has gotten incredibly deep.

He turned out to be tight in his left shoulder, though she approved of the work I’ve been doing on his right shoulder to loosen him up there, and a bit in his lower back.

Game plan: bute him until the farrier gets out to do his new shoes, in about 2-3 weeks. I checked in with the vet today and she agreed, and if 2 weeks or so after he gets his foot re-balanced he’s still just as off, we’ll start with another round of x-rays.

I also picked up some basic thrush stuff (Absorbine Hooflex) at Tractor Supply and I’ll be paying extra attention to his feet and dosing him from time to time with that just to make sure he doesn’t start an infection there, too.

Sigh.

Well, there is some bad news, which is that Tris is quite lame on his right front. It could be aggravation of the abscess holes. It could be the poor shape of the foot from being left to grow for so long. It could be that he has strained some of the soft tissues and tendons in the foot.

The cure for all three will be time, so for now we are waiting. The real litmus test will be after his next farrier visit, at the end of January. The foot has grown enough that the bottom hole will be almost to the toe by then, and miiiight even open up with the next trim. We’ll see.

In the meantime, he’s happy and I get to see him every day. I’ve been easing him on to his new Reitsport Senior, and he’ll be on full doses by Saturday. He has a turnout buddy, whom he likes enough to do some playing with. He’s even getting a little fat, so we may be easing off his grain a bit. I’m glad we’re in a place where I’m happy to keep waiting, nervous as I get sometimes.

So. The report from the farrier.

As I suspected, Tristan’s hoof was grown out to the point where its flare was putting additional pressures on the hoof wall, separating them even further. This would be exactly why I asked the farrier in MA to trim him before we left.

The farrier will work on Tris in the morning. The holes are expanded to the point that he fears there is a very real chance that as he defines to trim, a chunk will fall away entirely. If that happens, he will have to rebuild with epoxy or by casting the foot.

I have my fingers crossed that his naturally good hoof strength will help him here, and the wall will hold. I don’t know whether that’s a pipe dream or not. After a day spent on the edge of my seat waiting for a diagnosis, tomorrow might be even worse as I wait to hear whether Tris still has all if his foot or not…

Saturday night, Tris got a massage from a dear friend, and she found and worked through some nasty tight spots from his right front. Sunday, I hand walked him for a bit to get his kinks out, and did some stretches with his right front leg.

Today, he came in from turnout really quite lame on that &$&)€}% right front. He did not loosen out of it with a turn around he indoor, so I cleaned out his foot and soaked it. I am holding off on despair until the farrier looks at him on Wednesday, an event I will hopefully be able to attend.

Sigh.