A Question of Conformation

First, let's pause and look at this:

Skye. Nuff said.

Looking at that basically makes me feel better about everything. I have a t-shirt that says "Horses are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." This picture says that too. It's my favorite one of her so far.  The natural lighting on Sunday was so perfect that I knew I would end up getting at least a few great shots. This is actually the shot where I am holding her but looking like the cave troll from Lord of the Rings (not the fully grown mountain troll from Harry Potter, because that one is stupid), with me cropped out. Trust me when I say that this weirdly disembodied hand is preferable to my whole self. She looks so awesome that the weirdly disembodied hand wasn't even noticeable until I said something, was it? But hey, it's close to Halloween, so here you go.

Finally, the vet was able to come out to the barn. I wasn't there, but she gave a lot of the horses at the barn shots, and gave my girl the once-over about her lameness. There is no abscess, no injury, but it appears that her conformation and hoof growth has left her with very little heel. In other words, her lameness is the result of the way she is made combined with the way her hooves grow. We can compensate for it over time with corrective shoes and reparative hoof trimming, which has been started. I will talk to the vet as soon as I can, but what I've been told is that we can give her some bute to bring down any inflammation and make her feel better. And I can ride her lightly to build up her muscles which will also help her. I will know more soon, but I am relieved in one way because I kept fearing some sort of injury.

I had wanted to avoid shoes not so much because of the cost, but because of the bother and it seems odd to me to nail metal on the bottom of an animal's feet. However, she has always had slightly tender feet and if this is what we need to do to get her right, I will do it. Her former owner let her feet get really long, and he did her a disservice, and that kind of thing takes a while to fix. So I got what I paid for: she wasn't expensive and she had an issue or two. But look at her, for heaven's sake. How could I not get this horse? I know what the horse looks like shouldn't matter. But look at her. Gaze into her eyes. It's enough to make me reach for my check book even now. Which is good, because I'm probably going to need it.