New feet!

My farrier has a day job.  Which is great, given gas prices but not so great when her work rearranges her schedule at the last minute.  Luckily she's wonderful with updates. and I had plenty of time to flex things on my end.  I had Rufus picked up and over to the farm by 4 p.m., and she arrived on the dot at 5:15 as planned.

Remember Rufus, Tony's gelding?

He's been living a life of leisure over at J's this summer.

I've been wanting to get him over so L can trim him, but I have to admit I've been kind of dreading it.  I figured he'd be more upset to leave "his" herd, but other than a whinny - after I unloaded him - when he saw me leading Sunny and Thunder over to the trailer, Rufus was the picture of calm.  He left without fussing, loaded and unloaded sweetly on both ends of the trip (he's been hauled a lot, but almost never by himself since we've owned him).

When I took him back, he even hung out to be petted after I turned him loose.  All the rest of the horses were tiny dots clear down at the other end of the pasture, but he didn't just duck his head and show me his heels as fast as he could.  And since he's at the low end of the pecking order, that's pretty major.

Rufus's worst moment was probably the camera - the beeping kind of freaked him out. But after some sashaying back and forth....

 He decided whatever that noise was, it wasn't going to kill him.

In the meantime, I got a bunch of pictures like this one.

Rufus, when he's being ridden, needs shoes.  Unlike Sunny, who goes down the road beautifully barefoot with no sign of discomfort, Rufus gets ouchy.  He also has a tripping issue.

As you can see, he's still carrying the scuff marks from a nasty skid last year.  J uses a different farrier, and while I have no complaints, I wanted L to take a look and see if she had any thoughts on angles, trims or shoes that might help.

After looking at the wear on his feet and his angles, she suggested trying a reverse wedge pad in front next time we put shoes on him.  Nothing exaggerated, but enough to encourage him to step down onto his heel first, rather than digging in with his toes.  He's still barefoot for now, but after listening to her explanation - which I'm not going to try to repeat here, because I'll screw it up - I think it might be worth a shot.