This weekend I scribed for the vet for about eight hours. It was very interesting to see the condition of the horses as they came in, and make the notations. Especially on the 50 mile horses. Some of those horses are incredible....covering 25 miles in three hours (or less?), blows my mind. Well conditioned athletic equines. Then there was the other side of the coin, horses past their prime running fifty miles....coming in kind of "iffy" and a number of horses that were pulled due to lameness issues, (tough trail) not too many. Many of these I would suppose are the luck of the day, running over uneven and challenging terrain. I was able to look at some of the tack. There were a lot of Wintec Saddles in use, very few western (I'm using a western sythetic as my riding ability /style leaves much to be desired), a lot of Beta and neoprene tack components.
I was riding the only unshod horse at Corydon, so I was looking at hooves with a critical eye. Many good looking hooves, but some really badly cracked hooves. One horse with a crack running from toe to coronet band at least 1/8 inch wide. Several horses with cracks running around the hoof wall, which I'd never seen before in my limited experience. Then I also had to concur that a shod hoof at this ride was going to out perform my bare horse . I was just unwilling to ride her any faster knowing she had minimal lift from the surface of the rock. It may have been mental on my part....we'll see. Puddin's hinds looked fine after the ride, her fronts were chipped but just a little of the wall that was needing trimmed anyway. She doesn't appear sore today. But Corydon moving out on rock ? Probably not again, at least not with this horse. I may need to keep in mind when Phebes is starting out, to ride plenty of rock and get the soles calloused and toughened for the job. Puddin' has had only limited exposure to rock, our training trail is pretty much hard packed dirt.
Anyway, the scribing experience was interesting. Enjoyed it and would do it again. ~Endurance Granny
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