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Hey Karen,
You're probably getting lots of other posts on taking care of your
pony's stone bruises from more experienced people, so I'll just add my
quick two cents from the physiology camp. There was a really nifty
study on hoof quality that was just published after three years of
collecting data at the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. The study was
conducted on the school's sixty-odd Lipizzan stallions, all of them
under exactly the same care, nutrition, similar training regimes, etc.
You're a researcher, too, so you know how happy we get about
environmental conditions being consistent. Anyway, half of the
stallions were fed 20 mg. of biotin supplement once a day, the other
half didn't. At the end of three years, they concluded that while
biotin didn't increase the RATE of hoof growth, it DID greatly improve
the QUALITY of horn growth, decrease incidence of white line disease and
decrease the amount of damage to the hoof as a result of concussion
(read "riding"). It also (and here's where we get to the relevant part)
improved the quality of the entire sole area, which in turn decreased
the incidence of sore feet and bruising they experienced in their
horses. I realize these are essentially dressage horses, but they have
foot problems, too and especially since the measurable improvements were
so marked, it doesn't take a dummy to figure out that biotin supplement
is a good thing for performance horses, period.
The study pointed out that depending on the parameter that you're
measuring, it took over two and a half years before measurable
improvement was observed---not surprising since improvement is going to
occur at the coronary band where hoof growth originates, and it takes
awhile for the new growth to get down to the bottom of the foot.
Apparently, it also takes awhile for improved hoof production to reach
optimum levels, since there was a gradual increase in improvement, not a
clear-cut now-you-see-it-now-you-don't difference. However, the first
place where they DID notice improvement was in the quality of the sole
area (which doesn't have as far to grow). So you might consider adding
15-20 mg. of biotin to your horse's feed to help avoid any future repeat
incidences of stone bruising. (Don't feed more than that, the body
doesn't store biotin and won't utilize more than that, so you'll just be
wasting it). It may not make an enormous difference, but I'm all for
anything that cheap and easy that will improve such an important part of
my horse's anatomy.
Anyway, good luck. Hope you're back on the trails soon.
Susan Evans Garlinghouse
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