Re: Gait problems

[lkinsky@silcom.com (Lynn Kinsky)]

>.When the right back foot hits the ground it twists on the
>>ground (as in turns slightly) before being picked up again.
>

When I got my Peruvian mare back from training she was doing this with her
left rear.  Looked at the feet and legs -- the left rear hoof was
unbalanced, the foot was turning out, and the legs were not evenly muscled.
We concluded that she either been getting a lot of arena work going in one
direction only, and/or had gotten a bad trim which was not corrected on
subsequent trimmings.  The twisting motion was bad enough that she was
getting fill in that fetlock after only moderate riding.  It took several
rounds of shoeing, including one with a partial wedge, to finally get that
hoof and leg balanced out -- but once we did, she landed and tracked
square. We've done several LDs this year with no fill and with perfectly
even shoe wear.


-- Lynn K. (Santa Ynez, CA)
   http://www.silcom.com/~lkinsky