Re: training/tranquilizers

[Susan Evans Garlinghouse <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

I have to
> tranquilize my horse to shoe him in back and so I was wondering how
> long before a ride i should have his last trim/re-set done.
> 
> Lysane and Buck

Lysane, I'll leave the other two questions to Heidi and the more
experienced competitors.  But I remember my ears perking up at your
comments that you have to tranquilize Buck to shoe him behind.  I assume
you have a good reason for doing so, so I won't pass judgement on why
this is necessary.  However, this might be something to work on before
you get too far along in your endurance career.  If Buck just has a
problem specifically with getting shod, well, that's between you and
your shoer.  But if Buck also has a problem with people goofing around
with his hind feet for any other reason, I would strongly recommend
trying to get past this.  Ride vets have to pick up feet, poke hiney
muscles and generally mess around back there and if Buck is twitchy
about it, at best his recoveries won't be as good and he'll tense up, at
worst you're risking injury to the ride vet.  Not good in either
case---I won't speak for the ride vets on-line, but if _I_ were a ride
vet and pondering whether or not to pull a borderline horse that was
also getting nasty with his hind feet and not letting me look where I
needed to...well, you'd be outta there.

Again, this isn't a judgement on you or Buck in any way, I don't know
what your situation is---but I might suggest checking out some of the
John Lyons videos about working with the feet.  I have the whole
collection so can try to narrow down which tape it is, but it might well
be worth the effort.

Good luck,

Susan Garlinghouse