Submitted by Stacey Maloney, Team Easyboot 2012 Member
Many people may remember this picture from earlier this spring.
Pretty ugly I know. This is my mare, Zahara, after about six months of healing from a wire cut injury to her medial heel bulb. My trimming mentor wasn’t hopeful for her and warned me to watch out for underrun heels and heel contraction, long toes and shriveled frogs due to her wanting to weight bear inappropriately. Lucky for us, this injury never left her unsound for long.
It’s been a long road to recovery, trying to grow normal hoof which involved very frequent trims and lots of moving around through her paddock paradise as well as riding both barefoot and booted in her Epics. It’s not been easy and we’ve had a few setbacks with quarter cracks along the weakened area but she’s always used her caudal hoof appropriately and we never did see the heel contraction or underrun heels.
We’re almost one year later from that last picture and here’s what she looks like today:
She is still trying to grow out the damaged piece and there is forever a dirt line between it and her hoof wall. My next step is to get a dremmel and find the end of that dirt line.
I’m happy with the progress so far and she’s happy in her boots. The Epics are working best for us since the damaged part of her medial hoof is slightly thicker than the lateral side and the Epics allow for easy adjustment.
The defect in her hoof wall causes the boot to gape a bit close to the cornet band on the affected side but we have no issues with boot retention or debris getting in to the shells or gaiters causing rubs.
Zahara’s healing journey is not finished. We have a lifetime of maintenance ahead of us and as long as I’m calling the shots in her day to day care, Easyboots will always be part of her journey.
Stacey Maloney
