The Mustang Diaries: Buck - Injuries on the Trail

This last Monday, April 28th, Joe and I took Buck and Cash out for an evening trail ride. We headed down our road, turned onto a dirt road, and returned to the other side of our property, approximately 3 miles. It was a beautiful evening for a ride! The horses got to go over some bridges and encountered a few cars, to which they handled like pros. The scariest thing on the entire route was our neighbor who walked out of her house with a whole live rooster on her shoulder like a parrot. Cash was pretty nervous with her, but Joe worked through it, and we passed her house with no issues other than some jigging from Cash.

The next morning (yesterday), Buck turned up slightly lame in his front left leg. I watched him like a hawk all day, and it continued to worsen. I did the best inspection I could and didn't see anything wrong with him except a couple of strange spots on the bottom of the hoof. I attempted to palpate them, but he did not react. However, a few hours later, I called up the emergency vet as he was barely putting any weight on it by the evening.

The vet deduced that sometime on our ride the previous day, Buck stepped on something sharp on the road or in the ditch. She used the hoof vices to put pressure on the suspected area, and every time she got close to it, he had a visible pain response. We did X-rays and determined that whatever it was wasn't still stuck in his hoof. However, his body's natural inflammatory response made him gradually more lame over time. We started him on pain reliever and regular hoof soaks to pull out any dirt while his body tries to heal. He is also on indefinite stall rest.

Of course, I feel terrible and responsible for this incident. He wouldn't be in pain if I had protected him better or hadn't taken him out for a ride at all. For future injury protection, I have been researching trail boot options, and I think I have settled on the Scoot Boot brand of Theraride trail boots. I am a massive proponent of keeping my horses barefoot as much as possible, but I will ensure we have some form of protection out there on the trail/road/course from now on.