A lame end to a new start!

A New Start!
I took a chance on Megan and now she is lame. 

I wanted to start getting Megan out and around to see how she would be in unknown areas to her so I took her for a walk out of the corral through the hall/stall about 4 times until she was mostly calm and used to the surroundings, smells and grass. 

Yaay, there was clumps of grass to eat everywhere and she found them.

After taking megan out and back in then working her feet for a few minutes she was ready for uncharted territory and get to work.

She was very curious and wide eyed but I still had control of her feet. If she pushed into me I moved her hind feet with the hindquarter disengagement exercise and had her back down a bit.  We would walk another 10 feet and she would spike back up again and we would do another two or three circles until she calmed down again.   I think we did this four times in about 300 feet.

We got to the well tilled area where our round pen will be built soon and just walked her in circles, and then went through a whole group of  exercises moving and controlling her feet forward, back, side to side with her front and hind end.

We are now ready to work!

I sent her into a trot with the lunge line (only 12 feet) and she loved it.  Her head was up, tail and mane were blowing in the wind and she looked like she was smiling and I was sweating.

All went well and she got used to going from the barn to the round pen area real well, it was like she anticipated the run and liked it.

Last Sunday I took her out and was working with her pretty slow, I had her trot around for a while getting warmed up and then went into a canter, pulled her back to a trot and she was doing great until she stopped very quick and pulled her front left foot up and was limping very bad. 

She either hit something in the ground impacting/bruising the bottom of her hoof, punctured the bottom of her hoof (couldn't see any injury)  It could have been an abscess or old injury that came to the surface after impacting the hoof but we are still not sure what happened.

So now we wait, I have talked to many people and they in general have a 3 to 10 day waiting period before they are real worried.  An abscess will likely blow out or burn out in a few days, the impaction/bruise will calm in about 4-5 days and I am hoping for one of those!


I called two farriers with injury experience and I have yet to hear from them.

Stay tuned for updates on Mare Megan to see how she is doing.

Wish us luck!