Three days in and Miss Jezebel came up lame. Her hind left was causing her much discomfort and pain. She was walking broken legged. I took her digital pulse. I could feel it. Damn. I put her on stall rest, my barn manager gave her some butte and we hoped for a bruise. It wasn’t to be, the next day she was still lame so the vet was called in. It was in fact an abscess. Less then a week with my ex racer and I was already calling in the vet. Welcome back to horse ownership to me! My vet was able to find the track, he poked the abscess and I started the process of draining, soaking and wrapping her hoof. She hated it, she felt better as soon as the hoof was poked and the abscess was draining and she did not want to tolerate any soaking or wrapping.
On day two she cow kicked me. She made contact, a couple inches higher and she would have dislocated my knee. On day three I tranquilized her to do the wrap, her metabolism was so high (oh racehorses) that it did pretty much nothing. She tried to kick me again but I was faster then her and she missed. Day four it was just a struggle to get the old wrap off and the new one on. Wrapping my pretty little lovable brats hoof was turning into the hardest thing I’ve ever done. She hated being on stall rest, she hated being restricted, she was fussy and very agitated. She wasn’t lame anymore, her hoof wasn’t causing her any pain or discomfort, I was just keeping her hoof clean at this point. So I made a decision. I had to balance her health, with her happiness, not to mention my sanity and safety. I decided to let her go out with the herd and stop wrapping her hoof. Just to keep it as clean as I could with her being turned out every day. If my plan backfired then I would call in the vet again and start the process all over. I crossed my fingers…So far… I’m in the clear.