Because of all the bad weather we have been having all of the meetings we had entries for abandoned unfortunately. We had always said that we would run her until the end of January after which she would go on her break and the shoes would come off. Following her excellent run at Taunton where she came fourth we pushed the end of Jan deadline back to the first week or so of February however unfortunately this coincided with the really bad weather so it was not to be.
Our last chance was Plumpton on Monday which was called off due to a frozen track so that was that really, Shilpa prefers good going so now is a great time to give her a bit of a break and she will be ready for when the going firms up a bit.
Always liking to strike while the iron is hot my partner and I nipped over to the yard on Monday to take the shoes off. This was definitely a two person job, not that I needed to hold Shilpa, she was quite happy tucking in to her haylege, my role was more as tool passer and receiver of nails as each one was removed one by one before the shoe came off. In the average horse shoe there are six nails, usually when a shoe is taken off it is levered away from the hoof, nails and all, however this can damage and tear the hoof wall. Because Shilpa is going to be barefoot we wanted to protect the hoof as much as possible so each nail in turn was lifted on the outside of the hoof wall with a hammer and a tool called a buffer, this lifts open the end of the nail called the clench. Once the clench is loosened you can then use another tool called a nail puller to grab the head of the nail on the bottom of the shoe and pull it out, in effect you are taking it out in the reverse of the way it went in. Simon's farrier Chris is an excellent farrier which meant that this job took a lot longer than it should of done because the shoes were on really well. Farriers often laugh when they see a shoe being removed in this way but by the time the shoes were off we were left with perfect hooves with no chipping. All we could really do was run the rasp around to apply a bevel which will help stop them chipping over the next few weeks.
Shilpa was great to work with, she spent a lot of time trying to see what was going on and at one point helpfully took all the tools out of the tool box and rearranged things a bit. We left Simon with some hoof boots to borrow while hers are on order, she is between sizes in Easycare Gloves so we left her with the bigger pair with pads in to make them a bit smaller and give her a bit more cushioning. Plan is for her to spend a few weeks getting used to her naked feet on the horse walker and some time in the school improving her muscle tone.
Racehorse are fitted with racing plates as they are lighter and this gives them an advantage, we hope that with nothing on her feet at all she will get an even bigger advantage. Also any shoe can cause concussion which is not good for the joints, because Shilpa prefers the firmer going lack of shoes will really help with this, it also gives them better traction in the snow, so if we get bad weather again I can see Simon cantering her up the road that goes up the hill to keep her fit!
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