A long time ago, I bought the sweetest horse in the world. A big Quarter Horse who was 15/16th's Thoroughbred. I called him Gray, he was gray. When I got him, he had come off of a ranch around Hillsboro in the mountains of New Mexico and he was SO sore on his bare hooves that had been worn away and deeply bruised on pure rock country. As abscesses began to appear, my friend and farrier, Pete, and I would pack the depressions of an each abscess with iodine crystals, wrap the outside of the hoof with towels, put on our gloves and squirt (very cautiously) pure turpentine with a syringe onto the iodine. It would sizzle, boil and puff a big purpley red cloud of toxic smoke.
Slowly, we got the emerging pockets of abscess cleared and cauterized over many months. Then, for almost 2 years, I kept his healing hooves packed with Webril Wipes (cotton pads we use when running printing presses) over tamed iodine, wrapped with Vetrap then placed into Easyboots. I only had to do this on the front hooves after the first few months.
It was important to exercise Gray to keep circulation in the hooves, so I started Dressaging him and we went to clinics, did light trail riding and schooling shows in the hoof boots. At first I had to do the treatments and reboot him every day, but after 6 months, I was doing it every 3rd or 4th day. I adored that horse. I could lie down beside him as he lay, sleeping in his stall and doze off myself.
The photo here is of Gray and me at a Charles deKunffy clinic in Albuquerque WAY back! Gray is wearing his easyboots! We were also in the Albuquerque Journal that time - nice photo of us in the indoor arena (I said, a "white" horse indoors makes the best picture!).
My point is - you can enjoy life with your horse even if things are not "perfect" - they actually rarely are. Just be in the moment and grateful for the good company!
