The French Podiatrist

Wednesday was the day we had arranged to meet the French podiatrist, Beatrice Malicorne, a young Swiss woman who travelled from near Aix en Provence to trim our horses feet and give us advice on how to proceed.

George kindly came up to the field to help move the horses down to the yard, with Martine, arm in sling , supervising.

Coming up from the field

They came up quietly enough and had their breakfast and some hay in the yard, but Gigi was a little unsettled.

Beatrice arrived on time, well she is Swiss, and we stood around discussing how the horses were kept, what they ate, their exercise routine, and our training methods. All the while Gigi was getting more and more restless, so I suggested to Beatrice that she start with Gigi, as maybe that would distract her and help her to settle. Difficult for Beatrice, as she didn't know Gigi, so couldn't be aware that this was not her usual behaviour, and that there is no badness in her whatsoever.

Gigi in a rare calm moment

So Beatrice was a little wary of her and after one foot, with Gigi getting steadily more agitated, she switched to doing Flurry. I was hoping that when Fani had finished feeding the other horses she might settle.

Flurry of course was the perfect gentleman and presented each foot willingly in turn. Beatrice was concerned about his hind feet - specifically his low heels and long toes - and the decision was made to wrap them with the PHW bandages. The advice is to walk him in hand every day and not to ride him. But we have to be realistic, and will continue to ride but on soft ground as much as possible, and sporting our renegade boots!

The model of good behaviour

The snazzy orange tape is to hold Flurry's feathers up so the shape of his foot can be assessed

Flurry sporting the wraps

Then it was back to Gigi, who was still tossing her head and walking up and down, digging with her front feet, and generally being a right royal pain. I had lunged her for about 15 minutes but there was something across the road that had her attention from time to time, although she did listen to me most of the time on the lunge, there was still that anxiety there.

Shrek

All the time Shrek watched on with interest












The second attempt at trimming her feet was no more successful than the first, although Beatrice did manage to do one more foot, but Gigi was really playing her up, I think my dear horse had sussed that she had the upper hoof. She had some bruising on both front feet, so we will have to reduce the amount we are doing with them every day. It is a learning process.

We were there for a good 3 hours and poor Martine was exhausted, so George came back to help move them back down to the field, and I was glad to hand Gigi over to him, and lead Flurry down instead.

This late addition is for Martine who can't get up to see Flurry everyday, it rained over night last night and....

Muddy Flurry