Right now, I am sitting in the Seattle airport waiting to fly home. Open in front of me is Complementary Therapies for Horse & Rider.  It is a part of my current ESA course, Complementary Therapies.  I finished the Nutrition course, and was a little disappointed that it didn’t include any secret recipes for optimal horse health and hoof growth.  I guess we will have to keep working on every horse as an individual instead of relying on a one solution fits all recipe (like you might find in a large boarding barn).

So why am I in Seattle?  I just finished 3 days of hoof trimming with ESA field instructor Christina Cline.  Over the course of 3 days, we saw around 40 horses with laminitic, foundered, insulin resistant, cushings (IR and cushings are not always together), pasture, performance, young, teenage, old, and some healthy hooves.  It was particularly interesting to me how much different the hooves tend to grow due to the difference in environment.  While most of us in CT feed hay year round, many of the horses in WA get lush pasture (developed for dairy cows) once the spring comes around.  The result is a higher number of laminitis cases and more frequent founder for owners who do not carefully manage the weight of their horses. The pasture is just too rich.

So, it’s back to reading for me.  I am planning long term to try and learn more about things like using herbs in the diets of horses.  Maybe Anna will have to grow all the herbs we need in the garden…