Fari page 6

By October Fari had been hunting barefoot in North Wales and was rock solid over all surfaces. His hooves were looking shorter, deeper and stronger and they were certainly working really well.

Then at the beginning of November we wormed for Tapeworm and everything went wrong. We wormed with a long acting wormer which was a combination of moxidectin and pyrantel and within 48 hours Fari was uncomfortable on our hardcore. He was walking like a laminitic trying to take the pressure off the front part of the sole walking back on his heels. A week later he was lame even on soft ground and it took him until February to start to show signs of the barefoot soundness he had had before the wormer. As you can imagine we were shocked and horrified that something like this could happen to him. Since then we have become aware of other horses that have had this kind of reaction to a range of different wormers.

The good news is that we are slowly learning what can create a strong hoof, and what can destroy it, through Fari. Not all horses are as sensitive as him to grass or wormers but he shows just how quickly something that the horse digests can affect the performance of hooves. Lately he has been testing the new renegades over jumps and in endurance events. They get a very big thumbs up from him.