It happens to us all at one point or another in our horses’ lives. A beautiful day, anxious to ride, you head into the pasture, hook lead to halter, start walking your horse back to the barn and you notice something off about the way he is moving. Or he will not move at all. Or he is, without question, lame in one foot. Cursing your luck you bring the beastie into the barn and carefully examine him and find nothing – no heat or swelling in any part of any of his legs, no gaping wounds, no reason at all for his being off. You grab a hoof pick and pick out his feet and if you’re lucky you find a stone lodged in his frog – remove it and all is well.

If you are not so lucky the examination continues. Cleaning out each hoof, finding nothing you then move on to poking the hoof pick into various places on his sole, frog and white line – he flinched! Okay there’s your answer – a bruise or maybe an abscess that has not yet popped. Other times you get no reaction so you take him into the arena and trot him around. Is he off in the sand? Try a flat hard surface – sound? If yes it could be a very mild bruise or the beginning of an abscess. The sand pushes into every nook and cranny and will create more pressure against a bruise then the harder ground. Unsound in both places? It could still be a bruise or abscess but not a definitive answer. So what to do next?

Feel for heat on the bottom of the hoof, on the hoof wall and coronary band. Use the back of the same hand to compare hoof to hoof. If one has more heat than the other this is the best way to feel it. Then check the digital pulse – at the bottom of the fetlock on both the inside and outside of the leg there is a groove – place your palm on the front of the pastern and feel with thumb on the outside and ring finger on the inside of the pastern for this groove – inside of the groove there is a bundle of three cords – tendon, vein and artery – press lightly into the groove and slowly allow your fingers to run over each cord – experiment with placement and pressure and you will, with practice find the pulse. In a horse without an inflammatory process the pulse will be slight. If inflammation is present you will feel a pounding pulse. Check the opposite leg (front to front or hind to hind) and you should feel a difference between the two pulse points confirming some sort of inflammatory process in the one with the pounding pulse.

Treatment for a bruise. Clean the hoof thoroughly and soak it in hot water and Epsom salts for a few minutes, dry thoroughly and keep the hoof clean somehow – placing the hoof on a towel can help. Cotton and duct tape are now your best friend. Cut a thick square of rolled cotton big enough to surround your horse’s hoof but not so big that it goes over the coronary band. Rip off strips of tape an inch bigger than the square of cotton, stick them together to form a cover for the cotton then stick the cotton in the middle of the tape – bring it up over the heel if that is where you believe the bruise to be – and secure in place. Place another strip of tape around the top of the wrap for extra staying power. You can replace the cotton with either a baby diaper or maxi-pad but with the new absorptive abilities of these items they now hold more moisture than I care to see in a hoof wrap. If you are so inclined, you can put a glob of Epsom salt paste or some other drawing agent onto the cotton before putting it on the hoof, but covering a bruise for a few days is usually enough by itself.

Treatment for an abscess, until it pops, is the same as for a bruise but with a few exceptions. Soak the hoof for at least 15-20 minutes, replacing the water as it cools and gets dirty. Wrap it as you did for the bruise. Once the abscess breaks open if it’s high enough on the hoof so that dirt will not pack into it or if the grass is lush enough there is no further need to wrap it. If it’s muddy or wet and/or if the open wound is on the sole I would wrap it until it closes over with healthy tissue.

If your ministrations produce no results within a few days it is then time for the farrier or the vet to come and pare away at the affected area until they open the abscess or if, finding nothing, offer other possible diagnoses for the lameness.