Shocks!

I had the trimmer out at the weekend, he pulled the shoes that were on Smurf's fronts. he has lovely feet, far too good to ruin with shoes. Fox on the other hand is constantly unbalanced. The trimmer is certain it is coming from somewhere in his back end. Yes that old cookie again. I have e-mailed the chiropractor to see if she comes this way. Fingers crossed that she does!

Anyway, I showed the trimmer all Fox's muscle wastage and strange bits. His first thought was that Fox's body belongs to a much older horse. So he looked at his teeth. He reckoned Fox was about 20, not the 14 he is supposed to be. I have no idea about teeth but I have to say that the idea that Fox is older had crossed my mind before. It would make his body issues make sense.

The trimmer said he would do some research online and let me know. Sure enough, he reckoned 20 if not older. From what little I could see and what the trimmer pointed out to me, I did my own research. Yes indeed it looked like Fox was older. I was gutted. I did not want it to be true.

So the next day I went back to the paddock and looked at Fox's teeth again. It is a mission let me tell you to get the big guy to stand still long enough to have a good look. I took mental pictures of all the things that indicate age. Angle and shape of teeth, spots in the middle of the teeth, Galvayne's groove, everything. And I went and did more research. And I went and looked at his teeth again. My conclusion is, whilst the marks on the top of his teeth look consistent with an older horse, and initially his Galvayne's groove looks like it is at the bottom of the tooth, the shape is not triangular enough and the angle of his teeth isn't acute enough for him to be 20 and his actual Galvayne's groove only extends down a small bit of the way, a lot of what looks like the groove is actually discolouration of the tooth not the actual groove. So everything I could see was consistent with him being 14.

Who knows though as I am not an expert. The dentist is due in a few months so I will ask him. I also e-mailed the old owner but I think she may be overseas at the moment.

So what do I have, an old horse with old age muscle wastage and arthritis or a middle aged horse with a fucked up body?