The Farrier's Idea

I met the farrier sweat soaked and tired after cleaning the four mares' pastures for that week. Milo had naturally ran right through the duct tape hoof boot I had made, so I cut off the remaining ring around his fetlock and discarded it outside the pasture. With twenty minutes to spare, the farrier drove up the driveway and soon he was looking at Milo's feet. Milo wasnt three-legged lame on the straight of ways, but he was tender and short on turns.

After nipping off what I considered was a flare turned crack on the abscess foot, my farrier said it was really a wall cleft from a previous abscess (must've been the abscess in January, and the hoof now reached the end). Other than that, he couldnt see anything else that indicated an abscess to him. But he took the hoof testers out and felt around. Milo showed extreme displeasure to the testers right smack dab in the center of the sole. "Aha" said the farrier in his cryptic style, then said he is about positive that Milo has a stone bruise.

A stone bruise? That must've been one hell of a rock Milo ran on! Further feeling up the fetlock and leg, he suspected that Milo "tweaked" something in his fetlock after hitting the rock. Maybe a small tear in the ligament? What he found so interesting was how he walked badly on a turn, that would indicate something more than just a stone bruise. And when leading Milo on the driveway, he hit a rock and stumbled, then promptly proceeded to the side of the driveway which is embanked with lots of soft grass. "Interesting" said my farrier, who then was led to believe that that behavior is due to a sore hoof.

So his conclusion? He didnt find an abscess, but rather believes it is a stone bruise. Now, the soreness in turns and slight swelling (he believed) in the fetlock, makes him believe it is a multi-caused injury. He said he wouldnt worry about soaking, but give him a few days and see if things sort themselves out, like when we fumble and minutely hurt ourselves. He did caution, however, that stone bruises can turn into abscesses, so to watch for that. If he got worse or I had any other questions, I could call him.

Now, I couldnt find any swelling in the fetlock, at least compared to the other one. He was feeling on the rear just above the fetlock on the tendons, and I couldnt feel anything there. There is no heat and I couldnt find a digital pulse. Thats not to discredit the farrier, but I believe sometimes when you want to find something, you can convince yourself that something is there. It could be highly likely that Milo got a stone bruise - its in the primo location on his sole for one and there are tons and tons of rocks in the pasture. Now I guess it's a wait-it-out-and-see tactic for the next few days and see what transpires from that.

I did manage to wash off the years of caked on debris and mud from the giant purple ball. I amazingly found some writing on it!

Can you read that? It says:

"TWO BAR TM

STALLBALL TM

GENUINE

HORSEBALL"

And where the inflation site is it reads, "PAT PENDING". So, I tried to pull up those words in Google, and go absolutely no results. Google was convinced that I really was searching "Tow Bar". Sigh. I suppose that with the patent pending, they probably either never went into full production, or went out of business. Either way, I'm totally bummed!