Oliver's Feet, Desert vs Humboldt

Meet Oliver Twist and Terri Tinkham. Oli is a 14'2" Singlefooting Horse (technically he is half Standardbred and half Tennessee Walker) gelding. He gaits and trots up a storm when he wants and though he is not a top tenning horse, he has racked (literally, as one of his many gaits) up almost 5,000 endurance miles in just 3 or so years. Amongst his accomplishments, he has been in the AERC National Mileage Championship several times (tie-ing for second place last year with almost 2,000 miles that season), won the Easyboot Mileage Contest as well last year and got the XP Gold Medal. He is nearly unbreakable (with his pull for scratches this ride, he only has two pulls on his entire record I think) and in this picture, had just won the Grand Canyon XP 5-day, 250 mile ride Overall Best Condition for the 5 days.
Terri is a good friend of mine, and we discovered endurance together. We have been to rides together (oft heard are the phrases "Is that your mother?" and "Is that your daughter") for the last 7 (!!that long already?!) years and despite sounding like a married couple at times (try living in a tiny truck camper with someone for days and weeks at a time all year round..it will make or break your friendship!), we have great times together. We keep our horses in varying pastures and dry(mud) lots together at her place and in another town over.
Here are Oli's feet in desert mode and Humboldt mode....


Oli's Left Front in Desert Mode







Oli's Left Hind in Desert Mode...










Oli's Right Front in Desert Mode









Oli's Right Hind in Desert Mode






Now what do you think of that? He has hard frogs that are getting harder by the day, nice polished soles, and just in general the feet "look" relatively nice. This is much closer to what a foot should be "textbook" bare. If he were in the desert longer, the few cracks and flaps on the frog would close up and fall off and his heel bulbs would harden up even more than they are.
Now........For the Humboldt feet. Remember, just a week later...imagine 6mos or more of this!

Let's start with his Left Front again... the frog on this foot is not too bad, but the bulbs are getting a bit mushy and the sole is also starting to soften up and get that acidic "pitting" look.












Ok, now we have the left hind. Heels definitely getting soft, frog "ok" still, but pitted. Sole too.











Now the Right Front...frog starting to look more "humboldty" and more pitting all around.














And the Right Hind. Getting closer to the Humboldt Frog and more pitting and scraggly look.










This is after one week. I will update the blog at one month (prob right before we leave for the Eastern Mojave Ride) and show the continued.......well......decline.....of the feet. As you can see, right now there is no thrush in there (whoo hoo!), though some crevices and pitting is starting, which will invite the buggers right in....
Ok, on to Firestorm's feet.....