Live Learn Love: Pony pedicure

Another thing that I have really enjoyed in Plett, is spending time with Bettina and her horses. And after arriving on Friday, Demi and I headed out to the horses on Monday for a ride. We then learnt that the horses were having their hooves done the next morning. This was an opportunity not to be passed up! And so Demi and I found ourselves back at Bettina’s farm at 8am Tuesday morning to watch Vaughn, the farrier and trainer, sort out the boys’ hooves. First though was to have a look at their teeth. Recently Weeky has been tossing his head a lot on the trot, and an investigation of his teeth showed the reason why. Horses need to see the dentist once a year to shape their back molars, which become painful and sharp and rub into the inside of their mouths. And the boys are all due to see the dentist, poor chaps! But to watch Vaughn open up Weeky’s mouth, grab this big fat tongue and pull it out the side of his mouth and inspect his teeth was too funny and so interesting! To see Troy moving his tongue around like he had tasted something bad, and huge Mandla hang his head after the violation was so entertaining! These boys have such character and endearing personalities!

And then for the hoof clean-up! They didn’t need shoes, but needed their hooves trimmed and neatly filed down and shaped. Weeky went first. What a fascinating process! A sharp knife come hoof-pick to clean out all the mud and poo lodged in his hoof, then a huge pair of nail-clippers to trim the outer wall of the hoof, and finally a big nail file (probably better likened to a metal rasp) to clean off the sharp edges and round the hoof neatly. Vaughn made it look so easy and after commenting as much he let me try! I even got to wear the cool farrier pants! Like a boss! The hoof is not as hard as I thought, but the sharp instruments help! You need to put some oomph into cutting the edges, but altogether manageable, barely! The most difficult part was holding his hoof up! Trying to get into the right position was so hard! I’m stumbling all over the place, with Weeky leaning on me and me leaning on Weeky trying to keep his hoof up locked between my legs, now that made me sweat!