The New Subjects

This is Amart during Wednesday night's shoeing, showing off the slightly too long front pasterns that have been of concern. The other new subject, the Shore Breeze yearling, has yet to arrive, nor have I heard yet from the Van driver by Friday morning. RR getting upset at lack of communication from the Van!

Interestingly, Art has less pastern slump than on arrival in 2006. Casalc at Pedigree Forum posted a theory that low pastern angles may result from a youngster sliding continually on wet ground while grazing. Maybe! I'm thinking that development of a lower than normal pastern angle might have something to do with length of neck on some youngsters.

In any event, Casalc reckoned after the horse hits hard ground pasterns tend to straighten out, and, indeed Art's have done so though there's still some slight slump in the front left that fails to show in the close coupled stance of the above photo.

Encouragingly Art lately gives an impression of adult horse strength and scope. He's still small, but reaching trainable size. With my two youngsters I'm abandoning the "lone ranger" approach that I had last year. My aim now is to get 'em to the track, and get them there quick. I've got an add in the paper for a rider so we can take the youngsters in sets. We'll see if there's any response, and there's always the "worker's comp" problem before hiring anyone.