The Kentucky poultice worked!

Based on how fast the poultice worked on Rose, I'm sure that derby horse will be tearing up the track this weekend! Yesterday morning I got an update from the BM that Rose was walking soundly on her leg. That would be a 17 hour turn-around. Given the fact that it blew prior to morning feed check, it obviously worked even faster than that.

I decided to give it a full 24-hours anyway, and arrived in the afternoon to take off her bandage and call the vet with an update. Before I took off the bandage I walked her myself, and sure enough she was pretty darn sound. I threw her in the cross-ties and went to work at cutting off the Fort Knox of bandages. A few minutes later I got the thing off her leg. The mash was hot and steamy, and good and smelly. A little investigation showed a half-inch "hole" right where the coronary band and hoof wall meet, right next to her affected heel bulb.  In addition her swelling on her leg had gone down. The vet was amazed at the speed of the poultice and was happy to hear her positive reaction to everything.

I gave, a much happier mare, a good grooming session while I iced her leg with my ice boots (I'm not a big fan of wasting 20minutes of water cold hosing).  Then I hand walked her for 20minutes, and iced again. I'm looking forward to getting up to the barn today and seeing how she's doing. So far no early morning call from the BM, so I'm taking that as a good sign!

Happy trails and swooshing tails!