Soft Hooves

Question
Hi, I have a 17 year old gelding who's been barefoot for years.  I've owned
him for about 9 months.  I have a natural trimmer do his feet every five weeks
using the mustang trim method.  He is a dressage horse, and is worked 5-6
days/week.  He gets hay and supplements, no grain.  His supplements include
Platinum Performance, a joint supplement, and vitamin E.  I have a recurring
problem with thrush in his feet, for which I use some homeopathic remedies
and a combination of triple antibiotic ointment and anti-fungal cream (with
toflanate), which seems to control it well most of the time.  I keep his stall as
dry as possible, and, with the exception of the really rainy periods, his
paddock is very dry.  His hooves are still really soft on the outside, and I'm
not sure what to do about it.  I know biotin is the usual hoof supplement, but
most people seem to have the opposite problem -- cracking, dry, etc.  Can
you recommend a supplement or supplements that might help harden his
hooves?  Thank you very much!

Answer
Hello Carol.
my apologies for the late reply. I was travelling and did not have access to E-mail. When you say that your horses' hooves are still really soft on the outside, what do you mean by this? Do they split, flake, look funny in any way? Pictures would be very useful! Also when you say that a natural trimmer is doing a mustang trim method, can you please describe to me what he/she does for that? The reason why I am asking all this is that based on how you describe your horse and how it is kept, I am a bit surprised about his hooves not being perfect and him having thrush...therefore, if you could send me pictures of his hooves so that I can better see what is going on would be great! The best pictures would be of your horse on level hard ground, so that you can see the body AND the hooves, straight from the side, from the front, from the back and then also of one front hoof and one back hoof from the underside. If you can do that would be great and also let me know in detail what the "softness" of his hooves looks like. You can send the pics to my personal E-mail at jnksize@comacast.net.

Please let me know if this would work for you and again my apologies for the late reply.

Christine