Ode to my farrier

Well, not really an ode, but I got a compliment recently that made me stop and really pay attention to something.  Someone commented on what nice feet the princess had, especially for a Thoroughbred.  I stopped and looked at her hooves and realized . . . wow, she really does have nice feet now.

Of course, to put this in perspective, here's what her front feet looked like when I got her:

 And these are her feet as of today:

She was just reshod yesterday, so they are looking about as spiffy as they get right now.  But it amazes me how different her feet look.  When I got her, her feet were so long that she looked like she was wearing slippers.  It was done on purpose, and they had shoes that were nearly draft sized tacked on.  They were trying to grow out her heels?  I'm not sure how that would have worked, considering how under run her heels were due to her ridiculously long toes, but now she has very nicely balanced feet.  The biotin supplement seems to be working as well, since the quality of the hoof is completely different.  I could see a line on her hooves as she grew the old hooves out and the new horn came in.  She's been on the supplement for about a year and a half now, so she has entirely new feet.  Her frogs used to be compressed and her heels contracted, now she's got nice, round feet with big frogs.  I'd take a picture of that as well, but it's hard to juggle a camera and the princess's feet at the same time.

Full compliments go to my farrier for the transformation.  It took months of trimming and shoeing to get the angles changed without making her go lame in the process.  Having a skilled farrier you can trust is such a huge part of horse management, and I've certainly lucked out.