RW’s job was done and his shoes were pulled.

After years of racing around barrels in cloverleaf patterns, it was time for the sorrel Quarter Horse with a white blaze to take it easy and enjoy the good life in Southwest Tennessee.

Taking it easy didn’t last long. Neither did the good life.

“He’s been in shoes all his life,” says Moscow, Tenn., farrier Daniel Bishop, who was brought in to work on the horse by Somerville, Tenn., equine veterinarian Jennifer Dunlap. “They were trying to take the shoes off in retirement, but he severely bruised both soles on his front feet. They thought he might have foundered, but radiographs showed no signs of laminitic changes.”

No Shoes, No Hoof

Dunlap greets Bishop after he pulls up to RW’s barn in Arlington, Tenn.

“When we started paring out the front,” she tells Bishop, “the minute I took a swipe across the sole where it has separated and undermined, brown pus started to run out of the whole foot.”