Bela

Story

I will admit it straight out: we bought Bela on a whim. I like white horses — and a white draught horse even more. We looked for a long time, going through the adverts for about a year. And then Bela turned up. We went to see her and agreed on the spot.

One thing I noticed straight away. She had a shoe on one hind foot — only on that one. She was standing in the paddock with the other horses, there was mud and the shoe was not easy to see in it. I asked the owner why she had a shoe on just one foot. He said she had lost the other one. So we agreed that they would bring Bela over and we would take the shoe off — she would not need it here.

When they brought her, we went to do her feet straight away. And that is when it showed. Both hind feet had adhesions and scars — on the hoof horn and on the sole. Once trimmed, you could see beautifully where the hooves had been torn and how they had grown back together. And the hind foot that had the shoe on was still torn open.

I told myself it did not matter to me. We wanted Bela, we liked her, we would heal the foot — and she would not be doing any work here anyway.

So once again, without knowing it, we had rescued a horse.

Bela still has trouble with that foot today. The wound went right through the coronet band — and that is a bad place. The hoof horn grows from there, from the coronet band; when it is damaged, the hoof below it no longer grows as it should. Putting it right is therefore difficult and in many cases impossible. Bela wears special plastic shoes and we are trying to heal the foot.

How Bela is doing

Photo gallery — Bela

Photos of Bela — added as we go.