What The What is THAT?!?

Part ONE of what's been occupying me since my return was that upon grooming my pony on Monday, I found this curious hole-thingy in his RF heel:

See it there on the bottom bulb? And YES, I cleaned out his feet after I shot the photo. I took him in to the arena. He seemed perfectly sound so I didn't worry much. The only thing we could think of was maybe an abscess exit? I did get news that he was a bit "stiff" when he was ridden on the 25th but nothing noticeable. Perhaps it blew out on it's own? I've never had an abscess before (KNOCK ON WOOD) but I've read about them (including on some of YOUR blogs!) and seen other photos and articles.

So yesterday we hosed it out and we found this:

So there's kinda like a HOLE in either side of his heel and I got a little freaked out. Doesn't look like the abscess holes I've seen, it looked more like some sort of flesh eating virus! The lower one is DEEP and creepy. So I sent the pic to Doc. While waiting for him to respond we treated it like an abscess and wrapped it. Doc said he'd like to see it and happened to be coming today.

So today, after deciding that he was sound, Doc took the wrap off and poked around. The whole area was black and nasty. No abscesses, instead, it's a really really really nasty case of Thrush that embedded itself so deeply that I saw no evidence of Thrush when I picked his feet on Monday or yesterday, but the wrap must have given the thrush a nice 24 hours of moist heat to thrive in. Ooopsie.

Doc exposed and cut out all of the nastiness. Then he gave him a bit of sedation to make it easier for me to soak it in a hoof bag for 45 minutes, dump the solution out and let it "work" sealed back up for another 45 minutes, then apply a good dose of Thrush Buster.

Awww sleepy soaking pony.

All cleaned out... with a little bit of shavings because it's hard to wrestle a leg out of a soaking bag and take a picture of it without the slightly sleepy pony insisting on putting the foot down. :)
Still looks nasty but I covered it all in the purple-power and he will need to stay picked and dry for a few days. We'll see how it goes. Luckily he doesn't seem painful about it but that barely alleviates my guilt. Not much I could have done to prevent it. I didn't see it and neither did Max's girls when they picked his feet for me. But I still feel bad for him. :( While he soaked I sat a chair outside his stall and we shared some quiet time together. It's amazing how soft his muzzle is when he's not trying to eat me with it! He actually put himself as close to me as he could and I just scratched his face and rubbed his nose and shooed the flies from his eyes. Reminded me of a sick kid who just wants to lay on the couch by his mom. And yes, I'm anthropomorphizing, but it was still adorable.