Sound (ish) again?

After five days of soaking and poulticing, last night I put Tristan on the longe line and he looked sound at the walk and trot - a bit fresh, even. I soaked and poulticed one last time, and left instructions to keep him in today.

Tonight, I'll tack him up and see how he feels under saddle. I've also put a call in to the vet to clarify. He never had what I would call significant discharge from an abscess; he had white pus in the cleft to the left of his frog, but I'm not sure if it was from an abscess or some goo from the poultice.

Here's the real complication: the farrier looked at him on Monday, and his opinion is that Tris is just all-around footsore up front. He said he couldn't find any particularly reactive spot on the hoof that would indicate abscess, and believes Tris should go in front shoes.

I am really reluctant to do that, for a variety of reasons. He's never worn shoes before, save for the six week experiment with bar shoes before we turned him out. He's certainly worked more often and for longer than he is working at this point in his life, though not at the level of difficulty/athleticism that he is getting to now. The vet both a) pinpointed problems to the RF and b) did a set of radiographs to check sole depth, and was happy with that sole depth. Last but not least, I can either afford to shoe him or to event him this summer. There are not funds for both. If I don't event him, I don't need to shoe him. If I event him, I can't afford to shoe him. It's a nasty little Catch-22.

In the meantime, we'll see. If he's sound to ride tonight, I'll soak again, and check on Friday night. I'll check in with the vet and see what she says about the footsore/"good depth of sole" debate. I need this XC school on Saturday as a last run before Groton House, but if he's not sound - he's not sound, that's that.

Fingers crossed.