Geronimo had spent over twenty years getting up close and personal with horses with WLD. I found he lived about 75 miles from our home, so I called him and set up an appointment. He suggested I bring all the horses that I had, so he could check them all out. The next day, I loaded up Racer and Trav and off we went.

Geronimo's place is gorgeous. Welllaid-out barns and stables nestled among the trees were situated near the blacksmith shop. We unloaded both horses, tied Racer to the hitching post where Geronimo immediately came over and fed him a handful of corn husks from his fields. After that, he went to work on Traveler, showing me the fine black lines that WLD makes into the health of the hooves.

All four of Trav's feet were involved, but his front right hoof showed the most damage. Geronimo began a ressection of the hoof, carefully carving out the diseased portion, explaining to me along the way that he wouldn't go so far as to cause pain to Trav.

At the end of the visit, Trav had a 3 inch ressected hole in the top middle of his right hoof, several other portions of his hoof were now dug out, and on his left hoof, he had about an inch-and-a-half missing from the bottom. While I was there, I picked this gentle man's brain for anything he could tell me about WLD. Which, in reality wasn't anymore than I had already learned.

They don't know where WLD comes from, nor why some horses are affected while others are not (Racer had checked out clean). I piled my questions right on top of each other trying to understand.

"Was it the mud we were constantly fighting?'

"Was it in the soil, or the grass?"

"Could it be in the food?"

"Is it genetic?"