05/21/2025
I am often asked “How often do you pick out your horse’s feet?”. My typical response is “Every time I trim them.” That is not often considered to be an acceptable answer!
All this flitted through my mind one day as I was trimming, and picking out, feet. So, I took some photos.
You can clearly see the bottom of the foot is filled with dirt. This gives great support and protection to the frog, sole and hoof wall. Leave this dirt in the bottom of a flat footed, thin soled thoroughbred and they won’t be ouchy on gravel.
With the dirt cleaned out you can see that this foot is long and needs to be trimmed. The last photo is the piece I trimmed off with a double A battery laying beside it for scale. The horse in my example happens to be barefoot but my observations apply equally to shod horses as
well. Overall length doesn’t matter. Dirt will give equal support to freshly trimmed feet, long feet or shod feet.
Over the past 10 years or so, great advances have been made using polyurethanes for hoof protection, frog support and sole support. One now common form used is called “pour in pads”. These pads are poured into the bottom of the foot as a liquid which quickly sets up as a soft, yet firm, gel, imitating the dirt for both form and function. Here is a link to a short YouTube video showing the procedure for a pour in pad.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ3cHAG1Hww&pp=ygUXcG91ciBpbiBwYWRzIGZvciBob3JzZXM%3D
Dirt - free.
Pour in pads - $40 to $80, every 6 weeks.
