Hoof Control

01/03/2024

17/02/2024

07/12/2023

01/11/2023

3 weeks only... huge difference?

28/10/2023

Another artwork by mother nature with th help of David Landreville- On the Vertical

Valioso (2014 ish QHxArab?)

Val was a client’s horse. He was cryptorchid and still acted like a stallion when I first started trimming him. His feet were dead, depleted, and flat when I first started. The first day I met him he was spooky and aggressive so I decided to trim him without a halter in a 12’ X 12 stall. I kept him moving in figure eights in the stall when he wouldn’t let me pick up a foot. As soon as I got the frogs trimmed on his fronts he started to settle down. By the time I got to his hinds he was half asleep. When I was finished, I gathered up my tools. I had them in my left hand and I was standing in the corner. Val approached me peacefully and when he was about a foot away from me he lunged at me and bit me in the chest. My instinctive reaction was an overhand slap across his face with my right hand. That spooked him and he reared up and stepped back into the rails. He got himself back together and walked back up to me and apologetically set his forehead against my chest. The owner later told me they were getting rid of him because he bit his wife. I told him I would take him. They changed their minds and they decided to keep him. He never bit me again and he stood really well for the rest of his trims. One day the owner told me that he bit his wife again and they were ready to let him go. That’s how we ended up with Val. He came with high/low fronts and negative plantar angles on his hinds. He’s been making progress, but he has a way to go. Those NPAs take a while for a sustainable fix. Val was previously started as a 2 year old, which is way too young. The trainer was rough and gave him some bad habits. He set him up with some spook and trust issues. Val’s true nature is easy going and he connects really easily. He has learned to be difficult and now he doesn’t like being told what to do.

We haven’t had him long enough to realize his gifts or learn his lessons. We’ll get there. I will use the lessons I’ve learned from other horses with NPA to build his soft tissue because that is the sustainable way to fix that issue.

Val has been on 1-3 week trims for 2 years.

02/09/2023

The most simple, yet powerful explanation!

Propping vs Building (click to expand full image)

These drawings show why I believe steel shoes, wedges, and DIM are only short term fixes, and that they prolong and cause more damage, making it harder to heal the horse in the future:

- The top drawing shows a fully live and well developed hoof capsule that is undeviated from its origins at the coffin bone. The horn tubules are all parallel from the dorsal wall to the heels and the growth rings are all parallel to a properly arched coronary band. These lines form a perfect grid that should be seen, but not felt. This indicates perfect P3/Hoof Capsule alignment.

- The second drawing down shows the soft tissue ( outlined in pink ) with the digital cushion ( shaded in pink with arrow ) supporting the coffin bone naturally from within.

- The 3rd drawing down shows a hoof capsule with a common type of distortion from improper, infrequent trimming or inadequate wear. It’s easy to tell by the disorganized horn tubules and growth rings that the hoof capsule has deviated from its origins at the coffin bone.

- The bottom drawing shows a commonly used “solution.” The problem with this is that it’s only addressing the symptoms of distortion rather than the cause. Worse than that, I believe this causes more damage and distortion. The wedge pad ( dark gray shaded area with gray arrow) is placed externally where it can only superficially change the angles and hold the DIM in place, which only artificially props up the digital cushion. The reason that it is such a common practice is that it can temporarily relieve pain and keep a horse performing in the owner’s preferred discipline. The same applies for non working or companion horses, it can also temporarily relieve the owner of worry, but it does not heal the feet.

Trimming and shoeing in this manner artificially props up the foot and causes the majority of the weight to be distributed in front of the widest part of the foot. Excess toe loading causes pedal osteitis ( bone erosion ) and live sole depletion. The natural response from the foot is to retain and compress dead sole. This can be perceived as improved “sole” thickness to the untrained eye, whether they’re a professional or not. It’s very difficult to tell the difference between live sole, insensitive live sole, and retained dead sole on a radiograph. To further complicate the situation, over loading the sole allows the heel horn to gain height. This can even “stand the horn tubules up” more vertically in the beginning. If the horse gets a chance to go bare foot again after this, the retained sole is likely to exfoliate ( usually after wet weather followed by a dry period ) leaving the thin live sole exposed and the horn tubules typically collapse again.

Once you learn to read the hoof and see what’s actually going on inside…you can’t unsee it.

Soft tissue is very regenerative and thrives on consistent proper form and function, which means that the horse’s feet have to be worn and/or trimmed in a way that works for them,instead of against them, in order to continually build/heal their feet and the rest of their body.

It comes down to the sustainable cure of rolling and building a living, moving, working system vs the short term “fix”
of treating the hoof like a stationary object with flattening, buttressing, and propping.

I'm always open to being proven wrong, but I have never seen any long term proof that the set up in the bottom diagram will make real, sustainable positive change. It will not build the hoof into what I've shown in the top diagram. We do not want a band aid fix and an angle change using artificial support, but a fully regenerated, self supported hoof.

20/08/2023

https://youtu.be/KEe-ro-UnNw

In this video, Dr. Erica Lacher demonstrates how to take a proper picture of your horse's feet for hoof assessment by a veterinarian or farrier. In the secon...

04/08/2023

1 month progress... unbelievable, but true!

L - pre trim / post trim
R - pre trim / post trim 1 month later

If dietary supplements aren’t cutting it, try trimming to build.

09/07/2023

Nice!

TB Hind
Post trim

19/06/2023

Time Time Time...

03/06/2023

Angling For Answers

The angles are not true or sustainable unless they’re achieved by building the soft tissue.

That’s the short answer.

Picture the hoof on the left becoming the hoof on the right. That can only happen by building the soft tissue. If you just prop the horse up on dead heel horn or wedges, you may establish favorable angles…but there is no foundation. The horse is dependent on dead heel horn height or wedge pads. The problem is still there. The problem is that the foot on the right takes years to build. You can change the angles with a wedge pad in a few minutes. A good farrier working on a horse with decent legs can use wedges to keep them going for a few years, but it’s not good if they’re depleting the soft tissue like you see in the foot on the left. By the time an aware owner realizes the problem with wedges…damage has already been done. Some people want more than a few years of usability out of their horse. It takes about 7 months of frequent proper trimming to grow out the internal damage caused by wedge pads. You may not see good change unless you’re doing this type of regenerative trimming.

That’s why shoeing and wedging advocates stand behind their techniques. They don’t see the damage growing out, and they’re not paying enough attention to the heel bulb development. They’re just looking at the angles.

I’m not only against steel shoes and wedge pads. I’ve been seeing the damage on every poorly trimmed (or shod ) horse that I’ve worked on…
for years.

It needs to change.

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Left - 20+ year old Arab with underdeveloped soft tissue and limb deviation. Years of unbalanced flat trimming and steel shoes. Lives on in a 10 acre dirt paddock with 13 other herd mates. All the other horses have similar development.

Right - 20+ year old Arab with well developed soft tissue and slight limb deviation that matches her conformation. Years of frequent proper trimming. Lives on 1/2 acre dirt track with 9 other herd mates. All the other horses have similar development.

03/06/2023

Mapping the contours for symmetry is just as valuable as mapping the landmarks for balance. Horse’s feet aren’t meant to be perfectly symmetrical but the closer they are the better. If you train your eye to see symmetry, you can detect asymmetry more easily and look for small corrections that improve the balance. A lot of horses could avoid shoes if they just had better trimming.

10/05/2023

Mekkora különbség! Megéri kivárni? Simán! Hogy addig a lovad nem dolgozott...? Hát ez van :)

Built Up, Not Propped Up

Hoof balance cannot be immediately improved with a trim, a shoe, or a wedge. The hoof capsule is either balanced around the coffin bone or it isn’t. A good trim carefully respects the insensitive live calloused layer by only removing dead horn. This reveals how well the hoof capsule is balanced around the internal structures. Using shoes and/or wedge pads may help establish a pre determined favorable PA and/or HPA, but it won’t change the balance of the internal structure within the hoof capsule. That relationship is fixed until the old hoof capsule grows off and the new hoof capsule grows in. This is the process that the hoof care provider is influencing with every trim and/or shoeing application. At the rate of 1 mm every 3 days, It takes the wall approximately seven months to regenerate itself from the hairline to the ground, granted the HCP is applying a proper trim. Shoes and/or wedge pads inhibit flexion and cause toe loading so the soft tissue at the back of the foot ( digital cushion and lateral cartilages ) becomes disengaged and atrophied from lack of use. The bigger problem that is caused by chronic toe loading is erosion of the solar rim of P3. This reduces concavity ( live sole depth ) which is vital for function and comfort and makes it more difficult for the horse to engage the soft tissue. Simply put, flat trimming and quick fix shoeing practices result in flat hooves that lack the springiness needed for comfort and buoyancy during performance regardless of whether the PA or HPA is favorable.

The only way to sustainably improve the PA or HPA is to improve the depth, volume, and strength of the soft tissue which subsequently helps develop live sole depth…and that takes time with careful trimming that mimics high mileage/anatomically correct wear. Actual miles can be beneficial but in most cases only after the hoof and body balance has been restored or the horse just wears down a long crooked foot into a short crooked foot.

For domestic horses that aren’t born and raised on thousands of acres, trimming to build soft tissue and live sole is the only sustainably regenerative approach to hoof care.

14/04/2023

When frog trimming is done properly and in conjunction with trimming the rest of the structures, it helps improve the health of the entire horse, not just the hoof. Proper frog trimming is more than hygienic. When properly shaped to conform to its corium, comfort is improved. This allows horses to lean back with the majority of their weight over the digital cushion. This is how the digital cushion can build in depth and volume. This improves the posture of the horse and helps every system become healthier.

The heels and bars should be kept low and properly shaped to the contour of the insensitive live sole. The frog should follow these same contours as closely as possible, without disrespecting the relationship to it’s corium. This can’t always be achieved all at once, as shown here in this collage, but it can happen for almost any horse over time with patience and mindful diligent care.

This foot was rehabbed over a 18 month year timespan for a 20+ year old horse. She lived in a stall bedded with wood shavings and got 5 hours per day of turnout on irrigated grass pasture. I kept her on a monthly trim schedule.

23/08/2022

Check out the perfect feet on our mare & foal! Wild horses may cover 20 miles a day on the Virginia Range, foraging and going to water. No need for a blacksmith out here! 🌿

13/08/2022

Horse's frogs all have unique shapes. When they are properly worn or trimmed they aren't usually flat. The central sulcus should have a shallow "V" or valley shape starting at the back of the foot near the hair line and ending near the widest part of the foot. The edges of the frog that run parallel to the collateral grooves should bevel the opposite way. This creates a small accordion shape that is very important for the dissipation of concussive forces at peak impact and just plain comfortable to stand on all day. Constant growth without enough wear or proper routine maintenance creates a misshapen frog. The "valleys" fill in with dead, dry, hard frog material that no longer mirrors the sensitive frog that it grows from. Many horses in arid climates become sore due to the hard dry insensitive frog putting pressure on the the soft, live, sensitive frog in places that aren't designed to accept pressure. The horses usually compensate by leaning out on their toes. This leads to flattening of the soles and atrophy of the softer shock absorbing structures in the back of the foot.

Proper routine frog maintenance can keep a horse comfortable in the back of his feet and going consistently heel first. Whether you are maintaining a good foot or rehabbing a bad foot, the foot is always trying to show you where it needs to be trimmed if you look close and take your time you will see the signs. These photos are examples of a good foot (above) and a bad foot (below).

(David Landreville, 2014)

20/06/2022

Healing is natural... we just have to help a little :)

3.5 months progress

Top - set up trim
Bottom - about 4 trims later

03/06/2022

Read the comments please!

05/05/2022

30/04/2022

2 years progress. Corrective trimming from the bottom to regrow a new capsule evenly around the coffin bone, instead of rasping from the top, which only temporarily changes the coffin bone’s position to the ground.

05/04/2022

Another nice trim by David Landreville- On the Vertical