Dishing and Shoeing advice

[ossy]

I have a horse that dishes slightly on the near fore, shes not lame on it and its not really bad. She was very green when I got her but is now working 6 days a week and competing at BD prelim/novice. My problem is now we are doing a bit more lateral work I/my trainer have noticed that she lands on the outside side of the hoof first then falls to the inside on the dishing leg and is therefore not as happy to do leg yeilding/half pass to the left.

I have read that a bar shoe can level this up and give support however I am reluctant to put bar shoes on if I don't need too. I have a good farrier that is aware of the problem but just wanted to get some other ideas/experiences if anyone has any first?

 

[TwoStroke]

Has she seen a good body worker? There must be a reason she's landing laterally... It could be a body issue, or the medial side of her foot may be sore.

My TB used to land medially on both fronts... I couldn't get to the bottom of why, but I found it resolved itself after going barefoot.

 

[soloequestrian]

Dishing would imply an imperfect leg (as most horses have), which will need a corresponding 'imperfect hoof' to support it well. I have two horses that do the opposite - move close in front and they are barefoot. It's taken me years to realise that having neat feet is not good for either of them - they need to grow/wear wonky feet to properly support their wonky legs. They both now have flare/buttress on the medial side of each of their front feet. If any farrier allowed their feet to look as they do now, they would be ridiculed, but their feet are far more functional like this than they ever were when they were neat.
I would strongly suspect that your horses foot currently doesn't match it's leg - the foot will have been trimmed to be neat, and so it won't hit the ground level. If the horse is hitting the ground with one side of the hoof at every stride, concussive forces will travel up just one side of the leg, rather than being taken evenly across each joint, which could lead to discomfort (and eventually arthritis) over time.