Excessively wearing heel on shoes

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My horse excessively wears his shoes at the heels. My farrier has mentioned this too me at the last shoeing as due to him being ridden a lot more it looked very obvious when the shoes were removed. I was instantly concerend but the farrier says as he isn't lame not to worry.
The horse is a 14.2h cob gelding approximately 15 and in himself is well is ridden 5/6 times per wk hacking, sj, xc and lessons. He has only ever been lame twice and both times were after shoeing and a year appart. My feeling is that the farrier pinched the white line the first time and not sure about the second but he was sound in a day .
Question is should I be concerned look at supplements etc. Or as my farrier suggests leave alone? Due to his age I suppose I'm worried about arthritis?
 
Have had a few thoughts-.... how long does your horse go between shoeings? - are the toes long with low heels? if so maybe get farrier to shorten toes a bit to raise heels? sounds like a foot balance issue?, are the hinds worse than the fronts? do you do lots of road work? or have road nails fitted- which may help?- the heels should be well supported and when the foot hits the floor the heels should land evenly,i only know this because one of my horses has to be shod very very sympathetically and has had heel pain in the past!. Have you considered a different type/weight of shoe i.e sideclips on fronts or rolled toe/wide webbed shoe to improve breakover and getting the farrier to shoe longer and wider at the heels. maybe you could try a glucosamine type supplement as well so se if theres an improvement. If it was to continue maybe see what your Vet suggests and see if Vet & Farrier can both work together to help.

Gd luck!
 
Thank you! He does a lot of roadwork, goes 6 weeks between shoeings and has road nails fitted. I think I'll have another chat with the farrier as I'm not really happy with the not lame so leave it plan!
 
OP Moorman is a farrier, you need to know in case you have not spotted him on other posts.

Moorman it's normal, as you know, for a horse without shoes to land heel first. Are you saying that a shod horse shouldn't?
 
Sorry not have published my answer.
I have just finished doing some work on this subject and I did not want to put the whole thing up on the thread.
I will however have it on my site ASAP
Suffice to say that a well shod balanced foot should land level, the angle of p3 being around 5% different from a barefoot.
 
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