Experience with foot balance issues

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ajn1610

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I have a four year old on loan, she's shown intermittent bilateral lameness over the last couple of weeks and is sore under her neck, chest and a little down her back. She's had a lameness work up and the vet has diagnosed problems with her foot balance so she is having so remedial shoeing.
Does anyone have any experience with this kind of issue and what I can expect in terms of bringing her back into work and long term maintenance and management.
 
Oh dear, you weren't using my ex farrier, were you? ;)!!

Hopefully the remedial shoeing will be enough to restore a comfortable balanced foot without any long term damage having been done. It may take a few sessions for correct balance to be restored, but she should look more comfortable quite quickly. If the foot balance was way off, it may have set off arthritic changes, but that would an extreme case.

My mare had an extreme long toe/low heel imbalance (caused by faulty farriery) and my new farrier is gradually improving the balance each visit (every 4 weeks) and her whole stance is vastly better. The other two horses are also much happier, the vet has recently seen them all and just said 'wow!'.

My ex farrier was very highly qualified :(. I should have ditched him years ago.
 
It all depends how bad the foot balance was and whether there has been any soft tissue damage which needs to heal. My horse was diagnosed (aged 12) with foot balance issues and although the foot balance was corrected with the first trim and a change to Natural Balance shoes, the bruising of the sensitive frog (where his heels had been too low/toes too long, resulting in crushing of the soft structures within the foot) took a few weeks to heal, but after that he was stomping around as well as ever! He lived another 16 years, in regular light work.

Your horse is only a four-year-old so hopefully won't have been suffering for long and hence she should mend well - after all, the remedial trimming will put her "foundations" (her feet) back in the correct alignment, so the rest of her posture should return to equilibrium as soon as the feet are level. Whilst her feet have been unbalanced, she will have been moving differently to compensate, which may have affected her back and neck, so once her feet are level, her body can relax again.

Think of the same situation in humans - if we wore shoes with unequal height heels for example, we would soon get a bit stiff and sore from compensating or stooping or putting more weight down one leg, but once we get back to barefeet or comfortable shoes, our muscles could relax again.

Ask your vet for some pointers on how to judge when your mare is ready to increase her workload again, or listen to your horse - she may well tell you herself!

Good luck!
 
hmmmm interesting how quickly would shoeing affect her to the point of being unsound? The shoes she came with were pretty terrible and her foot conformation isn't great, she has small boxy feet and upright pasterns, the farrier I'm currently using is one at the yard she's liveried at, it looks like he's done a decent job, he's shod her twice. She'd only been in work 10 weeks before I got her so I'd imagine she's not been shod long. The remedial guy is a different person based at my vets so maybe I'll ask him if the current shoeing looks generally decent. It's a minefield isn't it?
Vet seems to think she'll be fine to be ridden pretty much straight away post having the shoes fitted but I'll have the physio for the associated muscle soreness and I'm pretty sure they'll tell me to lunge for a few days after they've worked with her. On the X rays they said there was inflammation around the coffin joint but didn't seem concerned about it.
 
Unfortunately I have had lots of experience with hoof balance issues. Was the horse sound before she was shod? It's highly likely that remedial shoeing will help temporarily, but then she'll get worse again. Taking her shoes off is a serious option. Look at the Rockley Farm blog. http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/
 
Faracat, she was basically feral prior to being broken so what she was like before shoeing is anyone's guess. I've got a couple of friends that have horses exclusively barefoot, it's not something I'm closed to but I think I'll have to follow the Vets advice and go for the remedial shoeing initially.
She's a quality horse with nice paces and showing potential over fences, and most importantly she is also the nicest little person to deal with and has a great attitude towards work, I've had my fill of uber talented uber difficult divas and I'm having a lovely time with her, riding is actually fun again! Fingers crossed we can resolve this quickly and get back on and get her out and about so she can continue to see what life is all about.
 
Do read the Rockley Blog.. there are countless cases on there of horses where the vet has advised remedial shoeing .. and as said above the horse initially improves then deteriorates again.. Rockley then proves that horse can be sound as long as it is allowed / enabled to develop the hoof it requires barefoot.

So many people have sent horses to Rockley as a last ditch attempt and end up wishing they had cut out the remedial farriery and taken the horse straight to Rockley in the first place.

Read the case histories on Rockley and then maybe speak to Nic about your specific horse. I suspect she may be able to point your vet in the right direction too.
 
I'm neither here nor there about the barefoot thing - although I've ridden lots of horses without shoes on simply because they didn't need them - but this is a bit of a different situation. The horse has only been backed 3 months, yes? Why and when was she shod? She could only have had 3 or 4 cycles. How has it gone so wrong, so fast? Was she sound before the shoes? Why is it not an option to back the process up rather than further complicate things? I'm not at all against corrective shoeing but with a horse this young I think I'd want a bit more discussion. What does the owner think?
 
wench said:
Have you had X-rays done of the peadel bone and other structures in the hoof? What did they show?
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Yes, the Vet was confident there was nothing of concern although she commented that there was some inflammation around the coffin joint she wasn't concerned.
 
TarrSteps said:
I'm neither here nor there about the barefoot thing - although I've ridden lots of horses without shoes on simply because they didn't need them - but this is a bit of a different situation. The horse has only been backed 3 months, yes? Why and when was she shod? She could only have had 3 or 4 cycles. How has it gone so wrong, so fast? Was she sound before the shoes? Why is it not an option to back the process up rather than further complicate things? I'm not at all against corrective shoeing but with a horse this young I think I'd want a bit more discussion. What does the owner think?
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She was backed to the point of being sat on last year then turned away again and brought back in for riding away this Summer so bit longer than 3 months. She's been shod whilst I've had her twice, I think you'd be correct in your estimate of 3/4 shoeings. I'm obviously not an expert but IMO the foot shape/quality of the shoeing that she arrived with wasn't great. TBH reverting to bare foot wasn't something that occurred to me previously I just went along with what the Vet has suggested re remedial shoeing. I've kept the owner updated with what the Vet has said and she seems happy to just follow there advice, at least she hasn't made any comment otherwise.
 
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Faracat said:
But surely someone knows if she was sound before she was shod?
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In fairness I think the lameness (which is mild, she flexes and trots up straight but lame on lunge on a hard surface and it shows in transitions) wouldn't be obvious until she was working a bit more. It's apparent to me when I'm on she isn't comfortable but others couldn't see anything from the ground. What I've been feeling over the last couple of weeks is the tightness in her back and a bit of a drop in performance. At first I though she'd pulled a muscle, it was that that led me to think there might be something underlying but it went on a bit longer than I was happy with hence going to the vet. My impression is the way she is holding herself as a result of the foot issue is what is making her unlevel rather than the foot itself if that makes sense?
 
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ajn1610 said:
hmmmm interesting how quickly would shoeing affect her to the point of being unsound? The shoes she came with were pretty terrible and her foot conformation isn't great, she has small boxy feet and upright pasterns, the farrier I'm currently using is one at the yard she's liveried at, it looks like he's done a decent job, he's shod her twice. She'd only been in work 10 weeks before I got her so I'd imagine she's not been shod long. The remedial guy is a different person based at my vets so maybe I'll ask him if the current shoeing looks generally decent. It's a minefield isn't it?
Vet seems to think she'll be fine to be ridden pretty much straight away post having the shoes fitted but I'll have the physio for the associated muscle soreness and I'm pretty sure they'll tell me to lunge for a few days after they've worked with her. On the X rays they said there was inflammation around the coffin joint but didn't seem concerned about it.
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i too have had foot balance problems my gelding was 5 when he webt lame, he too has one boxy front foot and this was the one causing the problems, I had a vet and a farrier that couldnt get it right he would be sound for a few weeks then lame this went on for some time, i then got a second opinion and was advised to use natural balance shoes, my farrier didnt do them so i managed to et the number of a farrier that did a friends horse that did, he came and took over an inch of toe off his front feet and fitted the natural baance shoes and the horse was sound pretty muchh straight away.

I only had the natural balance on him for about a year he now has normal shoe but without a toe clip so the toes can be kkept short, I also have a different farrier now as I moved area but luckily my new guy was a friend of my old farrier so he told him how he shod him, and touch wood is been fine, but I have had 4 farriers shoe him over the years and only 2 kept him sound, i know now his feet must be kept short and done every 5 weeks to stop any flares starting, you need to find someone that can keep the foot the same after the remedial farrier or you will be back to square one.

You may need to take it easy with her once she has been shod by the remedial farrier as the foot will be changed quite a bit and it will take a while for her to adjust, good idea to work with the physio my horse had treatments for 9 months after his lameness and I believe it really did work.

Do you have any pictures of your horses feet?

Sorry about the missed letters and duplicate letters its this ipad drives me mad.
 
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Pinkvboots said:
i too have had foot balance problems my gelding was 5 when he webt lame, he too has one boxy front foot and this was the one causing the problems, I had a vet and a farrier that couldnt get it right he would be sound for a few weeks then lame this went on for some time, i then got a second opinion and was advised to use natural balance shoes, my farrier didnt do them so i managed to et the number of a farrier that did a friends horse that did, he came and took over an inch of toe off his front feet and fitted the natural baance shoes and the horse was sound pretty muchh straight away.

I only had the natural balance on him for about a year he now has normal shoe but without a toe clip so the toes can be kkept short, I also have a different farrier now as I moved area but luckily my new guy was a friend of my old farrier so he told him how he shod him, and touch wood is been fine, but I have had 4 farriers shoe him over the years and only 2 kept him sound, i know now his feet must be kept short and done every 5 weeks to stop any flares starting, you need to find someone that can keep the foot the same after the remedial farrier or you will be back to square one.

You may need to take it easy with her once she has been shod by the remedial farrier as the foot will be changed quite a bit and it will take a while for her to adjust, good idea to work with the physio my horse had treatments for 9 months after his lameness and I believe it really did work.

Do you have any pictures of your horses feet?

Sorry about the missed letters and duplicate letters its this ipad drives me mad.
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Are natural balance the plastic glue on ones? I've had those on a laminitic with a lot of success. I haven't any pics but I'll take some as a point of reference to see how the foot changes and if I can figure out how to post them I will!
 
I think the point that Faracat and I are making (correct me if I'm wrong!) is that this horse was presumably either sound very recently without shoes, when she started work OR not sound, having done nothing and been barefoot for her life up to this point. Usually conversations about foot balance and how to correct it involve horses that are so far away from what they would be "naturally", at least in time, that they need very careful work to return them, either in the form of careful shoeing over a long period, or a proper amount of time to rehab without shoes. In this case the horse was presumably sound 3 shoeings ago. Or, possibly, the shoes went on because she wasn't sound to begin with, which begs the bigger question as to why, since that would be an unusual situation for a horse living "feral" in a reasonably appropriate environment.

My only point was how has it got so bad, so fast - I know you say she's not very lame but if you're noticing knock on effects already from only that cause, with only weeks of work, that's a biggish deal - OR why is there no chance to go back a step while the process is so new, and see if you can reset things easily and then go on from there, if she needs shoes to do the work you want.


I repeat, I'm not that bothered about shoes or not shoes but I've ridden plenty of horses at least from backing to first competitions without shoes and I'd say most have been fine with at least that relatively light amount of work. I've also ridden horses for people who shoe immediately the horse comes in to work and most of them have been fine, too. There is no "right" answer but I'm always a bit leery or moving forward just for the sake of it if you're so close to the beginning of the problem. I'm especially mindful if the horse is still growing.
 
TS - I agree completely, knowing if she was sound or lame before being shod and starting work is an important piece of information because a lot depends on the answer.
 
Faracat said:
TS - I agree completely, knowing if she was sound or lame before being shod and starting work is an important piece of information because a lot depends on the answer.
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Agree. My three were all unshod but consistent poor farriery from my ex farrier still wrecked the foot balance of two of them. The new guy has rescued the foot balance by good trimming, the mare has had to have front shoes on for the moment, but we are aiming to get her shoes off eventually.

My cob is blessed with brilliant feet but his were made ridiculously wonky. They are now normal again, it took several months.
 
Second TarrSteps and Faracat here. Also, my new mare had only been shod a few cycles when I got her. Shoes came off 8 weeks after she arrived (she'd just had farrier, and trimmer wanted something to work with), and it will take months to sort them out completely.

I really feel for people having trouble with hoof care professionals. It really does appear to be a minefield, and it seems more common around here to see shod horses with badly-trimmed feet than with well-trimmed feet.
 
Ditto Faracat and TS, presumably the feet appeared unbalanced on x-ray too? I'm surprised that a couple of bad shoeing cycles could cause noticeable coffin joint issues.

(Fwiw my lad had lameness which started as v. slight which blocked to the coffin joint but nothing joint wise observed on xray - pedal bone counter rotated but that was after 15 years of being shod).
 
ajn1610 said:
Are natural balance the plastic glue on ones? I've had those on a laminitic with a lot of success. I haven't any pics but I'll take some as a point of reference to see how the foot changes and if I can figure out how to post them I will!
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Also agree with what faracat and TS have said, I knew my horses history as we bought him when he was two, my horse also had a flare on the inside of his hoof so the problem was visable although I did have him xrayed, natural balance are metal shoes they have a much wider toe and give much more support than a normal shoe. If your horse has boxy upright feet the toes have to be kept short and the heals must have support, and they must be shod regular mine are done every 5 weeks maximum 6 weeks sometimes in winter.
 
We had a similar problem with one of ours. We had a remedial farrier ( who is at the vet practice each week) and a vet look at her. He shod her every 4 weeks over the winter and it improved no end.
Hers was due to a conformational issue ( toe out, which then made her tight in her shoulders). As soon as she had the first shoeing the limb flight was so much better.
It will come right, but I expect you will constantly have to keep an eye on it. The important thing is regular shoeing, which in our case was 4 weeks and a very good vet &'farrier.
 
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