For the attention of farriers/vets/horsey feet folks...

Chico Mio

Chico Mio

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I would value your opinion on the following:

This is a horse on the yard where mine are kept -NOTHING to do with me, but I offered to post these pictures to obtain some opinions for the owner.

Horse has a large fissure running down its hoof wall, from coronet band to floor now - so you can tell how long it has been going on. It continues to grow like this, ie split from the coronet.

Horse currently has a 'circular' shoe fitted on this hoof by local farrier. The poor thing is totally box kept, on farrier's advice. (I would add, I don't trust most Spanish farriers further than I could throw them and having seen his handiwork on other yard horses, this one seems a little basic).

So, I would value your opinions/suggestions, bearing in mind I know nothing of the horse and have seen only what you see here.

Thanks


Crack is dark line starting on the coronet band, just below the thumb in the pic:

DSC00346.jpg



Clearly visible on back quarter:

DSC00343.jpg
 
Hi, Thats a rather nasty quarter crack :( Its difficult to say how long it has been going on as they tend to start from the inside out, but this one looks quite established. I cant really tell from the photo, but it looks like the coronary band itself is injured. If this is the case, there will always be a weakness in the hoof wall.

IMO the farrier hasn't achieved what he set out to achieve, and that is stabilising the crack. An egg bar on its own wont help at all really. Ideally the whole of the solar surface needs to take its fair share of the loading, thereby relieving the quarter slightly. I usually use dental impression material in conjunction with a heart bar.

Once the foot is loaded right, the crack itself needs stabilising using a composite repair material. This will effectively stop the two sides moving independantly. As mentioned, google quarter crack repair.

Once stabilised there will be no need for box rest. I have repaired many cracks on racehorses, who have continued to run and win.
 
Thank you Tommy. We said exactly the same thing to the owner - it needs a 'plantilla' as they are called here, ie the sole filling in to spread the weight and we also said that it is perfectly possible to repair the crack/hoof wall with the specialist hoor repair composites.

Having looked again this evening and cleaned the hoof up, the crack- although wide and deep - does not appear to penetrate completely through the hoof wall to the inside (horse has very long hoof walls - IMO it needs it's hooves trimming all round).

I will point out that if the hoof is repaired (and my OH and the only decent farrier we know can almost certainly do it between them) that the horse can return to work, as he is a lovely boy and it is a shame for him to be rotting in a box.

Off to google!
 
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