Hoof Balance - under run heels, long heels? Toe…. length

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Npsouth

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Hi,

I’m overwhelming myself trying to get my head round what a well balanced, shod hoof should look like.

I have an 11 year old thoroughbred mare. Around 4 years ago, when I bought her, she had white line disease following a period of abscesses with her previous owner. We dealt with the white line disease and made great progress with a farrier, but due to his declining health he made the decision to step away from our yard as there were too many horses and he was trying to limit himself to one/two horses at any one yard.

I moved to another farrier who came highly recommended. First red flag with him is he has no qualms in criticising others work but seems totally against any reasonable challenge of his week.

The reason for my question is my physio came to treat horse yesterday and she was unusually sore down her left side. She also commented on my mares feet, as whilst the shoe that he’s using seems better, she has developed quarter cracks on her front right, she’s also got evidence of damage to her back left caused by forging. When the new farrier started her, she had one crack down the centre of the hoof, there’s no evidence of that but the quarter cracks seem quite unstable and there’s definitely movement.

My issue is, I keep looking at hooves and have lost sight of what a well balanced, shod hoof can or should look like?

When I have asked my farrier about the cracks/forging - his recent response was that she has one leg longer than the other….
 
I don't know why some farriers feel the need to act as if they are carrying out brain surgery. Take a look on line at the numerous barefoot sites, Pete Ramey's Hoof Rehab pages were my starting point, and I still go back to them now. Does your mare really need to be shod, or could she take six months of barefoot/boots to allow the foot to start to work properly and balance itself? Could your old farrier recommend anyone to take over? It sounds as if your farrier isn't bothered about building a good client relationship, and if you are not happy, then start looking for someone else. Better than a lame horse.
 
I know you asked for photos of balanced shod hooves, so this isn’t what you asked for - sorry!
I strongly recommend delving into this guy’s content (David Landreville / Hoof Builders)

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Use It Or Lose It Shoers always use the excuse that not all horses can be barefoot. While that may be true in a lot of cases, steel shoes only make hooves weaker. They’re used so the horse can...
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ETA shod or not, I’d be ditching this farrier
 
some photos would be helpful, its unlikely she has different length legs though hooves can look like this might be the case if they adopt a particular grazing stance all the time which leads to hi/lo hooves.
 
Thank you. I think I needed confirmation that I’m not losing my marbles. I’m prone to panic and thinking the worst, but these are pretty severe cracks that reach the coronet band and when I raise it, it’s being brushed off so certainly not being addressed. What’s throw me slightly is a couple of people have said the angles and shoe size is ok
 
Tiddlypom said:
Those are worse than expected 😳.

My next stop would be straight to vet, not another farrier, and get foot balance x rays to see what is going on internally. Then take it from there.

Not sure that is just crap farriery, though it IS crap farriery.

Good luck. Keep us posted.
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I'm not clear how these cracks have happened. They don't seem to have arrived with the new farrier's work and he seems to be stuck with a problem. I think he may have bevelled the front wall presumably to try and take pressure off the crack. I could be wrong there.
If this all happened with the old farrier the new one may be right in criticising him. I doubt you have any pics of the last shoeing by the old farrier but they would be useful,

I think that like TP the first thing I would do is get some x rays, they will show balance, sole depth, if the toe is long and if anything else is going on. At that visit the vet may also have some comments. I would try and get the x rays done whilst the farrier is there and then he could trim (if necessary) based on the x rays.
 
This is the same foot in July 2023 after having a hoof resection and casts to deal with white line disease @paddy555 - new farrier began just over a year ago now and there were no cracks in the quarter at that point.

Either way, vet is coming to xray and thankfully I have historic foot X-rays from the previous issue to make a decent comparison to and make a plan…
 

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Npsouth said:
This is the same foot in July 2023 after having a hoof resection and casts to deal with white line disease @paddy555 - new farrier began just over a year ago now and there were no cracks in the quarter at that point.

Either way, vet is coming to xray and thankfully I have historic foot X-rays from the previous issue to make a decent comparison to and make a plan…
Click to expand...
that's excellent. Good luck with the vet visit. I hope you will update after their visit,
 
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