Hooves - your opinion please

anglo said:
If you have the same person again , speak to them. Heels look extremely long to me but its hard to tell much from photos . I used to have an old farrier that once said he could make any hoof look good , but it may not always be ideal for soundness for that particular horse .
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This a hundred times , functionality over prettiness everytime
 

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@meleeka try this guy. He's recently qualified and still building his client base. I know his mum (bought a pony from her) but I can't vouch for his work, only that the family are heavily into showing so straightness will have been drilled into him from a pretty young age.

He should at least have availability to get those feet looked at ASAP. I'd be worried about the joints above the foot having unnecessary stress put on them being twisted in that way for any length of time.
 
Red-1 said:
They all look off but this photo

View attachment 173407

really does me.

If I were being generous, I would guess the pony is hairy, has long hair, and was not so clean when he was done. Maybe it was also dull, and on uneven ground, so the farrier didn't get a good view.

If mine were so off, I would expect the farrier to mention it and explain why.

I would trim yourself TBH. Can't do much worse! It really isn't as difficult as you would think, and you can do a slight trim daily to start with, so get confident and make any changes slowly.
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Did the farrier forget to do the other side?!

My companion pony grows a really deep collateral sulcus and the heel buttress always looks quite high - side and front on his feet are almost textbook! I trim it down as much as I can but always leave him balanced.
 
Hormonal Filly said:
Thought the same as this. Has she recently had shoes taken off? She has so much heel :oops:
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No, the pony is a mini shetland. I found photos I took when this farrier first did him. He definitely didn't have such high heels then, although I thought at the time he'd left them a little high on the outside . What jumps out the most is how much his frog has shrunk. Looking at that photo, I should have sacked him then, but it was very difficult to find anyone at the time. IMG_2536.jpeg
 
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I'd not leave feet like that, but to offer a potential explanation...

I agree with @Red-1 who said it's easier to assess balance from photos.

The naked eye and the brain work together, and can fool you into thinking something's aligned when you're looking from an odd sort of angle. With smaller horses/ponies, it's easy to not be able to get your eyes so they are the same distance from the front foot, because the horse's body gets in the way. So the eye nearer the horse is closer to the foot (if you measure the distance between your eyeball and the part of hoof you're looking at), and the eye further from the horse is further from the horse. It's more exaggerated with small horses/ponies, but can happen with taller ones too.

When taking a photo, it's much easier to get the lens parallel to the view you're wanting to take - the body doesn't get in the way for starters!

I realised a few years ago that I was not getting my heels properly level thanks to the photos I always take, and corrected it with the hind feet by switching sides to assess heel balance. It was quite an eye opener (no pun intended!!). But the front feet were trickier, so I had to just find points of reference on the foot to retrain my eyes and brain to account for the slightly angled view.

I do think the farrier has done a poor job with regards to foot balance and ongoing hoof health in several ways, and I'd want someone else doing them too, but I don't think it's been done deliberately poorly, just a case of them not being aware enough of attention to detail.
 
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meleeka said:
No, the pony is a mini shetland. I found photos I took when this farrier first did him. He definitely didn't have such high heels then, although I thought at the time he'd left them a little high on the outside . What jumps out the most is how much his frog has shrunk. Looking at that photo, I should have sacked him then, but it was very difficult to find anyone at the time. View attachment 173449
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This is defintitely a mcuh healtheir hoof than the one he has now. If the only change has been the farrier, then that is undoubtedly where the suspiscion should point. Even if it isn't caused by his poor trimming, he should have noted the changes himself, and brought them to your attention to discuss remedial action.
 
PurpleSpots said:
I'd not leave feet like that, but to offer a potential explanation...

I agree with @Red-1 who said it's easier to assess balance from photos.

The naked eye and the brain work together, and can fool you into thinking something's aligned when you're looking from an odd sort of angle. With smaller horses/ponies, it's easy to not be able to get your eyes so they are the same distance from the front foot, because the horse's body gets in the way. So the eye nearer the horse is closer to the foot (if you measure the distance between your eyeball and the part of hoof you're looking at), and the eye further from the horse is further from the horse. It's more exaggerated with small horses/ponies, but can happen with taller ones too.

When taking a photo, it's much easier to get the lens parallel to the view you're wanting to take - the body doesn't get in the way for starters!

I realised a few years ago that I was not getting my heels properly level thanks to the photos I always take, and corrected it with the hind feet by switching sides to assess heel balance. It was quite an eye opener (no pun intended!!). But the front feet were trickier, so I had to just find points of reference on the foot to retrain my eyes and brain to account for the slightly angled view.

I do think the farrier has done a poor job with regards to foot balance and ongoing hoof health in several ways, and I'd want someone else doing them too, but I don't think it's been done deliberately poorly, just a case of them not being aware enough of attention to detail.
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yes along these lines. Farriers work alone, no one either checks nor comments on their work so they soon (and trimmers possibly) get into the habit that if they have seen their own work it becomes familiar and it is correct. The way you stand, if you are left/right handed etc affects how you trim. If you put the feet between your knees how you stand etc. You can hold a foot however you want and it will look balanced but if you always hold it that way all feet will seem balanced.
I trim hinds from both sides just to make it easier for me but you do see the balance differently that way. What looks balanced from the left doesn't when you get round to the other side. It may be that if you looked at several other ponies from this farrier you may see similarities. Just familiarity.
 
Highmileagecob said:
And that's the rub isn't it? Not paying attention to detail, causing a serious issue through lack of attention and charging full whack for doing so. Not what you expect from someone who has trained to focus on hooves for a living. Sorry, I find it hard to put 'professional' here.
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That's my thoughts exactly.
 
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