How to shoe my horse

ester said:
landing toe first usually means heel pain, does he have packing under the leather pads to prevent infection? I wouldn't get too hung up on his breed, most problematic issue with 'classic' TB feet is them having no/very under run heels which don't appear to be his issue.
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I don’t quite know how he lands, all I heard was that there is a lot of space between his heel and the shoe meaning he’s putting a lot of pressure on his toes. he used to have silicone or magic cushion under the pads, but the farrier has no more stock of magic cushion.

About the under run heels, i sent a picture to chatgpt and it said that he had under run heels. i dont exactly know how underrun heels look, what would you say is his issue from his hoof anatomy?
 
Apologies as I've not read the replies, but for £3.95 (maybe dollars) I would join Mills Consilient Horsemanship FB subscription group. She's currently offering a broad posture and hoof assessment course. My instinct here (toe out, base narrow etc) is you have a posture and movement problem as much as a hoof problem. So often the body holds the hooves back, and vice versa. Start improving the body and you may be surprised at what it tells you, and how much it helps the feet, especially if you go barefoot. We think so many of these issues are normal, they might be, but they're not healthy, not for the horse to do what we ask them to do, day after day.
 
for the love of god stop asking chatgpt anything and research real life, living examples!

your farrier is feeding you a load of rubbish because if you learn how to trim yourself he will lose your £££££, its that simple. as far as his future career goes, if you jump mainly on a surface he wont need shoes to do that and if you jump on grass you will then need to decide if you keep him BF and just only jump on excellent ground or you risk shoeing and studding and him going lame again.

between myself and my sister we have had:

TB, barefoot, competed to adv medium schooled to GP
TB barefoot, competed to inter 1, trained to GP,
TB barefoot competed to inter 2, trained to GP
TB, barefoot, competing prelim but will stay barefoot and will hopefully go to GP

so yes that is dressage but none of these toed in or out or anything odd after going BF and being BF only improved the feet.

i would guess yes heels are under run, there is thrush almost certainly and the farrier is trying to force the leg straight which is making him sore. if he NATURALLY toes out you need to let the leg align as per nature/skeletal alignment.

latest TB putting his best foot forward:

olly july.jpg
 
In my experience of being unshod with injuries - they move differently to protect the injury and this causes them to wear their feet oddly. While injured I don’t correct that massively - only if it will cause other problems. I let them move as they need to until out of the acute phase and then work combined with gentle trimming helps bring it all back. One of the most sure signs that they are fully sound is that they start to wear their hooves correctly again and maintain them themselves.

Hoof boots for hacking, barefoot in field and arena. I would take the shoes off and let your horse reset. No reason why you cannot put them back on later if you decide that would be better.
 
maya2008 said:
In my experience of being unshod with injuries - they move differently to protect the injury and this causes them to wear their feet oddly. While injured I don’t correct that massively - only if it will cause other problems. I let them move as they need to until out of the acute phase and then work combined with gentle trimming helps bring it all back. One of the most sure signs that they are fully sound is that they start to wear their hooves correctly again and maintain them themselves.

Hoof boots for hacking, barefoot in field and arena. I would take the shoes off and let your horse reset. No reason why you cannot put them back on later if you decide that would be better.
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Could you explain a bit more in depth what you mean by gentle trimming whilst injured?
 
Hallo2012 said:
for the love of god stop asking chatgpt anything and research real life, living examples!

your farrier is feeding you a load of rubbish because if you learn how to trim yourself he will lose your £££££, its that simple. as far as his future career goes, if you jump mainly on a surface he wont need shoes to do that and if you jump on grass you will then need to decide if you keep him BF and just only jump on excellent ground or you risk shoeing and studding and him going lame again.

between myself and my sister we have had:

TB, barefoot, competed to adv medium schooled to GP
TB barefoot, competed to inter 1, trained to GP,
TB barefoot competed to inter 2, trained to GP
TB, barefoot, competing prelim but will stay barefoot and will hopefully go to GP

so yes that is dressage but none of these toed in or out or anything odd after going BF and being BF only improved the feet.

i would guess yes heels are under run, there is thrush almost certainly and the farrier is trying to force the leg straight which is making him sore. if he NATURALLY toes out you need to let the leg align as per nature/skeletal alignment.

latest TB putting his best foot forward:

View attachment 163671
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My current farrier is awful i must say. However, the farrier that came to look at his feet previously shod this same horse for 3years and not once did i have a problem. Currently waiting for the vet to come and assess my horse etc and I will be having a talk with him about what he thinks about my horse going barefoot
 
mariaandefe said:
Could you explain a bit more in depth what you mean by gentle trimming whilst injured?
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For example, my NF injured herself in the field one February. She is normally a pony who moves straight and trims her own hooves to a perfect shape - she just needs a maintenance tidy up of the edges usually. After her injury though, as she gradually recovered over time (soft tissue), she moved differently which led to slightly longer toes in front. I didn’t insist on those toes being completely shortened and the balance changed - we trimmed enough so they wouldn’t cause issues of their own but left the balance largely as she had it. As she came sound, she began to move normally again, effectively trimming those toes back and changing her own hoof shape.

Or there’s our funky Welsh D whose movement was creating a rather strange hind hoof shape. We gently, over lots of time, began to redress the hoof balance in combination with changing how she moved through work - building muscle and better self carriage. Again, ensuring the hoof is normal enough that it isn’t causing its own issues but no drastic changes. She now moves more normally and her hooves almost wear correctly, needing little help to keep a good shape. We are nearly there - most of which has come from fixing her movement.

Imagine if you had hurt yourself and you needed to swing your foot in to avoid pain. You wear your shoes unevenly and they end up with a sloped heel that complements your movement. Someone gives you new shoes with a fully balanced sole. It is uncomfortable and stresses the partially healed injury. If you allow the sole to wear too drastically though then that in itself will stress your leg as you move.

As a teen, I took up running. Just like pony no.2 in my examples I am a bit wonky. I went to one of the fancy shops that analyses your gait and recommends shoes/insoles. Those shoes absolutely crippled me. They were correct and my gait was then perfect - but my toes were popping out (hypermobile), and I had pain in all sorts of places. I ditched the shoes and went back to my cheap and cheerful ones - half marathons and more were once more pain free and easy.
 
maya2008 said:
For example, my NF injured herself in the field one February. She is normally a pony who moves straight and trims her own hooves to a perfect shape - she just needs a maintenance tidy up of the edges usually. After her injury though, as she gradually recovered over time (soft tissue), she moved differently which led to slightly longer toes in front. I didn’t insist on those toes being completely shortened and the balance changed - we trimmed enough so they wouldn’t cause issues of their own but left the balance largely as she had it. As she came sound, she began to move normally again, effectively trimming those toes back and changing her own hoof shape.

Or there’s our funky Welsh D whose movement was creating a rather strange hind hoof shape. We gently, over lots of time, began to redress the hoof balance in combination with changing how she moved through work - building muscle and better self carriage. Again, ensuring the hoof is normal enough that it isn’t causing its own issues but no drastic changes. She now moves more normally and her hooves almost wear correctly, needing little help to keep a good shape. We are nearly there - most of which has come from fixing her movement.

Imagine if you had hurt yourself and you needed to swing your foot in to avoid pain. You wear your shoes unevenly and they end up with a sloped heel that complements your movement. Someone gives you new shoes with a fully balanced sole. It is uncomfortable and stresses the partially healed injury. If you allow the sole to wear too drastically though then that in itself will stress your leg as you move.

As a teen, I took up running. Just like pony no.2 in my examples I am a bit wonky. I went to one of the fancy shops that analyses your gait and recommends shoes/insoles. Those shoes absolutely crippled me. They were correct and my gait was then perfect - but my toes were popping out (hypermobile), and I had pain in all sorts of places. I ditched the shoes and went back to my cheap and cheerful ones - half marathons and more were once more pain free and easy.
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A got it! Thanks so much! Hopefully we can come up with something for my boy when the vet comes as everything is so difficult in this country unfortunately
 
Just be aware that many vets, even here in the UK, are anti barefoot despite all evidence that many/most horses do VERY well. It's just not on their radar and they're not taught how real barefoot works, diet, maintenance etc, so they dismiss it.
 
AI isn't the place to go for reliable information. Gemini reckoned my horse had severe thrush, going on a photo. She has rubber shoes. 😂

I've had three barefoot TBs, none have toed out and all have had improvements in their feet, soundness and movement.
 
My horse had soundness issues when I got him, due to his previous farrier trying to straighten him up (he's very pigeon toed). Long term barefoot wouldnt work for him in my environment, but I took the shoes off, and gave him a long break to get his feet growing in the direction he wanted them to be. He's back in shoes now, and my farrier is very careful to shoe him for function rather than aesthetics. His feet don't look as pretty as they did when he arrived, but he's super sound, so I'm happy for him to look a bit wonky!
 
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