Imbalanced hooves

[holeymoley]

From the front only. Coronary band is skee-wiff. Horse is correctly aligned on lateral xrays. If you hold the hoof up and look down post shoeing he’s balanced correctly at each side. But from the front his coronary band is higher on the inside. Out of interest, how would you correct this? He had rotational laminitis 4years ago, rotation has corrected back to 0c, but he rotated medial laterally too. He is sound and has been since recovering from laminitis, so much so that we live a normal ridden life but now at 21 I’m not sure if in the long run I’ll be looking at problems. I’m convinced he’s not entirely happy doing a long hack on tarmac but that could be an age related thing rather than hooves.

Many thanks. I’m tempted to remove shoes but unsure if I can with hoof history! He has good strong horn.

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

It could just be how his hoof is going to be because of the rotation it's alot for hooves to go through.

Arabi fractured his pedal bone at the side of the toe not a common place this was about 18 months ago, that hoof has been growing weird ever since long toe under run heels, he wasn't coping with shoes kept tripping so I took the shoes off and he immediately stopped tripping, the hoof has a much better growth angle on it now so I hope it will improve now his barefoot.

So maybe the hoof can change due to things that happen to it over time Arabi is 19 now so perhaps even age has something to do with it as well.

 

[sbloom]

From the front only. Coronary band is skee-wiff. Horse is correctly aligned on lateral xrays. If you hold the hoof up and look down post shoeing he’s balanced correctly at each side. But from the front his coronary band is higher on the inside. Out of interest, how would you correct this? He had rotational laminitis 4years ago, rotation has corrected back to 0c, but he rotated medial laterally too. He is sound and has been since recovering from laminitis, so much so that we live a normal ridden life but now at 21 I’m not sure if in the long run I’ll be looking at problems. I’m convinced he’s not entirely happy doing a long hack on tarmac but that could be an age related thing rather than hooves.

Many thanks. I’m tempted to remove shoes but unsure if I can with hoof history! He has good strong horn.

You'll find some gold on this blog, I wanted to find the post where she focuses on the horse that has this "flipper" foot but at least there's a photo of it on this one, serious M-L imbalance - http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-to-amaze-farrier.html. He was certainly sound at the time, and for some time iirc.

 

[holeymoley]

You'll find some gold on this blog, I wanted to find the post where she focuses on the horse that has this "flipper" foot but at least there's a photo of it on this one, serious M-L imbalance - http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-to-amaze-farrier.html. He was certainly sound at the time, and for some time iirc.

It could just be how his hoof is going to be because of the rotation it's alot for hooves to go through.

Arabi fractured his pedal bone at the side of the toe not a common place this was about 18 months ago, that hoof has been growing weird ever since long toe under run heels, he wasn't coping with shoes kept tripping so I took the shoes off and he immediately stopped tripping, the hoof has a much better growth angle on it now so I hope it will improve now his barefoot.

So maybe the hoof can change due to things that happen to it over time Arabi is 19 now so perhaps even age has something to do with it as well.

Thank you, that Rockley blog is really good.

I wrote this thread out quickly yesterday while on my lunch break, and I missed the most important thing at the start! He is is currently shod in front. I had a look at his hooves again last night, they're irritating me ever so slightly. He seems to be quite long in the toe and high in the heel this month, I'm not conviced the angle is great but that could be due to excessive toes. Whether it's coincidental with the time of year, as he does normally have quick growth May/June time. But for only being shod 3 and half weeks ago this is very excessive. Inside clenches are up too. I'll see if my farrier can re-shoe sooner as there's no way he'll make 6 weeks. But I'm also tempted to see how he would fair barefoot in front. Hinds are barefoot and he has nice wide frogs, we wear boots if doing stony tracks. Fronts are generally okay, frogs are wide enough but I would really like to try and get his frogs and heels working properly. My concern is with the imbalance in the coronary band, will he grow down imbalanced even more without the regular shoeing(will obviously be trimmed by farrier but maybe not as close together with appointments?). Will he be able to cope after all his hooves have been through-he does have damage to the front wall where the tissue inside has been affected while having laminitis, and his white line is not as tight as it could be. I've followed a few barefoot rehabilitations and the changes are amazing. Maybe he could do with them off.

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

My horses toes are growing really quickly at the moment I'm rasping every other week grass is really growing.

I was looking at Arabi's dodgy front and it's definitely getting a better angle of growth and the heals don't look as flat to me, I can see a definite line where I took the shoes off it's almost half way down his hoof.

I think you could try taking them off if he really doesn't cope you could try boots or stick the shoes back on.

Arabi actually fractured his pedal bone while he had front shoes on he has been barefoot before some years previously but I put fronts on as was doing more with him.