Pigeon toes?

Lexie81

Lexie81

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Hello

I am going to view a horse later today, she is offered for long term loan and having chatted to her owner she has said after a set period if both parties were happy she would be happy to sell her for a token amount.

She sounds lovely, a bit of a project as she has been worked inconsistently over the past few years but that does not worry me.

The only negative point is that her owner has said that she is a little pigeon toed and as such may not be up to a very competitive home. Now all I want to do is lots of happy hacking to accompany my little girl and her pony, in the woods and on bridlepaths around our yard, and the odd local RC level clinic/sponsored ride/dressage/maybe a little jumoing but I am not looking to do anything big!

Her owner is confident that the mare will be fine with this, apparently she has done a little dressage and been placed quite well and has also done some SJ during lessosn.

I have never had a horse that is pigeon toed before...can anyone offer any info about this? Is it a big problem?
Thanks!!!
 
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Depending how bad it is they are normally fine with it and the only time you would lose out would be in the showing ring.
Do you know how bad the fault is?
If its quite severe there is a lot more strain on joints and feet and normally a farrier can do corrective shoeing to make the fault less obvious.

I wouldn't let it put you off :)
 
Thanks! Yes one of my friends did mention that it would effect her in the show ring but I doubt I would want to show her anyway...She has been unshod for the last few months as she hasn't been ridden so i am guessing that means it can't be bad anough to need corrective shoeing all the time? My farrier is ace anyway so I'm sure he would be able to do something...I'm not sure how bad it is, and I am rubbish at looking at conformation! I will just be blinded by the fact she is dapple grey and really pretty lol!
 
Kokopelli said:
Depending how bad it is they are normally fine with it and the only time you would lose out would be in the showing ring.
Do you know how bad the fault is?
If its quite severe there is a lot more strain on joints and feet and normally a farrier can do corrective shoeing to make the fault less obvious.

I wouldn't let it put you off :)
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Echo

It can cause sidebone but for what you want to do if it isn't too bad it wouldn't put me off. as for showing again at local level if not too bad I would still have a go. I won lots of stuff with a horse that had a slight pigeon toe
 
I wouldn't be worried too much especially if you have a good farrier :)
After seeing the horse speak to him about it and see if he would advise anything, normally they only need corrective shoeing if its quite bad. I had one pony who was very badly pigeon toed and even then he didn't need corrective shoeing.

When you get there ask them to trot her up in hand and see how sound she is.
 
I have one that's pigeon toed, the offside is worse. It's only noticeable when he's standing or walking slowly. when he's trotting or cantering he has perfect alignment. I wouldn't worry myself. If you're in doubt though, why not have a vet check him over? I'm lucky enough to have vet with her own horses. She's had a good prod around and assured me everything is okay internally.
 
I took a 25yo on loan 11 years ago. He had been actively showjumped and Pony Clubbed since the age of 7, at least. He also has pronounced pigeon toes. He had clean legs at 25, and didn't retire until the age of 33, so I wouldn't think there would be much of a problem if the horse has been sound so far.
 
Wouldnt let it put you off, the horse i event has pigeon toes and its never had a lame day:)( goes off to touch wood).
And i might be wrong but i think Toytown who Zara Phillips rides has pigeon toes.
 
Doesn't bother me. My boy is very slightly pidgeon toed. He's barefoot however and therefore given the chance to grow the balance he needs to compensate.

Many horses are pigion toes through poor foot balance so it would be worth getting a good farrier to have a look. Forcing a truely pidgon-toed horse to straighten up will eventually make them lame, but correctly balancing a foot will sometimes correct the pidgon-toed-ness.
 
speaking from experience here...my horse is pigeon toed & it doesnt affect her in any way. Corrective shoeing is alot of nonsense! the horses body is built to accomodate the natural angle of the feet and trying to correct this through shoeing would put excess strain on the foot- and is likely to cause lameness. Its not a 'one size fits all' approach with this type of situation. My horse is not affected but thats not to say the next horse is not....it depends how the individual horse coped with it. Many horses with this type of conformation tend to 'wing out' when moving which can cause problems , fortunatly mine doesnt do this. It sounds like this horse will be strictly a leisure horseso i doubt it would be a problem. The best thing to do would be to have a 5 stage vetting caried out so the vet can assess the animals suitability for your level of work. Good luck
 
Mine is slightly pigeon toed and the vet fully checked him for me. He lands his feet evenly and cleanly so it's never been considered a problem. Other than reminding me of a naughty school boy it causes no issues at all. :)
 
1 of ours is a little pigeon toed and it jumps 5ft! (not with me!!) if it's not too severe I wouldn't worry too much for what you want to do.
 
My advanced endurance horse has them. No problem to her or her sire who won 100 mile races & even came 3rd in one aged 19.
 
My horse has mild pigeon toes and prior to me owning him he was a professional SJ with a heavy workload. It has never affected his work and his farrier just bears it in mind to disguise it a little for cosmetic reasons.
 
One of our horses is pigeon toed our farrier would not use corrective shoeing on him as he said it could cause more problems as he's 10 yrs old his bones have set and thats the way he's leg/foot falls, all he does when he has shoes on is leave a bit of over hang where he falls outside heavy, he's fine it doesn't make any difference to the way he goes at all.
 
I used to ride a mare who was VERY pigeon toed as well as being incredibly wide set and it didn't seem to bother her much. She was hacked 4/5 times a week for 2hours or more, up to 5 hours sometimes with trot and canter. Remedial farriery in her case was a headache for the farrier as she had concrete hooves and caused splints and a 'footy' way of going, took the shoes back off and left her to wear how she wanted with minimal farriery and she developed a set of perfectly shaped hooves arround her pedal bones, balanced looking untill you realised they were pointing inwards. It is hard to explain but if you bisected the hoof from the heel cleft to the point of the toe the two sides were almost perfectly balanced though the front to back line would be pointing inwards not directly forwards. To my knowledge she is still going strong 6 years on (11) and now jumping and gymkahna-ing as well.
 
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