Remedial shoeing....

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Does anyone's competition horse have remedial shoeing?

I have just started with a new farrier and as soon as he saw Grace's left fore he said he thought she would do so much better with an eggbar shoe. The right fore is lovely and neat, whereas her left one seems to flare out quite widely when her shoes need doing, and she collapses through the heel and gets bruising on her toe
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The farrier thinks it could have something to do with the way she has been carrying herself with the PSD (that is left hind) but he is confident he can sort her left fore out and make it much more like the right fore
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Does anyone else have this kind of problem? Her front feet look like two different horses, and yet pre-injury, they were both exactly the same
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I know of quite a few horses who have just the one bar shoe fitted and compete with just the one bar shoe.

I would follow the advise of your farrier, he will know what is bst for the feet.

Lou x
 
Thanks Nailed... I was interested to know whether anyone else had something like this as I have never actually seen a horse with one type of shoe on one foot and another on the other
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I really rated this new farrier, I was very impressed with the amount of attention he paid to my mares' feet
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Thats interesting! My boy has eggbar on at the moment for coffin joint and soft tissue injury his front right is a different shape , like your horse it flares about half way down the foot he has collapsed heels and deep bruising.This would relate with previous problems with hind left (spavin)diagonal lameness.
His feet have worsened during treatment/recovery of spavin.There might be alot more diagonal related injuries .I have been telling my vet for months that there was something wrong the surgeon picked it up straight away .
Incidentally my horse is in gel pads to assist his recovery.
 
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Becki - can I be nosy and ask who your new farrier is? I take it Simon isn't venturing north any more

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It is Paul Shaw... I had to find someone else when I moved over to Salmesbury, and then when I came back to Withnell I know how busy Simon is and that he is not taking on any more clients. Plus, Simon only comes up once a fortnight at the moment, and Grace needs doing every 5 weeks, so I either went 4 weeks or 6 weeks.
 
I evented my chap with one egg bar on! Albeit with large enough neoprene over reach boots
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He had collapsed heels and the shoe helped no end (as well as a change in farrier!!!).

If its what the farrier suggested and you trust him then go with it, but use over reach boots for riding and turn out
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Thanks... I always do anyway because she has such a huge stride with her hind legs, especially within the walk
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She is forever forging if she does not have them on
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Did your horse continue to have the eggbar on, or was there a time when it was removed and a regular shoe put in its place?
 
I had remedial shoeing on my horse to help his heels grow, he was the opposite, had 2 eggbars on the back and normal shoeing on the fronts, he competed with them on, but he was lucky in that he need them only for 3 months until his feet were rebalanced.
 
Eggbars are a good idea in theory... if you can keep them on. I never managed to keep them more than 2 weeks
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and that was with overreach boots on ALL the time. In the end, they did more harm than good as they kept damaging the hoof as they ripped off and the horse was hopping lame from not having a shoe on half the time. That's just my experience though - you may find different. I found that the Natural Balance shoes were better for mine. Also, sometimes if a horse is stabled a lot of the time, one foot sometimes grows differently to the others as they aren't walking around as much and less even blood flow from the way they stand and rest legs. That's what my farrier told me anwyay!
 
I think he had them on for about 8 months, shod every 4 - 5 wks....then realised how cr*p my farrier was and he was using them as an excuse to be lazy and not try to improve the problem.

My new farrier put them on for a couple of shoeings (is that a word??!!!) and he's been in normal shoes (quarter clips in front tho to get the toe short enough) every since.

I don't see them as a permanent thing unless your horse has a mechanical need for them eg navicular, but they are great for offering support for a period of time while the farriers works on the feet.

Hope that's not too garbled!!
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for short term they support the heels but dont help improve the feet shape.
long term they are usually damaging-horses tend to pulll them off and they tend to weaken/collapse the heels further.
my mare had them on for 2 shoeings after she had mild lameness located in the foot.she came sound and went onto NB shoes for 9months.her heels widened and toe shortened nicely, she then had normal shoes for the next few years before i get them pulled permenantly
 
One of my boys started remedial shoeing last week as the last Farrier (don't know how as I dont like NB shoes) had put him in NB shoes and rasped his heels away! without any heel support so they could not expand- so new Farrier plus vet have had to get him shod v v long and wide in all 4 feet.

Its quite scary to think how quickly foot balance probs can spring up on you- but at least it can be helped by a skilled Farrier and it will just take a bit of time.

With the type of prob your horse has got Egg bars are probably the way to go as they will offer lots of support and if you have a new good Farrier he will know what to do as long as you trust his judgement. You could always get the foot xrayed if you were really worried about it too.
 
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Amanda i dont agree with the above comments if im honest.
I have never experience a bar shoe cause heals to collapse.

Loux

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I've seen it happen with a couple of horses; the heels have contracted and/ or under-run
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My old horse wore egg bars to help his navicular for 4 years before his heels couldnt take them anymore
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He then went onto Aluminum racing plates which helped for a further 4 years until he was retired.
 
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Thanks K27... the foot has already been xrayed and everything is as it should be! The only thing that came up was that she has quite thin soles...

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You're welcome!- its good to hear the xrays were fairly good for your mare then- my last Farrier had started to tip the Pedal bone in my horses front feet backwards but luckily he's on the road to recovery fingers crossed!
 
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If she has thin soles does she wear leather pads?

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No, but they are an option if the bruising continues...

My farrier wants to see how she progresses with just the eggbars on, and then we can always add either leather soles or the gel infills at a later date. He basically said one thing at a time so we will know what she needs and what she does not.

She has not really had any other issues since the severe bruising she developed over the summer (the last bit was removed this time, which is the fourth one since it happened).
 
Winston has worn them since I bought him.
I tried taking them off over the summer but he was sore again within days so theyre back on and all happy.

Egg bars would be too heavy for Winnie and make his feet crumble even more.
 
The thing is, Grace actually has pretty good feet really... She never had any problems until she injured the suspensory ligament in the left hind. I am thinking that this foot growing differently all stems down to the original injury, perhaps because she was putting more weight on it or not as much
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I never had any problems with her fores before the PSD... and the farrier truly believes he can get it back to how the right fore is (which is really nicely put together
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When Oskar shattered his splint bone on his left fore he went into aluminium wide web plates on his front feet for extra support. Farrier seemed to think that they would help prevent any contraction on the other foot while he was coming back to work. Since then he's been in ordinary shoes but with quarter clips and extra length on the heels as he has a natural medio/lateral imbalance on both front feet. This seems to work!
 
She has quarter clips on normally... and I believe this is what I will return to once this foot has sorted itself out
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Do you think it could be linked in some way to the PSD? Plus the 8 months of box rest???
 
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To be honest, this foot problem is a walk in the park compared to other things we have been through... my farrier was pretty confident he could solve the problem with relatively little upset. It is only because he is someone new that I thought I would post on here to see what people thought, but she certainly seems happy enough in it
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re the eggbars leading to crushed/under-run heels...
just what ive been told by several owners and farriers, they are not a long term fix and hard work to maintain the feet in
they support the heels really well short term.
 
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