Shoes off - not lame - hoof boots??

[quirky]

Had back shoes off 3 weeks ago.
All is well, have hacked out a few times and ridden most nights in the school and she is on the walker every other day.

The problem?

She is, in all probability, arthritic with spavins. She was x-rayed in 2010 and diagnosed as pre-arthritic, hocks medicated. Had her medicated again in May this year as she was a little stiff.
So, she is just squaring her toe off, which I assume is due to the spavins.

Will hoof boots solve/prevent this? Or do I need shoes back on.
I am looking at Cavallo Sports boots.

If all goes well, I will be taking fronts off, she only had those on initially due to a nasty field accident as a youngster. The vet says the best thing about her is her feet, so I'm sure she'd cope, with hoof boots if necessary.

 

[Meowy Catkin]

Sometimes shod hooves become under-run with long toes - so it's possible that the squaring of the toe is actually taking the breakover point back to where it should be. Without seeing the horse, I don't know whether this is the case for your horse.

Is she dragging her toes, lame or foot sore? If she isn't, then I wouldn't worry.

 

[quirky]

She isn't lame or foot sore. She doesn't drag her toe in walk but does in trot, so road work is always done at walk.
I haven't down graded her work, she does as she always has done.

I shall take pictures and post them up later, see what you think.

 

[ameeyal]

One of my ponys drags his back feet, squaring off his toes, I ride him in boots but they don't last long as they will rub a hole in them, so I tend not to trot on the roads just so they last longer.
His back feet don't wear away from being squared off, they get to a surtan {sp} level then stop.

 

[Brightbay]

One of my ponys drags his back feet, squaring off his toes, I ride him in boots but they don't last long as they will rub a hole in them, so I tend not to trot on the roads just so they last longer.
His back feet don't wear away from being squared off, they get to a surtan {sp} level then stop.

Similar to the above : ) My lad has sacro-iliac problems and if we do a lot of trotting on tarmac, he squares off his hinds a bit. The key question is always "how much?" If the horse just takes the toe back a little (as far as what trimmers call "the water line"), that's not a problem. Any further than that (where you start to see the unpigmented hoof appearing across the front of the toe and upward), it may be more of an issue. With my fellow, he just scuffs slightly, so we leave it and I remove the "corners" every couple of weeks with sanding block.

So it's not necessarily a problem, just something to keep an eye on.