shoes - so what do you think to these...???

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jaye1780

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I am not going to comment initially just post the pictures of my little TB. I would like to see what peoples opinions are on his shoes.....(research purposes), thanks :D

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I wouldn't be comfortable if that was my horse unless it used to be far worse (is that possible?) and is now getting better. Shoeing-wise that looks horrible.
 
Blimey!
The shoes..can't really comment other than they are metal and they follow the shape of the foot....
The feet however...blimey again...there has been some sort of trauma/illness/neglect going on for some time I would suspect. Does this horse have very upright pasterns? Is it a foreign breed?
If you were asking for any type of ideas to help...the first thing I would do is xray! Hope this helps.
Bryndu:)
 
If you look around you will see a lot like this. It's not healthy and it's not 'genetic' either. Can be fixed - treatment for the deep central sulcus thrush is imperative.
 
The shoes offer absolutely no support to the heel and consequently the whole leg! If your farrier has just done these, I would be very concerned!

Do you have a picture side on?
 
More pictures would be useful as mentioned. Unfortunately there are some farriers who are not as careful getting good hoof balance etc. I have a TB with amazing feet-and when on loan for 5 months the farrier ruined his feet and it took me 12 months of correct shoeing to get the heels back up. Quite why all TB's irrespective of whether they are racing or not have to have long toes and contracted heels is way beyond me.
A horse should be shod for the job he is doing, and any farrier worth their salt will do that for you!
 
adding some other view pics below for you all, still not going to comment yet but very interesting comments please keep them coming :D

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I will just add that this horse is currently in rehab - leg related and no longer a case of neglect just to ease those that are worried about him :D It is actually a relief to read that people are concerned about his feet though :)
 
They look terrible. Take them off! It would be interesting to see if the horse relaxed his frame if you got the shoes off - it may just be the photo, but he looks like he is holding himself through his loin area at the moment.
 
soloequestrian said:
They look terrible. Take them off! It would be interesting to see if the horse relaxed his frame if you got the shoes off - it may just be the photo, but he looks like he is holding himself through his loin area at the moment.
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It's not the photo you are definitely right on this! Like to hear a few more views on this before I add further comment but please dont worry he hasnt been left in this state :D
 
It's hard to see, but the off-fore certainly looks flaired with long toes and the first set of photos showed the under-run, contracted heels.

Are his leg problems tendon related? If it is his tendons, then the out of balance hooves will be the number one suspect as to the cause.

Has he has any abscesses?
 
I'd like to help but I'm afraid I'm not prepared to comment until I understand why you are asking and what you are hoping to achieve. If you have already taken those shoes off, I'm baffled what it is you want? The pics appear to be a typical ex racing TB with typical ex racing TB feet, typical appalling racer shoeing and fairly typical racing TB conformation issues, particularly the overlong pasterns.
 
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LucyPriory said:
If you look around you will see a lot like this. It's not healthy and it's not 'genetic' either. Can be fixed - treatment for the deep central sulcus thrush is imperative.
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It really concerns me that farriers carry on shoeing horses in the same way when it is quite obvious that they are doing damage to the hooves. If more farriers were taken to task about ruining horses feet, perhaps they would stop being so lazy and actually think about how they can improve the feet instead of causing this damage. Where I come from there are lots of farriers and even the young newly qualified ones are still shoeing horses and leaving long toes, it should be stopped somehow. If some farriers can shoe correctly, then why can't the rest. From what i have seen, the majority of farriers don't care.
My horse's foot problems were not rectified even when I told my farrier twice that my TB was getting footy, especially on his left fore. He just said "that's TB feet for you" and this farrier competes in shoeing competions and also had articles published in horse magazines. When my horse was diagnosed with navicular and "badly collapsed heels" I was livid and just could not understand why he let that happen.:mad:
It makes me sooooo mad:mad: Barefoot trimmers wouldn't be doing such a good trade if farriers did a better job.
 
cptrayes said:
I'd like to help but I'm afraid I'm not prepared to comment until I understand why you are asking and what you are hoping to achieve. If you have already taken those shoes off, I'm baffled what it is you want? The pics appear to be a typical ex racing TB with typical ex racing TB feet, typical appalling racer shoeing and fairly typical racing TB conformation issues, particularly the overlong pasterns.
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Sorry I should have been more clear...not really asking for help it is more an interest in peoples opinions of the shoes/feet in general to see how many think they are bad, how many think they are fine etc etc. There seems to be such a diversity of opinion in hoofcare these days even between farriers, I wanted to see how much opinions differed on these shoes as someone clearly thought they were the right way to shoe this horse. Also cptrayes I do value your opinion/advice from other posts that I have read of yours, so your thoughts would be most welcomed :D I don't want people to think of this post as a barefoot crusade either I would like all opinions purely for my own little research purposes :D Thanks again to all
 
muff747 said:
It really concerns me that farriers carry on shoeing horses in the same way when it is quite obvious that they are doing damage to the hooves. If more farriers were taken to task about ruining horses feet, perhaps they would stop being so lazy and actually think about how they can improve the feet instead of causing this damage. Where I come from there are lots of farriers and even the young newly qualified ones are still shoeing horses and leaving long toes, it should be stopped somehow. If some farriers can shoe correctly, then why can't the rest. From what i have seen, the majority of farriers don't care.
My horse's foot problems were not rectified even when I told my farrier twice that my TB was getting footy, especially on his left fore. He just said "that's TB feet for you" and this farrier competes in shoeing competions and also had articles published in horse magazines. When my horse was diagnosed with navicular and "badly collapsed heels" I was livid and just could not understand why he let that happen.:mad:
It makes me sooooo mad:mad: Barefoot trimmers wouldn't be doing such a good trade if farriers did a better job.
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Thank you for this, there is an awful lot of diversity between farriers and peoples opinions of who is a good farrier etc! Very interested to hear this opinion and before I get jumped on does anyone have the same opinion of trimmers/podiatrists? I am not going to start an argument as to who is right and wrong just for my own research please :D
 
I am glad to hear he is in rehab.
With shoes fitted like those I am rather surprised,if he raced that he made it to rehab in one piece,but maybe he wasnt.

I have an ex racer in the yard that has excellent feet ,plenty of heel and short toes,but he did do a tendon when racing,so maybe not so well shod then.

A little info for your research,several years ago a top trainers farrier died,he was replaced by a less experienced one,in a short space of time they had loss of performance and some injuries,this was put down to probable poor foot balance. A new farrier was taken on and things went back to normal,the horses in this yard have generally decent feet from what I have seen.

The problem for the average owner is that they either do not know that anything is wrong until the horse is having real problems,or that the farrier "knows best" and is just not good enough at his job.

I hope your horse is doing well,make sure you keep us updated.
 
^^^ I think there is often too little knowledge about feet, hence the trust is placed in the farrier.

I grew up at a RS where the farrier was amazing. I bought a pony, and used a popular farrier,

I often asked about lami and was assured I had nothing to worry about. One day she cast a shoe - and he was going on holiday so didn't have time to put them back on - she was crippled for weeks - she had laminitis which was masked by the shoes. That was what made me go barefoot - the fact I couldn't see the lami, yet she could hardly walk when the shoes came off.

I'm actually grateful tothe farrier but it's taken me 18months to rectify the damage he did with her probably foundered front feet,
 
Yuck to the heels - all withered and shrivelled.

Poor TB's. They do suffer so from breed apathy. So common and so un-necessary:(

Hope he is doing better under the OP's care now:)
 
muff747 said:
It really concerns me that farriers carry on shoeing horses in the same way when it is quite obvious that they are doing damage to the hooves. If more farriers were taken to task about ruining horses feet, perhaps they would stop being so lazy and actually think about how they can improve the feet instead of causing this damage. Where I come from there are lots of farriers and even the young newly qualified ones are still shoeing horses and leaving long toes, it should be stopped somehow. If some farriers can shoe correctly, then why can't the rest. From what i have seen, the majority of farriers don't care.
My horse's foot problems were not rectified even when I told my farrier twice that my TB was getting footy, especially on his left fore. He just said "that's TB feet for you" and this farrier competes in shoeing competions and also had articles published in horse magazines. When my horse was diagnosed with navicular and "badly collapsed heels" I was livid and just could not understand why he let that happen.:mad:
It makes me sooooo mad:mad: Barefoot trimmers wouldn't be doing such a good trade if farriers did a better job.
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I don't think that's a fair comment. It's not the farriers fault that tb feet are poor - owners decide to have shoes put on their horses and farriers do the best job they can with the feet they are confronted with.

In my experience (and i had a t/b mare with horrific feet) farrier's (and i tried a number) could do nothing, Cytek helped for a while but no shoe, no farrier and no other style of shoeing other than N/B and Cytek had any kind of impact - and cytek and n/b only had an impact because the shoe was supporting the sole of the foot more than a standard shoe.

It's diet and management that has the biggest impact imo.
 
I sent the OP this as a PM and she found it helpful so I'll go public.

Well OK, if you want my opinion the horse has some of the severest contraction and worst underrun heels I have ever seen. The shoes are several sizes too small. The only way I could think of curing those feet is barefoot but the contraction will take a long time to come right. The central sulcus will come out when the frog widens but meanwhile they could do with being stuffed with cotton wool soaked in sudocrem, very effective for sheared heels He has overlong pasterns, as do many TBs (he seems to be wearing aluminium race plates in the photos??? Not sure - if those are steel and the horse was not in training then the shoeing is completely disgusting and the previous owner was unfortunately very ignorant!!) The farrier who told you that they are OK wants his eyes tested and to go on some more training courses! Until you get the heels back under his cannon bones he's going to continue to struggle with his soundness because his tendons are taking far, far too much strain.
 
PooJay said:
I don't think that's a fair comment. It's not the farriers fault that tb feet are poor - owners decide to have shoes put on their horses and farriers do the best job they can with the feet they are confronted with.

In my experience (and i had a t/b mare with horrific feet) farrier's (and i tried a number) could do nothing, Cytek helped for a while but no shoe, no farrier and no other style of shoeing other than N/B and Cytek had any kind of impact - and cytek and n/b only had an impact because the shoe was supporting the sole of the foot more than a standard shoe.

It's diet and management that has the biggest impact imo.
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I think it IS the farriers fault these feet are so poor. If they are not fit to take shoes, he should have refused to put shoes on them, he's the professional. He should have been advising that this horse had an extended period free of shoes to allow it to decontract and rebuild its feet. Even if he thinks that they are fit to take shoes, he has shod them woefully short in the heel with no support under the cannon bone of the leg at all, using tiny aluminium race plates.

I agree with you that diet and management do have the biggest impact as long as the shoeing is good, this is not. Diet and management will not fix those feet without drastic alteration of its shoeing, but the quickest way will be barefoot.

Why support sole on the shoes, when you can support it on the floor?
 
cptrayes said:
I think it IS the farriers fault these feet are so poor. If they are not fit to take shoes, he should have refused to put shoes on them, he's the professional. He should have been advising that this horse had an extended period free of shoes to allow it to decontract and rebuild its feet. Even if he thinks that they are fit to take shoes, he has shod them woefully short in the heel with no support under the cannon bone of the leg at all, using tiny aluminium race plates.

I agree with you that diet and management do have the biggest impact as long as the shoeing is good, this is not. Diet and management will not fix those feet without drastic alteration of its shoeing, but the quickest way will be barefoot.

Why support sole on the shoes, when you can support it on the floor?
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Exactly, that was the route i took my mare. Although it's bloomin tough going when the soles are so thin you can move them by pressing them and you can see how they are struggling -even on flat smooth ground (and yes we used boots but you can't keep them on 24/7) we transitioned through Cytek and N/b, then to barefoot - there's no way i could've gone straight from standard shoes to barefoot. She could barely stand - her feet were as bad as the photos on this thread - if not worse.

Unfortunately not all farriers use their initiative and only do what the owners tell them. If the owners are not presenting or discussing their horses issues with the farriers (and this is so common, so many people pay their yard to sort farrier visits without the owners being present) which i would never dream of doing might i add!! Owners HAVE to take responsibility as well as farriers....i see so many horses that have such poor feet and owners are completely oblivious to it - yes, you pay an expert to put shoes on a horse but why would the farrier offer a barefoot option when it earns him less money?!?!

Yes a farrier has a duty to shoe a horse to the best of their ability but is it really wholly their responsibility to manage those feet as well as shoe them? My farrier is exceptional and is very pro barefoot (and my new horse has super duper rock crunchers) but had i not mentioned to him that i think she'd do well barefoot he wouldn't have approached the subject with me as it is my choice, not his and i should know enough about the state of my horse to know myself that something could/or needed to change.
 
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