Toe clips on the hinds

SuperH said:
Anyone any experience or facts about this?
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I am not totally sure of the question, but the hind shoes don't generally have a single toe clip as they often have lateral twist to cope with and the 2 quarter clips are better at coping with this. Also, many hind shoes are set back slightly on the foot to help protect against over reaches, and quarter clips allow this to happen whilst still being able to help stabilise the shoe. In essence, many horses have the toe of the actual foot slightly forward of where a single toe clip would sit.

Is that the sort of answer you were after?
 
My farrier has just shod my section d with toe clips on the hinds and I'm just debating whether to ask him to go back to what we had previously or let him run with his experiment. His reason for doing to was to let the side walls strengthen (and he did say something else too but my toddler was distracting me and I don't remember). He said he has been shoeing a few others on his books like this recently and has had good results (and no overreaching). Her feet are ok, in previous years she has had poor quality hooves but at the moment they are looking good.

She is currently in very light hacking work due to my lack of time. We are on heavy clay, she is not fed at all and she is out all the time. He has shod her for the last 6 years, every 5 weeks, and has tried a few different options over that time.

Farrier is very happy to discuss all issues in detail and I wanted some additional questions to pose to him on his next visit. I shall ask about lateral twist, thank you.
 
TBH, if the horse is on light hacking only, IME the best way to strengthen the hooves is to take the shoes off. Of course, it is not instant, and needs building up slowly, but I have seen wonderful transformations within a few months.

I have evented one who had no toe clips on at all, she was uncomfortable with them so we did without. There were no ill effects, the shoes stayed in place, so I would not worry about any lateral twist per se. It is just as I understand it, one of the reasons that quarter clips are more prevalent on the hinds.
 
A farrier in my area shoes with them, he is Polo player also and they are often used on Polo Ponies, I think they find them good for horses doing fast stops etc as in polo and some western events.

Personally I don't like them and the time he shod mine I asked for quarter clips. I was worried about the damage they would do if the horse over reached.
 
A couple of things when I've asked about toe clips v. quarter clips, I'm not entirely sure on the second point myself ;).
1) toe clips limit where you can set the shoe more.
2) sometimes quarter clips can encourage the hoof to run forwards between them.

Re sidewalls, unconvinced.
 
My old TB with low heels used to be shod like this for ages complete with leather pads - moved to Ireland & my fab farrier here had him in quarter clips with no pads with no issues at all 🤷‍♀️
 
Never heard of using a toe clip at the front on the hinds... the hinds are a totally different shape from front hooves, there is no reason for them to require the sidewalls to strengthen unless the entire hoof needs to strengthen, but in that case I’d be taking the shoes off completely...
 
I had toe clips on the hind on a Fell Pony for a while. He had quite heavy driving shoes on at the time and the farrier just made them like that. He was doing quite a lot of road miles both in harness and ridden and had excellent feet. Don't think the clips made any difference, never really thought about it at the time.
 
Yeah I remember OH telling me about a driving cob that wore toe clips behind. Something about the horse being hard on its hind feet and the toe clips kept the shoe anchored forward in the right place.
He draws the clips out of the shoes where they need to be rather than fitting a front shoe to a hind foot, same with putting quarter clips on a front shoe.
 
Lots of racehorses have plates with hind toe clips, only problem I've had is if they catch a toe on the road and take the clip off.
 
Thank you, some interesting points for me to discuss with him. He is very keen on the science of shoeing and I've always given him free rein as such with my two. He hand makes each shoe, so he isn't just putting a front on the hind, it is a hind shoe, made to fit her but with a toe clip. I don't think there is an issue with her hooves at all, her hinds have never been an issue since I owned her, hence my questioning the benefit of doing this now when her feet are good.
 
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