RE: Long toe, low heel

["Kathy Mayeda" <kathy_mayeda@atce.com>]

Oh my gawd - do you actually want the coffin bone to be parallel to
the ground?  Sounds like a ligament breakdown waiting to happen.
The angle you should be concerned with is the fetlock, pastern and
coffin bones should be all aligned. NOT PARALLEL TO THE GROUND.

My gelding has one high heel and one low heel that tends to underrun.
A couple of cycles, my farrier left long toe on because my gelding
tends to have hard hooves when its dry. The low heeled hoof actually
started to get stress cracks in the back and the heel bulb started
sinking - bad cycle to get into.  The heel started to underun.  He
also had definitively more ligament strain on that leg.  So I asked
my farrier to take more toe off, steepen the angle slightly and
have a little more "overage" in the shoe department at the heel.  It
was beginning to reverse itself until last time when my gelding
was shod and I wasn't there and he was short shod again.  Arghhhh!
Good thing that he's taking a break.

When my gelding wears his hooves naturally, he actually stubs his
toe off and has a little more heel.  He has good deep frogs.

Kathy




Robyn said:

 High heels are a disaster for endurance
horses. 
It's like you trying to run in high heels (not very comfortable). When
the 
heels are shortened naturally, the coffin bone is positioned parallel to
the 
ground, and the frog is able to make maximum contact with the ground.
Sounds 
like your farrier is right,  let the feet wear naturally. Adding manmade

gagets (wedge pads) are only adding unnecessary stress to the horses
limbs. 
One thing that concerns me that you mentioned the horses have underrun
heels. 
If Bergy's method is done "correctly" this should never happen. The idea
is 
to shorten the heels to shift the buttress of the foot  beneath the bulb
of 
the foot for correct front to back positioning of the foot. If your
horses 
have underrun heels they definately have too much heel. I highly
recommend 
buying Bergy's books if you don't already have them. They have several
great 
pictures, they are easy to read, understand, and you can train your eye
to 
identify exactly what the natural foot looks like. Good luck!!! 
His website is www. hooftalk.com
Robyn
 


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