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Re: [RC] natural balance shoes - Karen Sullivan

my short answer is that my farrier did a pretty aggressive taking back the toe on my 5 year old, who was tripping.  He did tell me that it might take up to 2 weeks for her to get used to them.....but it was not THAT much of an adjustment  problem since he has trimmed her since age 6 mos......so she has always been trimmed with toes back correctly, etc.  In other words, she was not going from a really long toe into these....
 
She was not sore the first shoeing.....and my dressage trainer and I agreed that she was moving better from the beginning.
The biggest difference I have seen is that she isn't tripping at all, like she was before.
 
Oddly enough, my farrier said setting back the shoe more over the point of the coffin bone would tend to protect it from bruising.....however, realize this horse is being ridden over rocks, and not in a dressage arena!!!
 
I wrote a pretty long post about this just last week, will dig it up......
 
My daughters Arab also was in these for a year or so....until we got a handle on hoof angles and he could return to a
standard shoe.  She was never sore in the natural balance and also movved better without tripping.
 
There are  TON of other factors as to why those horses might be moving funny and getting sore.....the key also is not lettin the
heel of the horse get too high.......like the horse is in stilts.....balance trim, etc.....
Karen
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 2:27 PM
Subject: [RC] natural balance shoes

Hope I'm not opening a can of worms with this one...

I am looking for some feedback about natural balance shoes.  I am working for a dressage trainer right now whose horses are shod in these, and has since had a lot of soundness problems that look familiar to me.  In the past I've seen endurance horses with natural balance shoes exhibit this pattern: horse looks great for several weeks, moving well using his hind end, etc., then begins to have sore feet, suspensories, and hocks (presumably from compensating for front end soreness). 

My memory sucks and I can't recall all the details, since the endurance horses were not mine.  From what I remember, they were getting a lot of concussion to the coffin bone because of the shoe being set so far back, and changing the breakover point was causing the sore suspensories.

This trainer that I'm working for now seems to think all this lameness will pass, that the horse is having to adjust to the new method of shoeing, but it's been a couple of months.  Can someone explain to me the details of how these shoes are supposed to work, or the reason they don't work?  I'd love to be able to provide this trainer with some info, and satisfy my own curiosity!  :)

Thanks,
Karen


Replies
[RC] natural balance shoes, Doubledal