Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Adding a few comments to Karen Standider's  comments here; I what I have seen farriers do in a in a "typical" farrier trim or "pasture trim" is to take hoof wall down to sole....swipe rasp across

sole to make everything nice and flat, or worse, carve out some concavity in the sole.

Tidy up frog, which may not be necessary.....The wall edge is not rolled, so it pretty immediately starts to flare and chip.

 

More recent thinking and practice is to not pare much frog away (the frog gets a callus

much like the sole, and too much paring can introduce fungus and bacteria)....bars

often self-trim.  On a well balanced barefoot horse getting adequate movement or exercise, it may only be necessary to round hoof wall edges and take wall at quarters down to sole level.

 

Problem with a flat trim, or putting a shoe on a flat foot is that the bottom of the hoof is not flat!  The coffin bone inside has a natural arch...and on a lot of horses, you will see a bit of a scoop at the quarters if you just follow the level of the sole.  The horse steps down, on a heel first landing..back of the hoof acting as a shock absorber from the internal structures (lateral cartlidges and digital cushion and blood)...and the coffin bone becomes ground parallel upon pressure, the whole hoof flexes.... the entire back of the hoof is designed by nature to hit the ground.

 

On a good shoe job, that only has nails in the first forward three holes, you can remove the shoe and see the groove or shine mark worn onto the surface of the shoe from the hoof flexing and widening.  Now think about a padded shoe, often with side clips, or toe clips, and 4 nails to keep the whole thing on......and the hoof can really be prevented from flexing property...really impairs proper hoof function and starts to atrophy  frog, sole, and internal structures.   

 

Back on topic of differences in trimming...even a few swipes of a rasp can render a horse uncomfortable or lame.  I sent a 4 year old gelding off to a trainer for a month or riding...He had been barefoot all his  life, moving on rough terrain, and had about 4 months at my place being ponied and ridden on rocky trails.  He had a big, strong hoof, with a good toe/sole callus, and strong, wide frogs.  I trimmed him before I sent him to the trainer, meaning I basically rolled the hoof wall and made sure heels were even.  I sent easy boots with the horse and even gave the trainer permission to shoe the horse if he needed to, to do a good job riding this horse out on the trails.  This guy is also a farrier

 

The horse ended up there 6 weeks, and right before he came home, the trainer, as a "favor" to me, trimmed up the horse.  He came back with 4 years of hardened , built up toe callus filed off, his frogs trimmed too much, and it took him 2 weeks to even walk normally on my property, had to be booted, and about a month to move the way he had before....

 

And yes, i CAN tell a footsore, barefoot horse.... 

 

My favorite site is www.healthyhoof.com Linda Cowles is an former endurance rider

who has been trimming in northern California for many years.  Her website has the best

links section I have ever seen, for those interested. 
 

The Easycare website also has some excellent articles on barefoot and commentary from vets