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Re: [RC] low heel & use of a wedge - Mary Howell

I'd like to add my voice to the others to encourage you to try competing w/o
using a heel wedge.

We used wedges on the fronts of my main horse for about 3 years, during
which time he was competing in about three 100 milers a year. They did seem
to help with breakover and quality of stride, especially after the 70 mile
mark. The problem was they created one more layer for the nails to hold and,
for my horse, made the shoe much more likely to come off..which they did on
a regular basis, creating a whole new issue in having to have shoes reset
mid-ride (not the best way to help keep your horse sound!)

For the past 18 months or so, we used shoes w/o pads and he's on a 5 week
schedule except during winter months...angles are only about 51 but he
hasn't lost a shoe this whole time and his heels look good, not under run or
contracted at all.

An interesting experience is that for this horse's fastest 50 ever (around 4
hours on a flat, sandy course) his front angles were only about 49%
(inadvertently caused by experimenting with a different farrier and type of
shoe after that year's NC; my regular farrier did the best she could but the
angles were still a couple degrees lower than usual). Go figure!

Mary in VA



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