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[RC] Interference & Forging - k s swigartMichelle said: I called him this morning, he said that interference is usually caused ?by something higher up than the foot ... My horse is currently doing BOTH interference and forging.? In my experience, interference and forging are caused by quite different things.? Interference is caused by a less than straight flight path of the foot.? This less than straight flight path of the foot can be caused by any lateral abnormality anywhere in the leg, including the foot, but not just the foot, some horses have crooked legs?and are gonna interfere no matter what you do their feet, but some interference problems can be made better or worse by changing the lateral balance of the foot. Forging (I am assuming that we are talking about forging at the trot), on the other hand, is caused by a longitudinal imbalance.? Forging is, in essence, the equivalent of saying "heavy on the forehand."? This is why some horses only start to do it after they get tired.? The horse is spending more time with its weight on its front feet than the back, and the back foot is coming forward before the front foot has gotten out of the way.? You can change how quickly the horse gets its front feet out of the way with shoing by changing the breakover of the feet.? However, most farriers make the mistake of speeding up the break over of the back feet in an attempt to fix forging (which only works if it causes your horse to short stride behind) rather than speeding up the break over of the front feet (the ones you want to get out of the way). However, I have found it to be more beneficial to teach the horse to engage its hind quarters and round its back.? Horses the work well from behind don't forge because the front end isn't in the way of the back end by being slow. During the winter she is occasionally barefoot, and early in ?the conditioning season she only has front shoes. Shoing only the front feet contributes substantially to "heavy on the forehand."? If you protect the front feet but not the back feet, the horse is going to choose to bear most of its weight on its front feet.? Personally, I don't like to ride horses that have protection on the front feet but not on the back as asking that horse to then use its hindquarters is something I consider to be grossly unfair. I will often have shoes on the back but not on the front.? I just don't do it the other way around (unless there is some therapeutic reason to keep weight off the hind end). But, if I had a horse that just started interfering but hadn't been for miles and miles before, I WOULD be inclined to think that it was something different in?the shoing job (8 1/2 year old horses don't develop crooked legs) unless there were some obvious injury (in the shoulder if the horse is interfering in front or in the hip if it is interfering behind).? If I had a horse that has started forging and it is getting worse, I would assume that it was because I was not working it "correctly." (Or that it had a subtle hind end or back pathology that was making it disinclined to engage the HQ and/or round its back). I MIGHT consider it to be a neurological pathology if both the things started at the same time as both of them CAN be attributed to "incoordination."? And if my horse became suddenly and progressivly both laterally and longitudinally incoordinated at the same time, I would seriously consider the possibility that it had some neurological impairment. kat Orange County, Calif. :) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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