I’m searching for a dressage prospect and found one I liked. Got it vetted and vet says one front hoof/pastern is a little more upright than the other. Called it “almost a club foot,” but said it is being trimmed and managed properly. Would this finding deter you? Seems to be working sound.
Get xrays of the feet just to be safe. If nothing found, at least you have them for farrier assistance and future comparisons. I vetted a young (6ish) mare with an upright, club-like foot years ago. Vet xrays showed some coffin bone rotation.
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be sure it doesnt create an uneven gait. SLow motion video would help you see it.
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So, you got xrays as part of the vetting? And the bone structure looks good… at this point?
Can you use the same farrier? If not, do you have access to a great farrier who can maintain the horse?
Well… depending on my budget, my relationship plans for this horse (resell or a forever home) and my intended goals… no, these findings as you presented them would not necessarily deter me.
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I have a horse like this. He has been awesome, but whether I would buy one again depends entirely on how much I trust my farrier. The club itself causes no problems, but mismanagement of it has caused many over the years. Mine needs to wear a wedge shoe on the club to maintain conformationally appropriate alignment while keeping the heel back far enough. Farriers who insist on putting him in a flat shoe or god forbid trying to make the foot look normal (because it is almost normal, and they can make it look so for awhile) eventually cause dishing, white line disease, and eventually injury.
With an educated farrier he stayed sound for years. Then I moved. He is sound again and just getting ready to come back into work after another foray into flat shoe with a new farrier lead to collateral ligament injury and white line disease, followed by an unrelated splint bone fracture in the other front leg.
It’s been a fun two years.
Horse is now 18, was sound from 7 - 16. Lameness at 6 very mild and immediately resolved with farrier change.
Short answer: I’d do it again with my current farrier, but not with an average one.
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I have a mustang that came with a clubbed foot. He moves well and his oddity is undetectable in movement… and farrier basically gets to ignore him. He maintains his feet well on creek crossings for the most part, so much so that i usually have a hard time picking out which hoof is clubbed.
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If the x-ray shows a healthy foot and shows the foot is due to genetics vs an injury, I would consider it. I don’t think it is that uncommon in some breeds and bloodlines. A foot can become clubby at a young age from an untreated injury though, in which case the coffin bone will show damage/be misshapen.
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No. In fact, I own one like this. Her left front is “clubby.” With a good farrier, it has not been a problem. If you trust your farrier and have a good working relationship with then, then it’s not s problem.
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…For ‘almost club footed horses’ a good educated farrier is a must.
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I believe I’ve heard that high/low syndrome has been correlated to cervical malformation, so you might want to get neck x-rays before proceeding (I won’t buy another horse without the neck x-rays).
Also, I think what individual vets might term a club can vary a lot. I have a mare with a fairly obvious high/low, and I had a vet check it out and take x-rays, and he did not term it a club or even close to it (I asked directly). She is schooling 2nd and bits of 3rd now, but the mismatched front feet don’t do her any favors and I probably wouldn’t get another with a pronounced high/low.
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Do you have anything to support this? Curious as I had a high/low horse that presented some neurological tendencies.
I’m pretty sure I heard it in a webinar with Sharon May-Davis, probably on Wendy Murdoch’s SureFoot YouTube channel.
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I’ve also heard that and had a horse that presented as such 
Here’s one source, which is interesting reading overall: https://thehorsesback.com/c6-c7-malformation/. “The problem may lead to heavily asymmetric loading of the forefeet, so may be accompanied by a severe high foot/low foot issue (this is not in itself a sign of the C6-C7 problem).” This is about C6/C7 though, which are hard to image.
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My horse has an “almost club foot” and it’s never caused him a lick of trouble because I have one of the top farriers in the area attending to him. My friend from years ago had an appy that was really club footed and she didn’t have issues with him either. He lived to be 42 years old too.
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Same as above. Heaps of trouble with a told was the best farrier around by more than one source including the vet. Not with the club foot. The other hoof is pigeon toed, so it was not trimmed like a pigeon toed hoof and was trimmed to look like the club foot and when I called to say the horse was lame after trimming I was told it was because it had been wet that week.
I’ve had a few horses over the years with a club foot. Never had a problem with lameness or otherwise when a good farrier was looking after them. If vetting is clean other than the slight club, I wouldn’t be concerned. Hasn’t limited any of my horses ability.
I had a mare that had a mild high/low situation. One farrier made the high one into an ‘almost’ club. New farrier resolved it in a couple of cycles. Sometimes it is man made.
Susan
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Can the club foot become more developed and pronounced as they get older? I vetted a horse at 3 and asked if he was clubby and he passed, recently changed farriers and now at 6 its just much more noticeable recently.
Thoughts?
do you have photos?
