Per my vet’s instruction, I am about to embark on “frog” pads (I’m probably repeating that wrong) to stimulate sole growth. In your experiences, once the sole grows out and you remove the pad, do you have issues with the sole shrinking again? My understanding is the pad stimulates circulation and so grows sole. If the sole is not even with the bottom of the shoe and therefore does not contact the ground, will it lose depth?
My second set of rads above were 3 years later with only pour in pads being used in prime fly season after the initial problem was resolved. Sole definitely didn’t shrink. In fact the problem became too much retained live sole to the point that without these rads, farrier was sometimes not comfortable taking off as much foot as he needed to. Collateral grooves didn’t look crazy. Even my vets were shocked by the X-rays. He tended to shed sole behind pretty normally but not so much in front.
YMMV since my horse barefoot had good sole on PPE. I think a combination of factors caused him to lose sole depth—he was always prone to flaring and we kept him short, he was laid up for months with limited movement, once back to work went out and stomped flies all summer, also had a huge growth spurt to dinosaur size, and we have terribly hard ground. So perhaps if he had been able to go back to barefoot in a different climate he would have had more normal and not crazy sole feet. But we kept him shod and proactively protected from getting sore, and he wound up with gobs of sole.
Even so, he still developed marked sidebone between the sets of rads above. And he also went lame in the feet. Since his sudden departure, we are taking some time to really study his feet now. 
A friend’s horse has genetically and conformationally cause pancake feet. He gained some sole from Equipak and I can’t say he has had the same results as mine, but he went in regular pads last summer and seems to have stayed out of dangerously thin territory.
Wow that’s a huge difference! Thank you for posting those pics. I’m interested to see the difference they will make for my mare.
Have any of you had problems with your horse not liking the pour-in pads? My horse moves short in them. Seems, almost bi-laterally lame. I so want to take them off. My plan is to take them off and have radiographs taken before having him reshod next week. My horse also has arthritis in his hocks and other body issues and it is hard to figure out what really bothers him most.
He also just lost one of the pads. I guess the mesh tore and it fell out. He couldn’t keep them in without the mesh.
My guy is getting them put on tomorrow so we will see how he feels about them but my vet did say he might be uncomfortable the first few days while he adjusts. How long has your horse had them? He might not like the sole or frog pressure and if so maybe pads are not for him.
This is such a frustrating challenge! My OTTBs have always had super-thin soles. Gosh – i WISH my horses had .7 thickness! My guy now has .4 and he came off the track with a little rotation from so much grain. He has been barefoot for more than two years with varying success. He has thin, shelly hoof walls and thin soles. He’s a big guy too—16.3. So the hoof walls are crap—I couldn’t keep shoes on him to save my life for any reasonable amount of time. Dry weather has been our saving grace, as is DuraSole. It’s now been almost a year on Farrier’s Formula double strength and letting him go 8-9 weeks between farrier visits—and my farrier is great. I’m not a big barefoot-at-any-cost advocate. My horses have always had shoes at least in front. But Roo is sound barefoot and his hoof walls have grown out below his soles without mushing or chipping much at all, and I have to attribute that to the Farrier’s Formula. As long as this continues and his hoof walls continue to improve, I’m fine with him barefoot, even here in the TX hill country. Shows or clinics or indoors are only a huge bonus on footing quality! With TB genetics, I doubt that he will ever grow sole to the same level as other breeds, but he is comfortable and sound now.
I knew at least one horse that couldn’t tolerate them. There are some ways to do partial pours that might work in those cases, but even so they don’t work for everyone.
My horse is recovering from acute laminitis. Once she got out of hoof boots and back into shoes, she has been getting what I think my farrier calls impressions pads, but it’s basically the same thing as a pour in. He has two substances that have a play-dough like consistency that he squishes together. He then presses it onto her sole and lets it set. Once set it feels like the bottom of a running shoe. She then gets a frog support pad and then regular steel shoes.
Just had rads done yesterday and the vet remarked about how much more sole she has now. It’s been about 3 months with this set up.
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I mean, it will just by virtue of the sole physically cannot wear down. There’s a lot to why a horse might have thin soles - genetics play a smaller role than what people like to think. Nutrition and workload matter more than what most realize. Moving incorrectly (landing toe first because of caudal foot pain do to anything from DDFT soreness or thrush even) will wear the sole under the coffin bone faster.
I did that with my horse, the sole thickness was artificially gained because it wasn’t wearing off. But the foot ran forward and smashed more. Cutting out soy/sugar/fillers in most feeds (I now feed alfalfa and a small amount of whole oats with a balancer from ForagePlus) and a SLOW increase of work on varying surfaces (sand and grass, tarmac, then gravel) have done the best for us.
You can get similar results from Hoof Armor, using boots when you ride, and occasional application of Keratex (to be fair I still use Keratex when it’s wet during hunting season).
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Yesterday my farrier did pour-in pads up front at the vet’s recommendation (of course it was a giant pain because of the cold temperatures). The vet did not annotate the x-rays at all or give a formal write-up, but I took measurements on the x-rays myself and came up with 8 mm sole depth in front and 12 mm on the hinds. It will be interesting to see if/how the pads affect things.
It’s hard to tell how he’s tolerating the pads because we also pulled his hind shoes (for other reasons) and he is absolutely miserable. He snatches his hind feet up like the ground is lava and at rest either stands under himself or rests/lifts one hind foot at a time. His previous owner used to pull all shoes for a cycle every fall so it helps to know he’s been through this before but it’s still really really hard to watch and I’m worried about him. Ugh.
I actually just ordered some Hoof Armor for his hinds! I’ve never used it before so I’m interested to try it.
My AQHA gelding had pour ins the last 3 years of his life they provided immense relief for him it was a challenge to grow hoof no matter what I did his nutrition was the best it could be with double doses of foot supplements. The farrier was amazing though really working with him pour ins leather wedges and aluminum shoes. that horse walked the best he ever had until the end with that combo.
My current horse a stout draft cross had to go in a frog support pad with magic cushion. the previous farrier did a number on him and somehow he was still sound, 14-15 MM of sole depth and his center of rotation was off 2 1/2 degrees. Trusting a farrier with a good reputation unfortunately just not right for my horse. new farrier was able to do the pad for 3 shoeings and now he is back in regular steel shoes with a slight wedge. Such a great difference and I loved the pads for him.
I will say both horses took about 24-48 hours to really get used to the shoes they were slightly short in the front for sure!
Has anyone done wooden clogs to increase sole depth? I’m curious. Thanks!
What are wooden clogs? Never heard of them for horses.
