Dressager…well, maybe something good will come of this. If he will listen to the vet…maybe the vet will be a little more insightful or at least more open minded.
Here’s hoping! 
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
I have pictures
I have finally gotten the pictures I promised last week. I appologize for the squishy appearance of his feet–he was standing in mud for several hours before I took them.
I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say!!!
Here are the front feet (I have no solar shots because he is wearing snow pads still)
The bber previously known as 5mgn…
“The sweetest of all sounds is praise.” --Xenophon
slb- I talked to the vet a few hours ago. He claims these horses are different but will look at him tomorrow when he comes to the barn and then call my trainer (who agrees with you). The trainer is going to try to convince him that the horse needs to have a shorter toe.
Question- the vet said that a horse can’t have “more heel”… what does this mean? (I said the horse needed to have a shorter toe and more support/build on the heel)
Dressager
California, here we come!!!
Ok…that’s about it for tonight…I’ll come back to discuss some of the other questions tomorrow night (or is that tonight).
Dune…thanks for your contribution…I wish more people would comment with their experiences what worked or didn’t work. We have a pretty narrow view here.
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
Dressager…do straight on side and front shots and a solar view if he isn’t in pads.
Bensmom…did the AAA guy correctly balance and align the tires as he applied them? 
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
Two of my guys have the set back shoes. One is a navicular horse who was nearly crippled with eggbars and eggbars and pads, etc. Finally read something on a shoeing site, and took ot my long suffering farrier who turned this guy into an almost sound horse in two weeks. I had spent about 3 years on other methods and was considering putting him down. This was about 6 years ago. He’s 29 now and still does a beginner lesson once a week.
My young horse tends to trip over his feet constantly unless he is trimmed fairly short and given a set back shoe.
My farrier though does the toe, not radically cut back, but shaped and rounded so that it does not compromise the hoof wall.
“I’ve got a holiday, a paid holiday, I’ve got a holiday in my head”
Both Rear…
Ok, So I have a few questions.
I am trying to get pictures of my mare’s feet this weekend, but we’ll see what happens.
Ok, so here’s the deal. I have an 11 year old OTTB mare, her back feet stay in impeccably good shape. Frogs on the ground, nice smooth roll over, barely any chips if any within a 6-10 wk. span. BUT her front feet are feet from hell! She often over reaches and chips off the heals that we have been trying to hard to get on her. We were almost sucessful in the last trim, but since, she’s pulled off one of the shoes and we’re back to square one. SO my question is, turn her out with bell boots on when she gets her next trim or what? The chipping of the heels is just really starting to get to me and I am at a loss at what to do.
Thanks!
Melissa
Can’t wait to go to farrier school…
~persistence pays off! hehe!~
YAY! Sounds like you had a great session with your farrier Robby – I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this really helps Rhodey. It sounds as if he’s chosen a route that will really help those heels. I think with better angles and better boney column support, he’ll be much more comfortable.
My farrier and I are communicating better, but the jury is still out on Ben’s hind feet. The vet re-read the x-rays and says definitely that Ben is high on the inside of his hind feet. My farrier will still not agree with that, and took care of the hind flares by narrowing the foot, which I am not happy about.
So, for the moment, we are agreeing to disagree, and as long as my horse goes well, and his feet stay closer to balanced, I will not force him to agree with me.
slb – the frustrating thing about this farrier is that he is a very qualified machinist and ran a tremendously successful brake and alignment shop before becoming a farrier. He can fix/fashion from scratch anything and makes the best handmade shoes. When he is on board with the vet and with me, he can work wonders – i.e. Buzz’s wedge steel eventers.
But, we have this central disagreement about what the foot behind is telling us. I can SEE the medial/lateral imbalance with the outside low and he insists that because that side of the foot hits the ground first, it is the high side. Is this what the textbooks teach? I can’t figure out how to deal with this philosophical problem. When shown the x-rays, he suggested the x-ray film was flopped. HUH?!
Argghhhh – he is usually open to new ideas and reads articles and whatnot – any suggestions in farrier mags that I can direct him to?
Another shoeing where I have to get down on my knees and measure everything at his request will push me over the edge!
Thanks guys, and yay Robby!!
Libby
Proud member of the Hoof Fetish Clique
And the last one of both rear…
These are all BEFORE PICTURES. The farrier is due on April 4th. What do I need to focus on and discuss with him??
rt profile
<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Also, needs to take the heels down just a little…that will get them back where they belong. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
SLB,
I guess I don’t understand what this means. Can you explain with a visual aid? Or can you recommend a good basic reference book for “lay people?”
Inspired, I was just curious as to where you live…my farrier does Natural Balance trims, and if you live in my area, I would highly recommend him. I live in Northwestern Pennsylvania, and he also travels to the Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas, as far as I know.
Foundered Horses (long)
I don’t have any pictures, but would appreciate some input. I’ll try to take some this week and post them soon.
I have a TB gelding who’s foundered twice (botched farrier jobs), the first time he had rotation/sinking in all 4. The second time he only rotated in 1 front foot, and thankfully no others.
He has a very underrun heel on his LF, but the RF has a decent amount/height of heel (weird because this is the worse foot). He’s barefoot behind (with no problems other than a small flare which is always there) and is sound on those feet.
He’s shod in frog support pads (to keep some pressure on his frog/sole area) and Natural Balance shoes. This seems to be working, but his front feet aren’t were I would like them to be (still pretty unbalanced). Its been about 6 months with this treatment plan…and while he’s sound (the most important thing), I’d like to see his feet looking better.
He has rockered/rolled/beveled out toes…and we’ve also been cutting them pretty short in an effort to get his heels up. He’s also in a size 3 (soon to be 4) in order to give him heel support.
Does this sound totally off the mark, or should I stick it out since he’s sound and happy; even though his feet still don’t look great? Like I said, I’ll try to get some pictures scanned so you have a better idea of what they look like.
SFVA…that is great…I don’t know why I couldn’t think of Henry’s last name when I wrote that (dain bramage moment). It would be great if he could come and join us. I conversed with him several times when he was researching Stasser. He seems like a very nice person and extremely knowledgable. I am sure that your horses feet look great. You are lucky to have such a competent farrier. I don’t know his take on Natrual Balance principles (which is generally the principles that I support), but very much agree with him on what he learned about Strasser’s methods and how they are, or aren’t, applied in the field by her trimmers.
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
WOW Dune…I thought Strasser followers had a copyright on this type of thinking! So, they’re right, Strasser isn’t presenting anything new…there are others out there…OMG! 
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
[This message was edited by slb on Mar. 05, 2003 at 05:31 PM.]
I have never had a horse abcess before, is this an abcess getting ready to pop? Some sort of blister due to uneven pressure? This is new, as of this morning…
sigh It seems like just yesterday SLB and I were wondering what would happen when this post hit the big 10K views… would the board disintegrate? Would it be able to turn over to 5 digits without a numerical disaster?
And just look at it now! 18K+ ! I’m shocked and amazed and oh-so-proud. 
martha
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
**Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks. **
I appreciate any help I can get here–
Thanks,
Nikki
Hey, John (I think I know which John from Ontario you are) and everyone,
I really enjoy reading the Chronicle forums but have a terrible time posting. I have to quit out of IE and open Netscape and then the type is too small to read.
One thing these 24 pages have shown me is the wide range of shoeing styles we have for normal horses. The feet you all have posted are “real feet” not the picture perfect ones I see all the time at conference presentations.
One thing I like seeing is that so many of the shoes and nail heads do show wear, meaning that these horses are being used. It has been miserable here all winter and few horses are getting ridden on any surface that would wear the shoes, though some of the indoor surfaces can be really abrasive to the wall.
In my job, I get to hang around with some terrific farriers who are sooooo good at what they can do for lame horses. But I keep my horse in a “real world” boarding barn where farriers are nailing on out-of-the-box St Croixs and a good number of th e horses are unshod. Most of the horses have a resale value that is roughly equivalent to a year’s worth of farrier bills at $100 or so a set. They’re ex-racehorses, QHs, Morgans, you-name-it, and maybe their average age is a bit high…
That said, there is relatively little lameness other than pasture cuts and the like. These horses are ridden over rough, rocky trails and on deep sand on the beach and most are weekend warriors who aren’t in great shape. It amazes and delights me how sound they are, espe cially because so many have conformational faults and/or clubby feet.
The farriers at this barn aren’t superstars, and I don’t think any except mine is AFA certified, and none of them have big shiny trucks. If you went to a conference and looked at these horses afterwards you’d think “wow, those toes are long” or “wow, why so many nails”.
There aren’t any NB shoes in use, no Equipak or impression material, very few pads, etc., although most the barefoot ones use or have on hand Old Macs, a great new product (in my opinion).
They’re just horses, and lots of them would be en route to French dinner tables if their owners tried to sell them. And the shoers and trimmers are just doing their job and seem to understand the value of the horse and the budgets of the owners.
It’s a beautiful thing when it works for the owner and the farrier and most of all for the horses.
I know we all think that our horses could be balanced a bit differently or we worry about that dish in the toe or high-low fronts, but if your horse is sound and has been for a while, you are so lucky. I hear from people every day in dire straits in the most expensive barns and in the most forsaken corners of the globe (even an owner of a foundered horse in Iraq the other day who wonders how to evacuate a lame horse). They feel helpless standing by as their horses suffer.
Yeah, if your horse is sound, don’t change too much. Hug your farrier, and pat yourself on the back.
Thanks for letting me see what’s under your horses. It’s been an education for me, too.
Fran Jurga
Hoofcare & Lameness: Journal of Equine Foot Science
and “Hoofcare Online” e-newsletter
www.hoofcare.com…
