My recent trainer felt that my horse’s feet were stinging. He has great xrays and lots of foot. Very well balanced, correct, healthy horn,lots of growth. At one time the farrier did say he had thin souls. He has since said that is no longer the case. But I am thinking of trying pads. Has anyone done this with positive results?? How much does it affect the way the horse moves?? Do you use them with aluminum or with steel shoes? thanks for any experiences you can share with me.
What kind of pads? Full or just rims?
My mare has thick leather rim pads. That is just enough for her.
Farrier, I and Vet decided to give it a try because my mare had little bruises and had started to buck a little sometimes after the jumps.
She stopped those little bucks right away, her gaits improved and she feels way more comfortable.
I had to switch farrier for a short period this year (big mistake, but it is not the subject) and this farrier decided on its own that it was time to try her again without the leather rims because she obviously has nice strong feet “and that she should learn to live without” (his word)…Well, I wasn’t happy at all with neither his decision nor the result.
So back to original farrier and leather pads!
My trainer has her horse in full leather pads and then, a plastic/rubber solution is injected in between its sole and the pad and kinda close/fill the whole thing. She does upper level dressage competitions and her horse is such a good mover!
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I will talk to my farrier about which to use, full or rim. And mine does that bucking after the jumps too…so this is encouraging…I am having him shod next Tuesday a week and hope I have the same results you did. Did you use aluminums or steel? And how about your trainer?
Ask your farrier about Dura Shock pads. My jumper used to have VERY thin soles–like when you pulled his shoes and radiographed his feet his coffin bones almost touched the ground. He is shod in an aluminum heart bar with a Dura Shock pad cut as a rim (all around the shoe). His soles are great now but we keep him in this set up because it works so well for him.
My hunter wears aluminums and No Vibe pads–these are much more flexible and lighter than the Dura Shocks. He’s a terrible mover in anything so it’s hard to say how they effect him in that respect. 
Mine is shod with steel.
Has your horse really hard hooves? Mine does (farrierS have trouble putting nails in. Her father was the same!) and to soften them I do hooves packing once every other week with Forshner and I sometime add Magic Cushion as well as a first layer. It helps a lot!
Good luck!
My horse had paper-thin soles, but with three shoeing cycles of pour in Equibuild he hasn’t had a problem since and goes fine in front shoes alone (almost a year now).
One of my thoroughbreds has very thin soles, he stone bruises if he even looks at a rock. 
He wears full leather pads spring/summer/fall and snow pads in the winter. There have been no adverse effects, I’m all about having him comfortable enough to do his job.
We had to use them on my jumper for a good amount of time. His soles were really soft and painful (due to poor conditions at our previous barn us noob horse owners were not aware of) and we were battling with soundness for a long time with him. FINALLY got a good farrier out who suggested the pads as protection on his soles as he about collapsed with all 4 shoes pulled his soles were that bad I THINK we had those injectable ones that Alibi said. Had like a black mesh looking thing on top and a yellow white hard bit under that. Anyway, after a few months of those and some corrective shoeing (and a good loss of wallet) he was sound without them! He is still sound and has not needed them since. He can go with front shoes, all shoes, or no shoes. Right now he is in full shoes as we had a different farrier butcher them. xP grr. Im pretty sure we used steel shoes. Good luck!!!
One of mine goes in flip-flop pads now and they have done wonders for him.
[QUOTE=Tehzebra;6247500]
( I THINK we had those injectable ones that Alibi said. Had like a black mesh looking thing on top and a yellow white hard bit under that. [/QUOTE]
This would be vettec equipak or something similar, under the mesh. Same for the ones injected under full leather pads. Your farrrier will decide which product is appropriate, but you can see them all at www.vettec.com
In our case, the farrier uses this system along with a wedge pad, as he feels it is essential to maintain support and not crush the heels (at least that is what I got out of the explanation).
Leather pads are great for breatheability. Be cautious about wet months, as debris can get underneath the pad if you leave them bare between the sole and the pad. The purpose of leaving them bare with the leather is that the leather can breathe and give ventilation to the hoof itself. If you are in a very soily/rocky/stone dusty situation, you may want to consider a filled plastic or rubber pad.
If it is not the soles that are the issue but the rim, leather rim pads are the best. The no vibes in a rim will cause “bounce” for a lack of a better term to the shoe itself which makes a long term wear of 4-5 weeks nearly impossible.
I always choose steele when talking about a pad as aluminum wears quickly and doesn’t have quite the support the steel provides.
If it is the soles, I would suggest (if leather pad isn’t an option) the gel pad. Simply; a piect of mesh is placed on hoof, the shoe is nailed on. The gel is then poured into the foot- TOE first working your way back to the heel. The mesh allows the gel to stay put. the gel will set in about a minute, and will have a give to it similar to a yoga mat.
To save a buck if this is going to be a long term thing for you: buy the gel gun and the product yourself, and have the farrier put the mesh and shoe on. Anyone who watches it done once can repeat it.
FWIW- I have a cutte pleasure hunter that is overly foot sore, purely unexplained- when we try (every year) to give him a break from his leather pads- he gets magic cushion every day, which helps- but then he gets back into the pads.
Try rim pads and steel shoes on him.
The rim pads just add a little lift between the ground and the foot and IME give some protection against bruising or reliefe to the thin soled without putting a barrier on the whole bottom of the foot. Cheaper and lighter too.
Did not have good luck with the aluminum shoes with any kind of pad staying on-mine went out anywhere from 4 to 12 hours a day. The aluminum does “walk” a bit and the clinches can get reamed and chippy.
The steel made about a -.05% difference in movement and was easily worth the trade off on an 8 mover (on a really good day) who wasn’t going to win the hack anyway. If yours is a 9/10 mover, you might want to stick with the lighter aluminum and plan shoe searching into your turnout schedual.
My OTTB has thin soles and was getting stone bruises last year. My farrier put him in full pads during the winter. He used the gel gun described earlier in this thread. It was the best winter I’ve had…no problems at all. Last shoeing cycle farrier said that we now move to rim pads, because we dont want to chance mud getting in there. He’s doing great in rim pads too. When we hit the dry summer months and ground is hard we will return to full for one or two cycles, then back to rim. He is in aluminum and havent had any issues. I will say that I began using keratex hoof hardener on lower part of outside of hoof, as well as sole (not near frog!) and I believe the twice a week application has also really helped him.
I had my vet come out today and x-ray while the farrier was there to get an idea of what we need to do for pads. Interestingly enough, it’s not thin soles being problematic for my horse but rather flat feet (with less than ideal angles on the heel). We decided, or they decided, to go with a degree wedge (aluminum) shoe and no pads. Last summer I had the horse in a slight wedge pad and plain aluminum shoes. Of note, on this horse I had no issues with the shoes sliding around, but was also careful to shoe every 4 weeks. Over the winter since the foot and sole looked so good, we took the wedge pad off and had him flat shod. Some behavior changes recently had me thinking that may not have been a great idea…
Has anyone used the wedge shoe before without a pad? The purpose here is to take some of the load of his coffin joints…
Thanks!
E
[QUOTE=meupatdoes;6248017]
One of mine goes in flip-flop pads now and they have done wonders for him.[/QUOTE]
Can you describe these? They SOUND cool!
[QUOTE=Herbie19;6252005]
Can you describe these? They SOUND cool![/QUOTE]
They are awesome.
Basically, the pad covers the whole foot, but is only attached by a shoe in the front half of the foot. The backs of the shoes are cut off so only the front half is left. The pad is cut out so that the shoe fits into it and the surface is level with the shoe (slightly scooped on the inside).
The back half is not attached, like a flip flop. There is no metal and you can pull it back away from the heel.
It immediately alleviated my horse’s sore heels, since he lands on just rubber with no hard shoe, and they are much harder for him to pull since the pad just bends away if he does catch the back.
The only downside is that, between the flip flops and the double bell boots that he wears, he makes a big racket trotting or cantering around so we won’t be sneaking up on anyone any time soon.
I will try to take a quick pic or video with my phone tomorrow when I am back out at the barn.
Yup. Had one with navicular changes that went in the wedgies with no pad in winter, rim pads midsummer. And that one was a really nice mover so stayed in aluminum.
My darling TB wears full leather pads from April-October on his front feet, shod with steel shoes. He is okay without them but being thin-soled and sensitive, he is definitely happier with them on. His work ethic is much better and his trot is happier and more floaty and pretty.
My farrier prefers the leather pads as they allow more flexibility and natural movement with the hoof. He also recommends not leaving them on year-round as the footing in our indoor arena is fine and it gives my guy’s feet a change to breath while just wearing rims for snow ball purposes.
If I didn’t see positive results, leather pads are probably not something I would pay for just because. However, the results have been positive and it doesn’t really break the bank so I plan on continuing for the foreseeable future.
I’d love to see pics of those flip-flop pads, sounds interesting!
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[QUOTE=meupatdoes;6252148]
They are awesome.
Basically, the pad covers the whole foot, but is only attached by a shoe in the front half of the foot. The backs of the shoes are cut off so only the front half is left. The pad is cut out so that the shoe fits into it and the surface is level with the shoe (slightly scooped on the inside).
The back half is not attached, like a flip flop. There is no metal and you can pull it back away from the heel.
It immediately alleviated my horse’s sore heels, since he lands on just rubber with no hard shoe, and they are much harder for him to pull since the pad just bends away if he does catch the back.
The only downside is that, between the flip flops and the double bell boots that he wears, he makes a big racket trotting or cantering around so we won’t be sneaking up on anyone any time soon.
I will try to take a quick pic or video with my phone tomorrow when I am back out at the barn.[/QUOTE]
Does sand or dirt get in the toe? Can you just bend the back half and brush it out? These sound very interesting!
