What is Hoof Building?

Horses are born with feet that have a greater ratio of sensitive soft tissue ( that’s mostly in the back of the foot ) to hard horn ( that’s mostly in the front of the foot ). Most horses that are born and live their lives in the wild, maintain this ratio throughout their lives from daily miles of wear. It may not be an easy life, but moving is easy and for the most part, pain free. As they mature, their soft tissue gains depth as it gets conditioned from use. The harder sole and wall retain their tight relationship to the frog, digital cushion and lateral cartilages from miles of daily wear. This gives them ease of breakover and a fluid buoyant touchdown. Over the years with this type of movement, wild horses continually build their soft tissue and the condition of their feet and bodies. I think it’s safe to say that most wild horses can take their feet for granted.

However, I do believe that it is possible to have even better feet on domestic horses because we are able to control their environment. We can provide track systems with good footing and proper trimming and access to good food/water/salt etc…

It is possible to give them amazing feet…that they don’t have to think about or compensate for.

Years ago I rehabbed a little 5 year old mustang mare from founder caused by distortion. She had been captured on the range when she was 1.5 years old. Her feet steadily declined even though she was being trimmed by a “natural” bare foot practitioner ( natural is not a 5 minute trim with a grinder once every 6 weeks ). After 3 years with this trimmer her feet were distorted and her legs were showing signs of crookedness. After rehabbing her ( helping her regrow fully live hoof capsules that were properly aligned with her legs ) I brought her to my place to start her. After some ground work, followed by light riding in a round pen, I decided we were ready for some trail riding. The first 20 minutes on our dirt road were amazing and I was so proud of our partnership. The following, harrowing, 2 minutes after that I spent accepting my possible demise. We were both staring at a really interesting shadow under a cluster of scrubby cypress trees at the edge of a dry wash, when all of a sudden the shadow morphed into 3 black cows jumping up from their nap and scurrying away at the sight of a guy with a hat riding toward them on a horse. I was taking this all in when the little mare dropped her shoulder and bolted in the opposite direction. I instantly realized we needed more practice with the one rein stop. Her little short and stout mustang neck was just part of the torpedo that was headed as far away from the cypress goblins as possible. Ahead of us there was a patch of baseball and basket ball sized rocks closely strewn in a 200 ft diameter clearing. I knew that’s where we were going and there was nothing I could do about it. My instinct was to give her the reins, relax my hips and shoulders, and just enjoy my ride to heaven. The world became still for a few seconds and we were floating in slow motion over a field of rocks and boulders. I never felt a break in her stride or any change in elevation. I was an accidental Jedi on a fur covered hovercraft. Then just like that, she did a flawless 180 degree haunches over stop from a gallop. From there we assessed the direction of the fleeing beasties and she gave them a great big farewell snort. My soul came back into my body and I gave her a grateful pat on her neck. Then I pointed her in the direction of the cows and we followed them until it was apparent to her that cows run from horses. I’ll never forget the feeling of gliding over that rugged landscape and knowing what horses are capable of if we get out of their way.

The trend for most domestic horses is to confine them and let their feet grow more than they wear, even though their feet grow at the same rate as their wild counterparts. Some domestic horses are luckier and have owners that understand the importance of starting babies out with regular hoof care and/or giving them turnout for self wear, but a lack of acreage, knowledge, finances, or time may have a negative effect. The result is a foot that has a greater ratio of insensitive dead sole and horn to sensitive soft tissue. Distortion from the growth rate steadily surpassing the wear rate becomes commonplace. This kind of foot is a weak foot that depends on favorable conformation in order to have minimal distortion. With current breeding practices, good conformation is rare. Most domestic horses grow up with feet that aren’t sustainable. They rely on rubber boots, composite shoes, or steel shoes to be able to move. Most domestic horses are far too aware of their feet. Distortion = pathology and in my experience, every horse I meet has some degree of distortion and most are unfortunately higher on the spectrum.

This can be an easy problem to fix. Maybe not physically, but conceptually, if we could just change our boarding practices and learn to augment by simulating daily miles of wear, our domestic horses could regain their birth right and take their feet for granted again.

Not only could they live without compensating from pain and distortion, but they could have feet that improve over their lifetime rather than declining and leaving them creeping around during early retirement. There’s even hope for retired horses. Soft tissue is regenerative as long as the weight distribution is correct. We can take advantage of the constant feed of hoof horn to correct the weight distribution by simply keeping it tight to the edge of the sole and removing any dead layers of frog and sole. It’s not exactly that simple, but here’s a more in depth explanation of how hoof building differs from conventional trimming and/or shoeing:

Frog and quarter clearance is my initial goal. I use the outside edge of the sole ( lamina ) as a trim guide for the quarters and the inside edge of the sole ( collateral grooves ) as a trim guide for the frog. I also use the central sulcus as a trim guide for the heels. I train my eye to differentiate between calloused live sole and dead retained sole that accumulates where there is lack of wear. Due to the forward angle of the hoof pastern axis, the hoof wall grows down and forward. When the new wall, sole, and frog growth exceeds the border of the live horn, it dries out, gets hard, and migrates forward. In wet climates, it just dies and assumes the moisture content of the environment, making it more difficult to distinguish between the dead and live horn. In my experience, the trimming parameters remain the same. Either way, this results in leverage from excess toe length migrating in front of the foot and crushing from excess heel and bar horn migrating under the foot. When this is under managed, the excess dead horn fills in the natural curves of the foot, giving the solar surface a flat appearance. If the curves aren’t respected with the trim, they get lost. The diameter of the peripheral edge of the sole increases as the sole and lamina stretch and flatten. Definition between the solar structures can be lost. Horses are born with their coffin bones, lateral cartilages, and digital cushion suspended in an arch that gives the foot strength because of it’s sturdy but flexible nature. Adequate use ( approx 20 miles per day ) continually builds and strengthens this arch. Lack of movement harms it. A strong arch allows the horse to comfortably and confidently load the majority of their weight over their heels no matter what their conformation challenges are. The bottom line for me is soft tissue development. Any artificial attempts to raise heel height or shorten break over to achieve a desired hpa without improving the depth and strength of the digital cushion, lateral cartilages, and live sole, is not a true or sustainable approach to functional and structural soundness.

It’s possible to give immediate relief to the horse by letting the heels grow to a comfortable height or artificially raising the heels with a wedge. The awareness needs to be on whether the horse is toe loading or heel loading ( using their legs or their back ). Letting the heels grow long or using a wedge pad props the tip of P3 up on the toes and lifts the digital cushion up out of engagement with the heels, stretching the soft tissue above the heels and making it look relaxed. This erodes the tip of p3 and atrophies the soft tissue. It takes a lot of looking ( and feeling ) to understand how the horse is distributing their weight and to have a mechanical ( and empathic ) knowledge of this. My focus is on keeping the heels conformed tight to the seat of corn, following those contours, and the contours of the central sulcus. I’m constantly fighting to keep the heels low with frog clearance without invading any live tissue. It seems relentless, but so is Mother Nature. The simulated wear trim pattern that I use respects the outer calloused live border and continually builds the foot from the inside out, due to the fact that the soft tissue ( digital cushion, lateral cartilages, and coronary band ) are highly regenerative ( almost like muscle ). These structures build when the majority of the weight bearing is behind the widest part of the foot. The heels build from within, not by letting the dead horn achieve a desirable height, but by putting the weight bearing where it belongs

As the horse gets used to loading the majority of their weight over the back of the foot, the soft tissue gains depth and strength. As the weight comes off of the sole, the live sole builds and the dead sole exfoliates. The diameter of the peripheral edge of the sole decreases with each layer of exfoliated dead sole. As the load on the toe gets lighter, the solar rim of P3 and the sole corium can start to heal. Deep live sole is typically shaped like an arched dome.

The deeper the soft tissue gets, the deeper the live sole gets and the more the sole domes and the quarters arch.

There is no risk to having a naturally suspended frog. It’s actually the opposite. Building the internal arch is how you reduce risk. When the foot is optimally developed with the maximum depth of live, domed sole and digital cushion, and with the majority of the weight over the back of the foot…then the coffin bone is located high up in the foot and the wings have optimal support.

Our horses live in a track system on mostly hard flat decomposed granite footing with the occasional mud hole ( from accidentally overflowing water tanks and community urine spots ) and some sand piles for laying down. Most of their feet have been built over 16 years of trimming to simulate miles of wear for optimal development. They have maximum height in their internal arch, maximum digital cushion depth, maximum live sole depth, and short sturdy hoof capsules.

The entire depth of their frogs is above ( distal to ) the widest part ( the line between the ends of the collateral grooves ) rather than below it like you see with most feet.

This takes years to build if you wait until a foot has collapsed.

It would be easy to maintain the arch in horse’s feet if it was kept up from birth. I have hundreds of albums ( with thousands of photos and accompanying text ) that explain what I’m doing. This is based on the mustangs and semi feral horses that I’ve studied. I’ve been simulating miles of wear on my clients’ horses for around 16 years. I’ve handled and trimmed lots of Mustang feet and in my experience, they prefer frog clearance, just like domestic horses do. It just can’t be prematurely carved. It must be built over time by simulating miles of physiologically correct ( specific to each horses conformation ) daily wear. This takes a lot of detail oriented trimming, an understanding of how the sole plane relates to the conformation ( and whatever compensation is in the body ) and a lot of feel, patience, and persistence.

Be persistent and consistent and empathic. Your horse will appreciate it …and, if you’re lucky, they will let you know.