HB (dbL)
HB was 10 years old when I pulled her shoes and started rehabbing her. I like this documentation. It shows a good example of how the retained dead sole that builds up from back to back flat trims and steel shoes can be slowly replaced by live sole gaining depth. Horses can get sore during the rehab if there’s too much dead sole or not enough. This makes navigating a bare foot transition a careful balancing act. HB was not comfortable enough to be ridden during this rehab. She was over weight and I had to travel a 3 hour round trip for her trims so I couldn’t keep her on as tight a schedule as I would’ve liked. In my opinion the combination of longer trim intervals and excess weight kept her feet from being comfortable enough to carry an adult rider.
February 2021 - Pulled shoes an set up to go bare
I took this photo in a plumb line down from the back of the hock. This is how this foot sets on the leg. This is a lot of deviation.
This horse was diagnosed by a vet with Laminitis so the vet and farrier focused on the front feet ( although steel shoes and pads only make the condition worse and harder to fix. So does bad bad bare foot trimming though ). The hinds escaped shoes but not distortion. You can really see the deviation in this foot. It should look something a little more like this in the future.
This is the left hind. Pre set up trim left, post set up trim right. The pink line shows the deviation in the frog ( indicative of but more obvious than the deviation in the foot ) . The red arrow shows how much longer the medial heel is than the lateral one. The green lines show the actual balance of the live foot. The horizontal green line marks the true widest part of the frog, which in my opinion, is the most reliable landmark. The blue line shows the deviation in balance. The top frame is a detail of the lower left pic. In the lower right photo you can see how much straighter the back of the foot looks but there is still deviation in the toe. This is due to the coffin bone’s position being low in the toe with very little dead tissue available for a correction. The live tissue isn’t sufficient thickness either. This is why I don’t follow the aggressive toe shortening approach that has become so popular. In my experience, it’s a short cut that may help a horse appear to improve in functional soundness but ends up causing more problems in long term structural soundness.
March 2021 - Second Trim
Top - pre shoe pulling | 2nd down - post shoe pulling and trim | 3rd down - pre trim second trim | Bottom - post trim second trim | In the 3rd from top photo you can see how much deviation occurred in the hoof capsule from the previous trimming and shoeing. I’ll document as this mare grow a newly connected fully live hoof capsule that is in better alignment with P3.
March 2021 - third trim
This is HB’s posture at this point. She’s still leaning pretty hard on her left side, especially her left front. I can feel this when I’m trimming her. I drew two vertical blue lines down from her midline, one from the center of her chest and another one down from the center between her hind legs. You can see the distance between the bottom of the vertical blue lines and her left front and hind feet is less than the distance from the right front and hind. This indicates an over load on the left side. You can also just see that she’s leaning. It’s just like looking at a picture on the wall, some people have a better eye for plumb and level so it can be helpful to take photos and draw lines. I’ve used EasyShoe glue ons in the past to remedy this situation. In this case, the owner has opted for boarding on sand unless EasyShoes become more necessary.
2.5 months progress
June 2021
Looks like HB has a flat to negative palmar angle too. We’re approaching this without EasyShoes since she’s pretty comfortable walking on a gravel driveway.
4 months progress
The right front looks straighter but she’s still over loading the left side.
About 2 weeks before this latest trim, HB stepped on this metal scrap and lodged it in her left hind foot. According to radiographs it hit P3. The vet pulled it out and she’s been favoring it. As if npa, right hind dominance, and a extreme base narrow stance wasn’t enough for her to deal with.
September 2021
8 months progress
About 4 months progress improving straightness. My assessment is that she’s standing more base narrow in the hinds in the more recent pic on the right but she’s standing more square over all. She’s also still leaning more on the left hind but more squarely on the fronts and over all.
October 2021
Feb - Nov
December 2021
February 2022
