Some of my work - This page shows off some of my work in shoeing and trimming.

    This page shows off some of my work. Each case is different and most took a while, if not continuing, to fix.

     The first horse here had a 45% rotation of the limb. It started when the horse was 6 months, probably from in imbalance of the hoof. I do not have pictures of the horse in the beginning. I started working on this horse when he was a yearling, and it took me 6 month to talk the owner into letting me put shoes on such a young horse.   


      From a year to a year and a half, the horse's hoof was just leveled every visit. Then I started the horse in a normal shoe with heel support. In six months, the horse's limb turned all the way around to what you see to the picture to the left. The horse stayed in this shoe for about a year.


      Since the horse spent so long with his leg crooked, he learned to move like that. His foot would take off outside leaving the ground last and land on his outside first. I believe this movement came from his foot being rotated. 


      The first shoe I tried was a lateral extension shoe. This shoe is very wide on the outside branch of the shoe. The shoe sticks out on the outside of the hoof, and the toe of the shoe is squared off to try to encourage break over forward. 


      This shoe stayed on the horse for two months. The only change the shoe made to the movement of the foot was now the horse picked up the foot flat which is ideal. However, the horse still came down on the outside of the foot even with the lateral extension. I was half way there with this shoe, but that's all.


      The next thing I came up with was a side weight shoe to try to get the landing flat.
This shoe is seen to the left. You may notice that the shoe looks like it is set crooked. Well it is. This was done on purpose. The heels on this shoe is what made the direction on this shoe just like how the limb was turned in the beginning. The heels are lined up horizontal with where the forward motion of the foot should fall. All the weight or the thick branch of this shoe is on the inside to help the horse pick up and land flat.


      This shoe worked very well. The horse stayed in this shoe for about two months. Now the horse is barefooted again and is doing great. In this case the horse only needed to learn to walk straight, and a little help from a shoe did it. Not all cases are this easy. This horse we were lucky on. If I did not get to start on this horse when I did, the horse never  gotten as far as it did. If I would have seen the horse earlier and got the owner to work with me, I may have gotten farther.

      
      This horse has crooked limbs it the front. Notice in the picture to the left how the limb goes in at the knee then out again to the fetlock then back in at the hoof. The center gravity of the limb falls on the outside of this foot making the hoof come under on the outside and far to the inside.

      It is my belief that the shape of the foot when it comes to the hoof falls a lot on how the horse moves or how the weight is placed on the hoof itself.  The ideal shape is the same shape as the horse's coffin bone, which is the same shape as the top of the hoof by the hair line.  When a hoof does not follow this same pattern, all the way down the hoof, it is because of how the horse's weight is applied to the hoof.

      With this horse we want to put the center gravity back in the center axis of the limb. We do this by giving the horse lateral (outside) support. This can be done with a shoe as you can see in the picture to the right. 

      This horse also has a crack in its front feet. We need to determine the cause of the crack. As you may be able to see, the crack does not appear at the bottom of the foot. There are stars at the top of the foot by the hair line. That is where the crack started.  This horse paws a lot and hits its hoof on the wall. The way to stop this crack is with bell boots to stop the crack from happening. After we get the lateral support, then we want clips to hold the crack together when it grows down to that point.

      The shoe that I put on this horse is just a regular keg shoe the I modified by punching new nail holes closer in to get the lateral (outside) support. You can see the shoe is a little off center on this one too. If you look at the limb, the hoof is toe in, and I did not to be wrenching that limb around. Therefore, I supported the limb as it is for now. Too much wrench on a limb like this can cause lameness fast.     


      This is a good example of shoeing the whole horse not just the foot. If you were to just look at the foot of this horse, you would say the shoe is off. When you look at the whole limb of the horse, you can say that the shoe is right. I believe, that to be a good shoer, you have to look at the whole horse not just the bottom of the hoof.

      This is a good case to see that not everything needs a shoe to fix it. The above pictures were taken four weeks after the first trim done by me. Let me tell you what the foot looked like before these pictures above. This horse had a three inch separation of the hoof wall and white line which was stuffed with rocks and muck. Where you see that lip, up by the hair line on that first picture to the left,  was where the hoof wall was at the same angle as that lip is straight to the ground. All that growth from that lip down all grew in four weeks.

      The horse is and was only walking on its heels as you can see to the picture to the right. He has about an inch of each heel on the ground and that's all. He had shoes on because the previous farrier thought that shoes would help him walk better ;but, to nail the shoes in, he had to leave all the bad hoof. Anything that is bad or dead you cut off.


      The thing about a hoof is that it is a living thing and it is always growing. Because of this fact, you can make the foot look like anything with enough time and the horse working with you. this horse, believe it or not, has been walking around lame for what I told was four years. This problem started simple in my opinion. This is what I think led to this. 

      One day there was a little separation of the hoof wall at the toe. Because of how the horse was put down on its heels, that put more grab pressure on the toe. So now every time the horse steps that toe catches the ground and makes the hoof wall separate a little more and more until we have what I described above.
      
      So I ripped off the shoes and took everything off that wasn't right. That being the whole toe, it wasn't on the ground at all anyway.  The sole was dropped or I should say the hoof wall had risen above the sole. I say that because I didn't touch the sole, and the hoof grew down below the sole.  The hoof is a wonderful thing. It is a living thing that is always going. This being said I believe you can make it do anything with time and patience. This hoof is an excellent case of that. Below you can see how the foot has turned out.          

      The first picture is about half way through from the middle picture. The horse became sound again in the first picture. As you can see in that picture, we have four points on the ground. There are two in the heel and two in the toe . The middle picture is where the hoof is when the whole hoof wall hits the ground. The heels are a little under ran, but  I deal with one issue at a time.  The picture to the right is the bottom of the hoof before trimming. I wanted you to see the hoof wall, how much grew down, and that the wall is connected to the sole again. For those of you that think hoof oil gives you soft feet, this horse gets it all the time since I've started on it; and if it was soft, the hoof wouldn't have grown down like it did.                                                                                                                         

      This horse graveled. The stone started in an overgrown frog the the previous farrier didn't address. The stone went from the frog across the sole and up the inside of the hoof wall then blew out at the hairline.  From the line you see above ( in the picture to the left), all the way to the frog was completely separated. The horse was not a horse to stand still for shoes with the injury, so I just trimmed it, and the owners washed out the separation daily until the heel grew down enough to support the limb. Which wasn't long since with no weight on it, the hoof wall seems to grow faster then normal.
                                                 

      The crack was pared out with a hoof knife every four weeks to allow the new hoof wall to grow without resistance. The frog and the sole were shaped up, but the hoof wall was left alone. The picture above to the right is of the frog separation.  It is not very clear, but it separated all the way to the sensitive frog. There was a new hard sole on the horse in about four weeks.  This horse took a year to fix. Below are pictures of the hoof before and after the heel hit the ground. On the left, the heel is almost to the ground. In the picture to the right, the heel is on the ground, and the crack was widened to allow better growth. Then, below that, is the rest of the process until the hoof is restored.







      

         This horse is a great example of under ran heels, as you can see in the picture to the left. (Just like the shoeing 1 page.) The center gravity of the limb falls right where the heels are so the weight of the horse is crushing its own hoof. 


         The way to fix this is to relieve the pressure off the heels. As this allows the heels to grow back and down. The picture to the left is the hoof before the trim with a regular keg shoe on.  The picture to the right is the same foot after a trim with a straight bar and a stabilizer pad. The objective is to move the whole hoof back so that there is a 50/50 difference from center gravity to the toe and the heel. Right now there is about 90 toe and 10 heel as this case continues, I will be moving the heels back and down.  


         In the picture to the right, you can see that I have moved the toe back a lot and that it is where the toe is supposed to be. I still want a degree or two higher, but that will come with the heel. This moving the toe back will not change the internal angle of anything so, even thought this is a big change, it will not make the horse lame because it does not change any angles a lot.


        The picture to the left is the shoe I have on the horse.  There is a pad under the frog to help relieve pressure off the heels of the horse and on to the frog. Not only does this help relieve pressure, but by padding the frog, will also increase blood flow in the limb. This increase of blood flow will help the hoof grow better. The horse is flat footed having no heel. I want to try to keep the sole hard to prevent lameness.  With the toe so far forward, the shoe most be set back and the hoof wall rasped to the shoe.  This horse should have fixed heels in a year because it takes a year for the foot to grow down from the hairline to the ground.  


        There are other shoes that can be applied like a mushroom shoe or just a normal shoe with floated heels, but this horse is still in show and jumping and with a mushroom shoe, there is no heel support with the shoe. I didn't want the foot falling on the inside or outside heel and keep crushing the heel after jumps. I didn't go with a normal shoe with floated heels because I didn't feel the shoe would stay on with the horse jumping.  This straight bar with a stabilizer pad seem to me to be the best shoe for the horse.