This is most definately a problem of your horse's feet not being in balance.
Get down on the ground and look parallel at your horse's hairlines. Are they
straight or wavy? I'll bet $$$ that they are wavy or have a bump to one side.
If the hairline is not straight this means that the hoof tubules are under
stress from one side or another from not being balanced. A perfectly balance
foot, simply put, always has a straight hairline. Does this make sense?
Are the toes and heels long or short? Long toes and heels are a major culprit
to a multitude of horse lameness problems and interferences. Horses in the
wild almost always have extremely short heels and toes. Notice how
domesticated horses have so many man made problems that wild horses hardly
ever experience. Sadly, somehow horse shoeing schools forget or don't know
to teach Farriers these facts of what are truely natural and CRITICAL to the
horse in horseshoeing school.
Also take the hind feet and stretch them out over your thigh and point the
toe towards the ground. Now flex the foot slowly up and down in the normal
range of motion. Do not look at the foot straight on without flexing it. This
is where most farriers go wrong. You have to look at the foot in relation to
the horse's bone column and range of motion. As you are flexing the foot look
very carefully, are there high spots? You should be able to easily see if the
foot is out of whack with this flexion test and by analyzing the hairline. If
the horse is out of balance, I suggest having a friendly talk with your
farrier and educate him. This may be uncomfortable to do, but if he is
understanding and willing to learn he will be enlightened with what you have
to say.
By the way, we had major problems with our mare Lissali interfering and
rubbing her hocks raw until we learned her feet were really out of whack.
Since my boyfriend has gone to horseshoeing school ( out of frustration of
having so many horseshoeing and reliablity problems with Farriers) Lissali
has had no problems rubbing raw on her fetlocks or interfering. She has
completed over 600 miles this year including (2) 100 rides one being Tevis.
She wore no boots(yeah). My boyfriend is a technical guy (an engineer by
trade) and absolutely can not stand masking problems or putting a band aid
(boots) on the problem. There is always a cure to a problem . In our mare's
case I am convinced that the cause of our mare's interference and rubbing
problems stemmed from unbalanced feet. I hope this info helps . . .Just
remember, if we stay as close to nature as possible for our answers we can't
go too far wrong.
Robyn Levash