I am pretty confident that some high/low situations are
caused by the way a horse grazes. I know there are other causes of
course.
I had a gelding (colt at the time) that had normal feet when
I got him at 18 months and within 6 months was clubby on his right front.
We tried trimming and even shoeing, but nothing really helped. The
breeder fed out of high stall feeders and I had him on pasture or hay from the
ground. When he turned 4, both his neck and head grew longer and the club
went away on its own.
I got an 8 year old Bey Shah mare that was fed out of a high
feeder and had normal feet (and they hadn’t been trimmed in a long time,
so I know it wasn’t that they’d just evened her up) and within
several month of pasture and eating off the ground with me, she was also
clubby.
We got a 3yo AQHA mare from auction – she looked very t’bred,
not quarter at all – that was clubby. Looooong legs and relatively
short neck. I decided to try feeding her out of a chest high feeder and during
the time we had her, we were able to reduce the difference between her hooves
from about 6-8 degrees to 2-3 degrees difference.
Also, I was always of the opinion that there was a real
difference between horses that were club footed and those that were just
high/low. A vet told us that he didn’t make a distinction. In
either case the tendon is shortened. I still make a mental distinction
though – I’m not so worried about a horse that has a small angle
difference that allowed the tendon to shorten, but I would be more leery of a
horse that was born with a shortened tendon which caused the hoof to grow at
steeper angle. I think then you more often see both fronts clubby.
Or maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about!!
Marlene
Marlene Moss
www.LosPinos-CO.com -
Boarding, Sales and More
www.KineticEquineAnalysis.com
- Saddle Fitting
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