Hoof angles

[guest@endurance.net]

Kathy Mayeda kathy.mayeda@att.net

Karen Standefer said:
"My horse convinced me himself that he wanted his
coffin bone to be ground parallel.  After having
severe balancing issues with him as well as severe
sidebone cause by imbalanced shoeing/trimming I
followed Dr. Rooney's advice (in his book, not
personal advice) and let Roy wear his feet the way he
wanted."

A horse can have severe balancing issues without being shod, too.  I had
Diana Thompson, former editor of the Whole Horse Journal, evaluate Beau
prior to me starting in endurance.  Beau had been shod maybe twice before
the evaluation, and had been barefoot for a few months.  He still had
severe body imbalances that reflected in the way his hooves were worn.
She actually said that it was good to see this because "this is the way he
lives in his body" and was able to pinpoint several issues, only part of
them being hoof balance.  Good corrective shoeing actually helped him
balance his body until he was able to find a better balance.  We also
addressed a severe dental problem, which may actually have been a major
player in the imbalance as well as dealing with the problems
chiropractically.



"This horse has completely cured his
club hoof (had it before I got him), his shoulders
have gorgeous layback and the dips behind his shoulder
blades have completely gone away.  His shoulders are
now symmetrical and not bunchy on the club hoof side.
His hunter's bump has gone away over his rear and he
is completely symmetrical in his rear muscling as
well, where he use to be bunchy in his left rear (same
diagonal as the club foot)."

Still working on club foot issue, but Beau has already has real laid back
shoulders.  If we matched the shoeing to this angle, we would be in
trouble.  But a couple of farriers I have worked with still believe in
this.  The club foot is not a problem in function - Beau has been
competing well.  Doesn't mean I like it, it's a pain in a butt to manage.
Club foot is not necessarily caused by bad farrier work.  In fact it's
something that may start developing way before a horse gets his first set
of shoes as in Beau's case.

"can easily be changed by
trimming the hoof in a way to affect conformation
changes in the limbs."

You will have several holistic practitioners I know argue this point.
Older horses may not be able to adapt to changes in hoof trimming well if
it is drastic enough to affect conformation.


REFERENCED POST:
Maggie, Abby and RD and any of you other farrier
types, help me out here and
correct me if necessary..... I take an active interest
in farriery but just
might be way out of my element here and I don't want
to spread
misinformation.

My understanding is that, when the horse is standing
square, the front
hooves should be trimmed so that there is a smooth
angle from fetlock to
toe. Ignore any rounding of the toe for easing break
over for now. If the
toe is too long, the laminae stretch and the toe curls
out and that smooth
angle becomes a curve. If the toe is too short or the
heels too high, there
is a visible break in that smooth angle downward where
the hoof begins.

The horses I've observed who get lots of exercise
(turnout and a fair amount
of pleasure riding) "seek" the relationship I
described. That is, if their
toes get too long, they start breaking them off and if
the toe is too short
(usually through over trimming), they break off hoof
near the back of the
foot. Of course, I'm talking about unshod horses,
since hooves ideally don't
break off of shod hooves.

It seems to me that the pastern angle is determined by
the underlying bone
and tissue structure and cannot be changed by changing
the angle of the
trim. I've observed that to try to do so results in
gait abberations and
hypothesize that it would lead to joint or tissue
damage in the long-term in
a horse that was expected to travel a few hundred
competitive miles per
year.

Karen, what would you say IS the guage for determining
hoof angles?

Deanna (Ohio)

Karen Standefer wrote:
"The pastern angle changes according to how the hoof is
trimmed. The pastern angle can defitely NOT be used
as a gague for setting hoof angles."




Eeeeyah!  Deanna you are right, changing pastern angles on a horse will
result in some gait aberrations.  What Karen is saying is totally opposite
both in my experience and what Diana Thompson told me.  The pastern angle
is actually measured in the side mid line of the bone column.  Compare to
the side mid line of the hoof capsule.  Should not be a "broken angle".  I
had a rookie farrier who was REAL meticulous, but he used the hoof gauge
to meticulously measure the proverbial 55 deg and Beau had a "broken back
angle" because of this.  Poor Beau's back immediately got sore and he was
real reluctant to trot out.  He couldn't even stand square.  I fired that
farrier immediately and started to go through several bad balancing jobs
and several farriers.  Was a frustrating year of competition for me last
year, took almost nine months to recover from that.

But I have to admit, a good conscientious farrier can affect positive
changes in hoof and pastern angles by either correctively shimming a low
heel and changing the shape of the hoof capsule.

Yes, trim, balance and shoeing does affect the body.  But barefooting a
horse will NOT cure all balance issues for every horse. There is a lot
more to body balance than good trimming and farrier work, although that's
a real good place to start looking for the answers in unraveling body
balance issues.

Kathy Mayeda
Equine Body Worker certified