Plain stamps

Nailed these up today on what was probably one the most 'conformationally challenged' horses I have worked on in years.

do you have pics on the conformation of this horse?.........or could you describe it?...please

If I can remember in 4 weeks, I will take a picture of these legs. To give you an idea, the LH cannon looks like it had a poorly healed green splint fracture at some point in its life, so it appears that the center of the shaft of it bows out laterally. P1 deviates medially, then somewhere below that, P2/P3 appear to rotate back out laterally. It also appears that the last farrier tried to trim this one to the sole plane which left medial side of the foot trying to roll under, a ski jump flare on the lateral toe, causing the shoe to get pulled toward the lateral toe during the cycle, and they nailed a set down heart bar on it. These shoes below were what it was wearing when it became my problem 3 months ago...and these had been on for 2 weeks.

Adding one with superimposed lines to show the direction I am going with the foot.

I like your hind shape do you shoe most of your horses with that shape ? ...

I guess what I'm asking is do you find that shape to be best for the function of the foot ?

It seems like most keg hinds have a blunted toe ... Just wondering who decides how , say a kerck sx 7 or sx 8 hind shoe is made... Why do they blunt the toes ? Ease of fit ? setback so it won't overreach ?



Sent from my phone

Lovely job Scruggs, what section is it? What nail? Looking at that makes me wanna go practice my shoe making! I need a hell of a lot of practice!

Its easier and faster to not fit to the toe properly on the hind just sit the shoe back and fit the quarters and heels, most people are lazy, Kerckhaert are always asking for input to improve their shoes maybe that's the most requested shape??

That is the shape of that particular horse’s feet...or rather, the shape those feet will be, once all the distortion grows out. (The right hind is pretty much there, there is still a little work to be done on the left hind) I don’t have a certain ‘ideal’ shape in mind, then try to get all feet to fit into that particular shape.

In general, I don’t try to make it something it is not. The shape of the foot is a function of its overlying conformation, genetics, etc. How they are using the horse, what kind of footing it is ridden in, etc. also play a role in shoe selection and fit. This particular horse is just a trail horse whose feet got away from him. All I am trying to do right now is get the feet gathered back up into a good solid hoof capsule. I might give him a little more/little less fit here or there after I get a solid foot...but might just leave it

My opinion is that happened because of ‘fad’ type shoeing, which became an accepted ‘norm’. Capitalism on behalf of Kerckhaert took over from there.

Every horse is different, but I'm not sure why some choose the ‘cookie cutter’ approach and nail them all on like that.


I will say, however, that those shoes were actually set back (well, technically, not just back off the toe, but set back from the perimeter of the lateral toe toward the medial heel) quite a bit; about 3/8" on the RH and probably 1/4" on the LH. Until another 2 inches or so of wall grows down, they will probably continue to be set behind the distal border of the wall starting at the lateral quarter around through the toe. I put an arrow on the picture below to show you what I am talking about...all this is doing is placing the support base back closer to the center of the foot, which is where I think the foot will be once the distortions are grown out. I know it may seem like cutting a puppy's tail off one inch at a time, but if I went in there and rasped all the flare off then nailed up, my nails would be in stratum medium, instead of stratum externum and the more solid wall they can be in, the better.

I need a hell of a lot of practice myself. Those were 11 inches of 3/8 x 3/4 and nailed with MX50.

Agreed.

Thanks George! ...BTW, Mr. Scruggs was my grandfather, I'm just John.

I sent a post on this, did I mess up and not post it or did it get deleted?? If so I didn't think I was out of line??I was complimenting the work??

John nice work.
did you use a different stamp or different nails on one of the shoes?

Ok, Thanks Ray.. I guess I didnt hit the correct key? Meaning Post Reply..

I am not sure why one looks like the nails are too deep in the web and the other looks too shallow...unless it actually was that way. They were made at the same time, with the exact same stamp and pritchel, and nailed with the same nails (MX50). I'm hoping it is just the picture but I will certainly be checking that out when I go back. Thanks!

Mr. Steele,
You are welcome to all the food and drink you can keep down.

John it just caught my eye
it dosent take from your good work

Took several pictures of both feet with my phone that day just because there is no telling how they will turn out. Here is another of that same foot. Maybe I took the first one before I blocked the nails or maybe it had something to do with the flash angle. Don't know what happened.

Well, Smitty, I forgot I already started a thread about this horse a while back. Other than some growth rings that are making their way down, this one is getting pretty close to being in the ball park on the hind end...the front still has a ways to go and maybe next time I will get some pictures of them. Anyway, my phone somehow inverted the picture I put up today while I was there so I am putting up another set from today in this thread so that whomever wants to can compare/contrast/throw stones/whatever they like...

Give me a few minutes to get the photos loaded...

I just took pictures of the LH foot as it was the worst. The conformation from the fetlock down is the same for both LH and RH on this horse...biggest difference is the bow in the cannon bone on the LH.

...and of course, the conformation is the same today as it was before.