From what I know of and the little that I know Grant, he wouldn t look down on anyone as to being good enough on not good enough for any thing! Ray
Ray, every time I do something that profoundly improves a horse's soundness and performance I wonder if I just got lucky or if I actually figured it out. If the horse doesn't walk off better, then at least I KNOW I screwed up. I made some minor changes in how I fit heels (actually heel checks) on some of my horses over the last two cycles. I got obvious improvements in the feet at the next shoeing, but I'm not convinced that it isn't due to colder temperatures, less rain, and the resulting benefit of dry feet. I might be more confident after doing this for a year on a group of horses or after several cycles where the ground has been constantly wet and the horses are stomping flies like mad. I also made some changes in toe fit on one horse seeking improvement in hoof morphology. I got a better looking, less distorted feet, but the horse became "trippy" near the end of the cycle.
Years ago, when Grant was shoeing in Texas, nobody was needed to hold his tools; he just left them on the floor, no tool box either. his rig was fairly sparse also; I guess it was his "minimalist period"
+ +-+-`+ ``---*--+ Not posted intentionally . . . that is what happens when I shake the crumbs out of my keyboard.
Ryan the one thing that sticks out to me is the shape of the bottom half of the foot doesn't match the top half. If he is having trouble bending his leg to get shod I'd bet its in his knee. The hardest thing for an old horse with bad knees to do is breakover the lateral toe. The current set uo does nothing to help him its hindering because the toe quarters are blown out creating more leverage in the lateral toe. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
don t stop asking ! a plus or f minus, if the questions are for answers not just to fluff egos ,then to me, they are good, and a teacher of any quality would recognize as such!!! you can eat the crumbs tomorrow. ray
Well put. I'v never seen anyone shoe a horse that I haven't learned something from, and that includes my sons, who I taught every thing they know (yes, I know some would say they still don't know anything). My best critics are the horses. By the way, things sure broke loose here while I was out in the boonies today. Good to see it.
As to holding tools for Grant Moon, my son Jess pulled and finished for him at a clinic when Jess was 13. Grant seemed impressed and was quite complementary and encouraging to Jess. Very proud day for the ol' man, but then I had to listen to "Grant (Jess' buddy) said to do it like this" for the next few weeks.
If you are fitting NB shoes to a narrower foot but need the length, do you guys narrow the toe (an major feet even on a white hot shoe), grind off the quarters or use a smaller shoe and set it back?
LOL! Just thinking about modding the toe on an NB shoe makes my teeth itch. I think it would be easier to modify a Mustad Equilibrium shoe to fit a narrow toe than to modify an NB shoe - also available in Aluminum (or Aluminium if you prefer the extra syllable.) Classic roller is another good choice as the stock is a constant section through the toe and there is enough meat in the stock to do a hammer roll across the toe and move the breakover point to the back of the web while still supporting the dorsal wall. I think Justin Decker is looking in the right place - above the hair line.
