Hello all, one from last week. I really have no clue what to do with this one. 12 year old former Polo horse, fracture years ago in right hock. Horse is sound, but stands parked out a lot - nobody has a clue why. Vet checked him 3 months ago and said he would not change anything in his shoeing, but I am really concerned about his sheared heels on the right hind and all the bruising. As you can see his coronary band is jammed up in various places, I floated the wall right below it a bit. On the Before pics he is at 4 weeks. Will change him to every 3 weeks shoeing. Has very contracted heels on all four feet and works in heavy deep beach sand, so I like to have a lot of iron hanging out. View attachment 5121 View attachment 5121 View attachment 5121 View attachment 5121
I like the shoeing. Seems the foot is a bit long (retained sole?), Hinds seem to be long on the lateral side. Wish I had the foot in hand.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Jack, I have been thinking about the retained sole, too. Unfortunately I have been chopping stuff off that hoof like crazy and did not want to overdo it. I have requested X-rays for his feet for next week to see what's going on (sole depth etc). If you ever make it down to the Mexican Caribbean I will invite you for a couple of cold beers at the ranch and you can have a look at his feet. Tom, I will definite put him on a 3 weeks schedule - and you are welcome to come and visit, too (actually, the offer is up for any of you guys that have given me such great advice since I have started to post on here). For the sheared heels I have been thinking bar shoe and floating the lateral heel.
On the sheared heals I also have better luck with a heartbar and pickup some support off the frog, while floating the lateral side. You need to begin further forward, infront of the widest part and wedge the floated area as such.
Don't be afraid to use your thumbs to test the sole thickness. If it looks long and you can flex the sole with thumb pressure it is probably the coronary band high rather than lots to come off the bottom. Working out what is high and what is long is an art. I did to make to Mexico once, Tijuana but I doubt that counts and it was in my wilder days so it's a bit of a blur.
After a half century of this, Stef. I still have these conversations with my self. "Self, you can take more, no, self. Better to lesve too much than trim too much. Sometimes it will be two or three times to work it down. As f ar as sheared heels. I don't try too hard on mature horses, just good shoeing, but on youngsters that are barefoot, I have had luck doing what seems counter intuitive. Trim short on the non sheared side. If you run your boot heels over, you will stand with more weight on that side.Seems like I get the same effect on the short side of a hoof and it pushes up while the long side relaxes. Mexico? one trip to Mexico City, a few border towns across from Texas and a bunch of time kayaking in the canyons of the Rio Grande. Haven't gotten down your way. Might tho.
Smitty, he has a really nice, strong frog on that foot, and considering that I will have to float quite some part of the lateral side I think I will go with Mikel's suggestion to distribute the weight nicely - but at the end I assume that the horse will tell me what's best for him. So will try heart bar first, will two nail it and see how he reacts. If she shows discomfort I guess I will have to reconsider and rather go with a straight bar shoe (maybe with a frog support pad if I can get one). I guess it all depends on what the horse is telling me. Sounds good to you?
Thanks, David! I guess time will tell and little by little I will figure it out. At least I know if I reach the coffin bone I have gone too far ;-) And no, a blurry visit to Tijuana does not count - you will have to come down here and see this area, the color of the ocean is beautiful (see picture, this is my work view).
Ok, so I am not the only one doubting myself, that's good to know ;-) Very interesting approach to fix that problem - I am indeed a bit afraid if I will try to fix the hoof that I might cause issues further up in the leg. Regarding trips to Mexico please see reply to David - you definitely miss out on something if you haven't seen the beach here
Just curiosity Stef. When and where were you in Indo. I've done a couple gigs in Jakarta, one in Bandung and vacationed in Yoyakarta and Bali. But Wyoming has abot 5 people per sq mile (2 per sq km) Java has almost 1000 per sq Km (2500 per sq mile). That's intimidating.
I have been in Makassar, Sulawesi in 2001 for my Masters Thesis. Stayed for 7 months, Makassar has around 1 million inhabitants and it is definitely quite interesting for a female foreigner. Made it over to Bali for a week after our worms died (I am a biologist and my thesis was about some parasites), but went many times to small remote villages where we collected the poop from people to harvest the worms. I loved it out there - such peace and quiet - the city was just a huge mess. It got interesting though after 9/11 when everybody thought that all foreigners are Americans and need to be harassed. Went all hiding on a little island. The whole experience was amazing, I learned a lot from it, but did not like that beer was so expensive and hard to get. The most amazing thing was that I realized how unhappy I was in Germany and that's why I moved to Mexico more than 10 years ago. Sorry, Ray, for going off topic.
