Remy is a 5 year old 17.2hh (!!) arab warmblood. Unknown shoeing history prior to 12 months ago but I think he would have been shod. He has been barefoot trimmed for the past 12 months except for a couple of weeks with shoes on the front while he was for sale.
The new owners (who also own
Bertha) are hoping to do dressage with him but at the moment they are putting weight on him and just taking it easy.
Off fore (click to enlarge, as always before on the left)
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| Flare, long toe. |
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| Bit of thrush in the frog, not too bad. Heels a bit contracted (deep central sulcus). |
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| Dry cracked frogs, owners will need to keep on top of thrush prevention with all the wet weather we have been having. |
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| These feet were long. They will come good very quickly with regular trimming. |
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Near Fore (we shall call him.... "The Clubby One")
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| This is the clubby foot. It's not the worst I have seen. High heels, still a little flare to grow out. |
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| Deep central sulcus with some old thrush, long looking foot, which is interesting in a clubby foot. |
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| Heels slightly contracted. |
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| I should have done more of a quarter scoop on this one. From this view, looks like there is plenty of room to take the heels down, but compare to the heel and solar shots - I took them down as far as I could at this trim (i.e. no lower than the frog, and/or no lower than a credit card's thickness above live sole). |
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He has lovely thick walls! As thick or even slightly thicker than
Allie's and
Gracie's walls. And my girls have the thickest walls I have ever seen!
So is club foot related to thickness of the hoof? My horse (the one with rather contracted heels) has ridiculously thick horn, would be so easy to shoe! and one front especially is quite clubby, the one he puts back underneath himself when he is grazing.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if there is a proven link, but all the clubby feet I have trimmed had either good thickness or very thick walls. I've never some across one with thin, shelly walls.
ReplyDeleteClub feet can develop from the exact grazing stance you describe. Tall horses with necks too short to reach the ground to graze as foals often have one club foot. It is interesting to note that horses evolved to graze of tall grasses and shrubs - their mouths aren't meant to reach all the way to the ground!
Trimming a club foot on an adult horse shouldn't be about making that hoof look perfect. It probably won't ever look like a not al hoof,
But that doesn't mean it can't be a perfectly sound functional hoof.
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