Posture and Conformation

I have been thinking about a horse's posture and how that can have an effect on their feet and vice versa.

If I meet a new client horse (or sometimes when I am revisiting for a maintenance trim) I like to have a look at the horse from afar, take in his general posture and demeanor. Of course, it all depends on how the horse is stood up, but if you watch for a while the horse will return to it's default stance. Better yet, watch the horse in turnout. Watch for trends, which hoof they favour for striking off first, which hind limb they rest more, if they graze with one leg consistently forward.

Shall we look at a few pictures? I am commenting on these pictures as if I had observed this to be the horse's default stance.

A horse with good overall posture. Relaxed top line, neck hanging like a pendulum. Front legs straight (not out in front or underneath). This horse does have a weak stifle and straight hocks, which would lead me to investigate the back end for soreness.

Same horse stood up with poor posture - front legs camped under (maybe getting pressure off the heels - caudal heel pain?). Shoulder and neck tight, tense. Back looks tight, loins look hard and as if they are holding up the horse's hind end. Hind feet camped under, taking pressure off toes?

Allie, looking at me while out grazing. Good overall posture, loins look a little long and weak - keep those hind toes short to avoid soreness in the loin! Left front leg is not weight bearing - compensating for something in the hoof? Or possibly soreness in the shoulder? Horse is tucked up, with sunken flanks and if I didn't know her I would look for a reason for it. BUT this is normal for her. She got it from her sire.

Horse camped WAY under with all four legs. Long toes in front, but he is getting weight off his heels - caudal heel pain? Horse most likely would NOT stride heel first. Shoulder looks tense, but the back does not - it looks fairly relaxed. Where the tension starts again is from the point of the croup back to the top of the dock - you can even see his tense muscles around his hip and flank area. He can't possibly be balanced in the hind end standing like that - partially conformational with his sickle hocks and short pasterns, but it would be very interesting to see what the bottom of his feet looked like!.

This is an extreme case of standing under with the fronts - if you were to drop a line from the fulcrum of his shoulder blade, it would not even contact any part of his limb except maybe the very top muscle, even with his super long toes! Extreme separation, I predict thee.

Gracie out grazing - a less obvious stance but similar to the chestnut above - standing under all but the left front leg. Back and shoulders fairly relaxed, but she has a longish loin - needs hind toes to be kept short. Nice strong short croup though may help give the weaker loin some stability. Right fore leg not weight bearing - probably because she is about to take a step but could also indicate a weakness there. Hind legs standing very awkwardly (see below!).

Ummm... yeah. Mass symmetry issues - I would look for imbalances in the hoof especially the inside left and outside right heels. LUCKY this is not her normal stance!! Looks like the hocks are both pointing to something to the right of the photo.

Again with the hind end tension and weaknesses - long loin, tight croup and weak stifles. He even has what looks to be deteriorated muscles over the hindquarter. Slightly sickle hocked - Keep hinds short to help with heel first landings (not normally a problem in hind hooves!).

This guy looks pretty good in the hind end posture wise (except for how wide apart his legs are) but what strikes me first about him is his foreleg stance - he looks like he is rocking back on his heels. Laminitic or separation issues are a possibility. His shoulders, neck and entire topline from wither to tail look nice and relaxed though.

Get up on a stool and look at the horse's back from this angle - you will be able to see if the muscling is symmetrical, if the spine is straight, if the hips are also symmetrical. This is Allie, and she is fairly symmetrical, with a lovely straight spine.

This is what you are looking at!

I recently went to see a pony to talk to her owner about how her trimming was going. After looking at her feet we stood there chatting and I found myself looking at the pony as a whole. The biggest thing I noticed was her spine alignment - being a pony, this was easy to see. Her spine bulged out to the left quite noticeably. A second look at her feet showed that the cause was possibly a much higher inside heel on her right front hoof. Her shoulder was also very tight and it was almost impossible to get even a finger under the scapula.

Now I have not undergone much training to do with equine conformation, posture or anything of that sort except my own research, an unfinished equine management diploma and my own findings in horses I have worked with. Above are the few things I feel confident noting but I think the most important thing is to listen to the WHOLE horse - not just his feet. Often, what is happening in the feet is just a mirror or echo of what is happening 'upstairs'.

I would love to start a discussion in the comments!

Heel First!! Quick Notes

"Understand that all this talk of heel first landings is about the natural alignment of the bones during locomotion; NOT the outer heel we see. If a horse's heels are artificially raised and they (heels) happen to hit the ground first, P3 may STILL be toe first on impact and causing the same unnatural forces" - Pete Ramey

The higher the heel the harder it would be for the horse to land any other way than toe first.

The above quote is a bit of an "ah ha!" moment for me. It is pretty obvious that we are all aiming for heel first landings, but leaving too much height in the heels so they are comfortable to land first may be counter-productive. But then if they have weak heels they need a little extra height for comfort and to encourage proper movement. Oy!

HOWEVER I still lower tall heels, but slowly. At a set-up trim, I will take the heels down much less than I think they need to be if the horse has weak digital cushion, frog & lateral cartilages - but I bring the heels back as far as I can. The second trim I will schedule for 1 or 2 weeks (depending on how bad the foot is) after the set up trim, and if I can't get the heels down to where I want them at that time (according to the horse's soundness) then I will come out again in 1 or 2 weeks. If it were my own horse, I would trim them down a millimeter or two every couple of days over the course of a few weeks.

I found it hard at first to see a heel first landing. When a horse is moving slow enough to see it, it is generally at grazing pace and the horse will not land heel first then anyway! The horse has to be marching along in a fast walk or trot. What I find works is not watching the foot - I watch the horse's knee. If it is straight before the hoof hits the ground, then that is a heel first landing. If you aren't sure if it is straight or if it is borderline, then the horse is landing flat. A knee that straightens after the hoof is on the ground is the toe first landing we want to avoid. If the horse is walking in loose dirt or on an arena surface, a toe first landing will produce a little puff of dust out the front of the toe.



Practice on YouTube watching horse videos to develop your eye, that is what I did! There are heaps of slow motion videos on YouTube, like the one above.

Heel first landings are important because, well, everything. Everything will fall into place if the hoof lands heel first, and everything will fall apart when there is a toe first landing. The heels have specialised structures to take the force of the horse's stride - digital cushion, lateral cartilages, the frog and the function of p3 where it becomes ground parallel when loaded. All these structures work correctly when they land first. They develop and become stronger when used.

How to trim for a heel first landing? You need to be able to recognise that individual horse's optimum heel height, address thrush infections, ensure the bars are not too tall, bring the heels back as far as possible. Easy, huh? :P

Gracie heels before (left) and after trim. Note that the heels are slightly longer due to soft ground at the time. (Heels sink in and frog still gets pressure)

Allie before and after trim. Frog a little thrushy, she wan;t landing heel first properly and the frog started to suffer because of it.

Gracie right front heels. Note the right heel has an old scar that grows down and affect the heel structure.

Bertha - this horse is comfy on her heels and was at 6 weeks at this trim - heels grew long and came forward and uneven. Shorter trim cycle would help prevent this.

Bertha heels pre-trim. Frog passive, too much so. Frog starting to get ratty and flaky, not being exfoliated. Perfect environment for thrush which would just make the back of the foot even less able to take proper heel height.

I know I keep posting this photo, but it is such a good example of poor contracted heels. (Archie)

Same hoof as above, heel view, post trim. Lands heel first in boots or barefoot on soft ground.

Archie left hind pre-trim. This leg is recovering from an injury. Unusual for hinds to be so contracted too.

Remy - another contracted hoof, deep central sulcus. Sky-high heels. These are obviously two different feet - his two fronts I think. The pic on the fight is his clubby foot.

Poor Archie again. Note I have taken the heels down to the level of the frog - this frog needs the stimulation more than the protection, otherwise we will never get out of the contracted-foot circle.

Archie set-up trim. Those bars were huge and had thrush all underneath them. They needed to come out and I had confirmation of it as they didn't pop up as severely again.

The Quarter Scoop - Quick Notes

Sometimes you will notice I mention the 'quarter scoop'. This is the scoop you should be trimming into the hoof if it needs it, following the scoop of the live sole (i.e. the scoop of the pedal bone).


The hoof will tell you if it needs a scoop done. If the coronary band has a bulge or is not a straight line (very hard to see on hairy legs!). Also a scoop can be useful to relieve flaring in the quarters.

Very slight quarter scoop.

Scoop to help relieve quarter flare and the coronary band. (Beckham, 2006ish? One of my very old trims)

This horse had foundered. Not the bruising in the toe. Noticeable scooping. (not one of mine, just a googled image)

One of the most famous photos of a feral horse cadaver. It is dried out, but you can see the natural scoop and how it follows the live sole plane.

(Blogger is being a bitch right now and won't let me caption pictures anymore, it keeps deleting the pic!! GRR. So captions under the photos now. Sorry!)

 Quite a severe quarter scoop shown here.

Note the coronary bulge (mostly due to this weird shoe set-up I suspect).

I would use a quarter scoop here to relieve coronary bulge and quarter cracks. (Among other things. Poor hoof!)

I know how much scoop to trim in by following the live sole. When trimming a hoof that doesn't need the quarter scoop you would end up cutting below the level of the live sole. If you tried to turn your rasp to trim the scoop you would find it very hard to trim it in if the hoof doesn't need it!!

Apparently quarter scoops are a little controversial in the online barefoot world (what isn't!!) but I have always scooped the quarters if the hoof tells me it needs it.

Now is not the time to ramble...

It's past my bedtime but I just wanted to get one post out on this blog, just to say that I did.

Why do I love feet so much? Even my horsey friends think I am strange because I would rather be under a horse sweating and swearing and getting kicked in the face with a rasp in hand than actually being on the horse riding, like all other respectable horse people do.  I think it is the fact that, if left alone in the right conditions, the feet look after themselves. They thrive in fact!

My first pony had amazing feet. He was a 14.1hh arab welsh cross. He was shod when I got him but the shoes quickly came off when my mother saw how much they actually cost and how often they need changing. I didn't know what on earth I was doing with that giant rasp, and neither did any of the adults in my life, but they just told me to file them and keep them short like I would my own nails. All I basically did was provide a mustang roll to keep correct breakover and the hours of riding after school through my suburban home town did the rest. Might I just say, he had four white feet. Never had a thrush problem. Never went unsound (even when he stepped on a nail). Never wore away more hoof than he could grow. Ever. The more a hoof pounds the dirt, the more it grows. Simple as that.

Over the years I have trimmed a bunch of different horses, read so much and learned A LOT. I have been kept honest by many horses (one of them a TB I am currently trimming that is constantly reminding me that I need to second guess myself.. oh, wait, no I don't! Oh.. yes I do. Damn it!). I don't follow one method, unless that method is trying to read the hoof as best I can and be as non-invasive as possible. I am a big believer in the primary care-giver as the most influential person in a horse's hoof soundness. Unless that person is willing to do all she can to provide the hoof with the best possible conditions, nothing I ever do to the bottom of a hoof will make it better. ANY horse doing ANY job can be barefoot*. Will be better off barefoot. No matter what. This is my strongest, greatest belief. But it is not easy. It can be downright hard, as diet and movement over varied terrain are the two most important factors that need to be addressed daily for hoof improvement. Sometimes, it is easier to put a bandaid on the problem (or a shoe on the hoof**) and then go on your merry way. But if you are interested in giving your horse the healthiest, happiest, longest, soundest life possible, barefoot plays an important role in that.

So.. how? How do you provide the best conditions for your horse to grow his own beautiful feet? That is the point of this blog. I promise to try to keep my posts understandable for the average horse owner. I'll put labels to link to posts all on the one subject. I'll post photos, articles and other paraphernalia I produce myself or that I find on the web or elsewhere all in this one spot. And I might be the only one who ever reads this blog, but at least it will chronicle my development as a trimmer and as an advocate of the glorious shoeless hoof.

*Provided the hoof gets the correct (and ongoing) conditioning, like the muscles and respiratory system of the horse.

** I didn't want to but a disclaimer or footnote or whatever for the above statement, but I want to make it clear that I DO NOT think you are evil or not interested in your horse's welfare or lazy or whatever other offence that statement could cause. Horse management is about doing what is best for your horse, and if you don't have the time or money or knowledge or you have tried and tried to have your horse go barefoot but you can't make it work and the horse is being kept out of work over it, then doing what keeps the horse comfortable and happy is #1.