Off to School…

Posted by Steve on November 3, 2012. 2 comments.

A very quick estimate reveals that I’ve now spent well over 10,000 hours in university classrooms over the past 34 years, teaching a wide variety of technical subjects to students of all ages and backgrounds. Those teaching experiences, along with my other parallel careers/passions – electronics engineer, hoof care professional, recording engineer, and jazz musician – have indeed given me a very rich and full life. And while I’d be hard-pressed to pick a “favorite career” among them, I have to say that I truly enjoy sharing my knowledge with others.

The last couple of weeks have been particularly rewarding, because in addition to my usual classes, I’ve had the pleasure of teaching some basic hoof theory and trimming to the Horse Health & Disease class in our Horse Production and Management degree program. I’m a big fan of such two-year programs, because, depending on your career objectives, I believe programs like this offer students the best return on their investment in terms of practical, real-world experience coupled with relevant theory and some broader liberal-arts education. Most of these programs have a particular focus; in our case, we have an emphasis on reproduction and genetics, and students gain considerable experience in both live cover and artificial insemination in our 46-stall barn, breeding shed, and laboratory. And Dr. Karen Wimbush, the program’s Technical Coordinator, is to be commended for her dedication to continually improving our course offerings.

This three-week series of lectures and laboratory experiences has been designed to equip the students with the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions about hoof care based on science, and not on the hearsay, speculation, and out-and-out incorrect information so often offered up by well-intending but misinformed horse owners, farriers, and veterinarians. And so our first class concentrated on examining the characteristics of both a correct and incorrect landing, the factors that determine the form of the hoof and how it lands, and the short- and long-term movement and health consequences of proper and improper landings – a great start for any horse owner!

Then, this past Thursday, we gathered at the barn to brave the cold and do some hands-on trimming of cadaver hooves. “Sounds gruesome!” you might say, but there are some important advantages (as well as a couple of disadvantages) to using cadaver hooves to teach trimming. First and foremost, it minimizes the risk to the student. It’s enough of a struggle for a beginner to learn to use the tools correctly, so complicating the situation with trying to properly hold and safely manage a horse at the same time is, in my opinion, not in everyone’s best interest. I once heard someone liken hoof trimming to trying to carve a duck out of a flying piece of wood, and, believe me, that’s very close to the truth! And second, it also minimizes the risk to the horse. After all, it’s pretty hard to lame a dead horse. So I generally prefer to begin any hands-on instruction using cadavers.

The lead-up to the cadaver trimming class got off to a bit of a rocky start, though. The short version of the story is that the frozen hooves were delivered on Friday while I was in Massachusetts visiting Annie. Trouble was, they couldn’t find them to get them into our big walk-in freezer. And so the hooves ended up sitting in my office all weekend, thawing and smelling! And then Hurricane Sandy caused my return flight to be cancelled, so instead of teaching half the class Tuesday and half Thursday, per the original plan, we had to group the entire class together for our big trim adventure with the smelly hooves. But all’s well that ends well, as they say, and everyone did a fine job with their hooves.

Next week, we’ll finish up this brief look at hooves by trimming live horses. And even though we’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of both theory and practice, if this group is like every other person I’ve taught how to trim, they’ll emerge with a new respect for their hoof care provider, whomever he/she is!

Violation!

Posted by Steve on October 13, 2012. 2 comments.

A client horse’s beautiful white hoof!

New clients, particularly those with horses going barefoot for the first time since their youth, often ask, “When can I ride my horse again?” as I’m finishing up the first trim. That question used to puzzle me quite a bit, because nothing we do ought to affect a horse’s comfort in any way but positive. But an experience with a farrier finally made that question make perfect sense.

I was trimming a couple of horses for a new client some distance from home when her farrier walked into the barn. I later realized this had been the plan all along; she wanted him to observe me so he could “duplicate” the natural trim and continue using him, which I didn’t particularly appreciate. Nor, by the way, do I think anyone can grasp true natural hoof care simply by observing a single trim. But that’s not the issue at hand right now, so I’ll defer comments on that subject to another time. At any rate, he was a nice guy and I enjoyed talking with him. But after he’d watched me for a while, he suddenly said, “I see you don’t cut into any live tissue.” “No!” I replied with some shock. “Do you???” He then explained that at the very well-known and well-respected farrier school he’d attended, they were taught to cut into the live tissue of the sole (“pare out the sole”) as part of the trim process before applying a shoe.

And then it all made sense! I realized I’d watched other farriers who had trained at this same institution cut away sole tissue until they could flex the sole with their thumbs. I don’t think you have to be a genius to figure out that if I can flex the sole with my thumbs, a 1,000-pound horse stepping on a rock is going to hurt! But this, at least in my experience, is a very common practice. I remember helping a young farrier with his trimming some time later, and watching him cut the toe way down into live tissue. “Too short?” he’d ask. “Yes!” I’d reply, “When you see red (blood), it’s definitely too short!”

This is why new clients often ask that question; they’re used to having their horses be a bit tender after shoeing because living tissue has been violated. Obviously, the shoe, acting as a spacer between the sole and the ground, helps mitigate the discomfort. But this is why so many people who “try” taking their horses barefoot aren’t successful – because the same person who shoes their horse, cutting into living tissue as part of the process, is the person who trims their horse to be barefoot. And the horse, predictably, ends up sore – sometimes very sore. The owner then concludes the horse can’t be barefoot, and the shoes go back on. And “barefoot” takes the blame, even though the horse really never stood a chance because he wasn’t given a chance.

I typically see several different variations on sole tissue violation, depending on the farrier/trimmer. To be fair, many so-called “natural” hoof trimmers are also guilty of these same errors. But true natural hoof care never removes living tissue, but always removes only the ready-to-slough-off tissue that adequate movement over suitably-abrasive terrain would remove, given the opportunity. The illustration below shows a cross-section of the wall/sole/frog at the widest part of the hoof –

The top illustration shows the concavity and consistent thickness of a healthy hoof with all of the “junk” exfoliated. As you’ll note, the sole blends smoothly into the wall (at the white line), with no “lip” or “rim.”

The second drawing depicts the very common situation where the trimmer has “pared out” living sole tissue. This weakens the supporting and shock-absorbing capabilities of the hoof, allowing the weight of the horse to flex the sole more than it should, and therefore more readily come into contact with the ground. That, combined with the sensitive tissue that’s been exposed through over-trimming, often makes the unshod horse very sore on anything but a flat, unyielding surface. Even if shod, this horse will be sensitive on rocks or large gravel until the sole has had the chance to grow back. Often, these horses end up with very flat soles until proper hoof care is implemented.

Another very common scenario is shown in the next image, where the trimmer has over-rasped the hoof and violated the hoof’s concavity. It appears as a “rim” of sole inside the hoof wall, and is often covered up by a shoe. This destruction of the sole’s natural concavity also weakens the supporting and shock-absorbing capabilities of the hoof as above, although these horses, if shod, are often not as obviously sore because the over-thinned portion of the sole is covered. On the other hand, the loss of concavity places the sole that much closer to the ground. These horses can often take quite a while to regain the lost concavity, depending on the severity of the situation. These soles will sometimes appear to be flat, but only because the surrounding wall has been cut too short. An improperly-exfoliated hoof can mimic this problem, incidentally, because normal wall rasping flattens the sole material that should’ve been removed; the only way to distinguish between the two is by proper exfoliation.

The last illustration combines the previous two problems, and is what I witness in nearly every shod horse to one degree or another. This is why a shod horse often has trouble transitioning to barefoot: his hooves have endured many years of highly-invasive trimming with its attendant sole thinning and loss of support, and the horse is understandably uncomfortable on anything but the most forgiving terrain. In these situations, hoof boots are often necessary to allow the horse to be pain-free when ridden until the hoof recovers.

Proper hoof care should never cause pain. Sadly, many horses never get to experience that life. But once you understand what the farrier is doing, it’s pretty simple to understand why so many owners believe his or her horse cannot be without shoes, or have limited success with being barefoot. But the only way to truly “give barefoot a chance” is to hire a well-trained natural hoof care provider who understands what genuine natural hoof care is all about. So if your hoof care provider is guilty of either (or both) of these errors, don’t you owe it to your horse to look elsewhere? I think he’d think so…

The “Expert Syndrome”

Posted by Steve on September 8, 2012. 6 comments.

One of the constant frustrations I encounter is nicely illustrated by the preceding clip from the 2004 – 2008 television show Wildfire. No, I’m not talking about chipped hooves and the common perception that they’re a problem; I hope I’ve adequately addressed that issue in earlier posts. What I’m talking about instead could perhaps be called the “expert syndrome,” which is when someone with a small amount of knowledge in a particular subject area feels qualified (and compelled) to offer his or her opinion on the subject to an extent that’s far in excess of what he or she actually knows.

I want to be absolutely clear here that I am not saying these people are stupid or incapable of learning. I’m talking about the gaps every person alive has in his or her knowledge. For example, I’m probably the most ignorant person on the planet when it comes to sports. I have no interest in the subject, and I know nothing about it. But most importantly, I know I know nothing about it and therefore refrain from commenting on it. That distinction is the subject of this article.

The “expert syndrome” is extremely common and certainly not confined to the horse world. For example, when I worked full-time designing professional audio products, a colleague once complained that a reviewer for the leading industry publication had written a rather bad review of one of her company’s new products, describing in technical detail a very specific problem with its performance. So she had the engineering department measure and re-measure samples of the product in an attempt to identify and fix the problem. Trouble was, they couldn’t find the problem; in spite of their $100,000-plus testing facilities, they simply couldn’t get the problem to show up. After about a week of this, she called the reviewer to ask him about the test conditions he’d used to test the product for the review. His answer? “I didn’t actually measure anything, but I heard the problem while listening in my living room.”

I won’t even bother describing the differences between objective measurements done under very controlled laboratory conditions and one person’s subjective opinion in his living room, but I’m sure you get the idea. The more amazing part of this situation is not that he gave very specific numbers in his review as if he’d measured the product, but that he apparently thought nothing of writing a bad review of the product (which could’ve had dire consequences for the company) based on absolutely no objective information!

In the equine world, this often translates to some trainer or owner freely offering advice or making some proclamation as if it were based on actual data rather than anecdotes or speculation. Yes, I know it’s just a television show, but how many Wildfire fans nevertheless ended up believing that horses must be shod to avoid “risking a chip”? Even within the story line of the show, there’s nothing about this young woman’s history that would put her in a position to make such an authoritative comment on hoof care.

Some folks at Cornell University have actually measured this misperception of self- knowledge, and reported their findings in a paper authored by Justin Kruger and David Dunning and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology entitled “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments“. In this study, the authors asked people to assess their knowledge of a particular subject area, and then tested them on that subject. Following the test, they also asked each participant to assess how they thought they’d performed on the exam. The results for logical reasoning ability are reproduced below –

As is obvious, the people with the least amount of subject knowledge grossly overestimated both their knowledge and their test performance. And not just by a small amount; their actual knowledge ranged from approximately one-half to only one-sixth of what they thought they knew! That truly frightens me, because the data suggests that half of the population overestimates its knowledge of a particular subject to a very significant degree.

The big problem, as the title of the paper points out, is that people don’t know what they don’t know. Based on their study, the authors make four “predictions” about the connections between competence, metacognitive ability (the ability to “know what one knows”), and inflated self-assessment, which I’ve summarized below –

Incompetent individuals will dramatically overestimate their ability and performance relative to objective criteria when compared to their more competent peers
Incompetent individuals will be less able than their more competent peers to recognize competence when they see it, whether their own or someone else’s
Incompetent individuals will be less able than their more competent peers to use information about the choices and performances of others to form more accurate impressions of their own ability
Incompetent individuals can gain insight about their shortcomings, but this comes by making them more competent, thus providing them the metacognitive skills necessary to be able to realize they have performed poorly

So the bad news is really the inability of these “experts” to know they’re not experts, which means it falls to the rest of us to try to sort things out. And that’s not always easy to do, because if we were experts in the subject area in question, we wouldn’t be seeking the advice of others! So it’s almost the classic “Catch-22.”

What can the horse owner do? Well, the study shows us that as a person’s actual subject knowledge decreases, his or her perception of their knowledge increases. So the most questionable sources would seem to be the individuals who freely offer advice about aspects of equine management that, logically, one wouldn’t expect them to have knowledge of, have nothing in their backgrounds that suggests knowledge of the subject area in question, and/or otherwise offer vague credentials such as “because I love horses” or “because I’ve been around horses my entire life.”

Unfortunately, and contrary to popular opinion, this also includes many veterinarians when it comes to hoof care. Logically, a veterinary student cannot spend much time on any particular aspect of the horse, since, in four years’ time, they have so much to learn – mostly about small companion animals. It’s not possible for them to spend more than a very small fraction of their time (maybe a class or two) on the equine digit. Yes, we horse owners tend to expect them to have the knowledge, but it’s simply not logical to assume they have it. After I posted Toy Story, I received a number of comments from horse owners and other hoof care professionals lamenting about similar experiences. Here’s one comment from a very well-trained and highly-experienced trimmer –

When I began to trim I asked my farrier, who had moved away, about barefoot trimming. He told me to keep records of at least the first year of my trimming and figure out what the success rate was for lame horses that I trimmed. He had spent years as the orthopedic shoer for the Florida vet school. He told me that the vet/farrier combination had less than a 30% success rate for bringing lame horses back to soundness; that most of what they did was simply extending the horses’ usability for a couple more years. My first year of trimming had an 85% rate in returning horses to work under saddle, many of those with a veterinary recommendation for euthanasia, After that, I was off and running with barefoot trimming.

Board-certified veterinary surgeon Neal Valk, who teaches in our training program, has told me similar things; that, even as a “super vet” from an education perspective, he was taught very little about hoof care, and what he was taught was aimed at getting a bit more use out of a horse, with the full knowledge that once the owner went down the “corrective shoeing” route, it was only a matter of time before it no longer “worked.” But this post has gotten much longer than intended, and I’ve got to wrap it up!

I see this lack of actual knowledge and the subsequent propagation of misinformation as a very real problem in the horse world, and I like to discuss this topic in my workshops because I want horse owners to not only be able to recognize suspect information when they encounter it, but also to halt its spread when possible. So question everyone and everything, and do your level best to share only well-researched sources of information supported by objectively-credible credentials. We all have an obligation to our horses to stop inaccurate information.

Please do your part.

Toy Story

Posted by Steve on August 26, 2012. 9 comments.

Toy & Aubrey

I want to share the story of a horse named Toy who recently reappeared in my life. I consider my experiences with Toy to be pivotal in my development as a hoof care provider because they were particularly eye-opening with respect to the knowledge of veterinarians and farriers. And I also hope his story may save other horses and owners from needless pain because his situation is not unique; I’ve since seen a number of horses suffer for very similar reasons. So here goes…

It was early 2000. Although I’d been trimming horses for a number of years, I’d just discovered Jaime Jackson’s first book entitled The Natural Horse, and was eagerly digesting its contents because I recognized that finally there was someone in the horse hoof care world who made sense! I met Toy’s owner Susan at a horse show, where she shared his very dire circumstances with me. But I’ll let her tell you in her own words –

Toy was a barefoot horse from birth until age 6 or 7. I always thought in the back of my mind there is just something not right about nailing metal to a horse’s feet, but I had no idea about proper barefoot trimming. I had a track farrier trimming him – the guy that did the whole barn.

Toy started coming up unsound. He was diagnosed with navicular disease around 6 or 7 by a vet in Johnstown, Ohio, and we started to shoe him then. We started out with just plates, and then over the years continued to get more and more aggressive with his shoeing in accordance with what the vet would tell us.

Then around 11 or 12, he started getting progressively worse. He was then put on Isoxsuprine by another vet in Delaware, Ohio, and we were told he now needed pads and high-heeled shoes. He would go sound for a while – or what we thought was sound – but then as that started to not work, the vet in Delaware did x-rays and said his navicular bone was full of holes and in terrible shape. He then told us to jack him up even more, and put wedge pads on him too. It was to the point where the farrier I was using said he didn’t want to shoe him anymore because he said if one of the shoes and pads came off, it could be a disaster because of the angles Toy was at, and he was very concerned. The vet at this point told us that Toy had reached the end of the line and that we needed to start thinking about putting him down and that he had had a great life.

This is the point where I entered the story. From her description, I thought navicular disease was a pretty far-fetched diagnosis, and urged her to consider de-shoeing the horse and getting him properly trimmed before taking the final, irreversible step of euthanasia. I loaned her my copy of The Natural Horse, and she contacted Jaime to see what he recommended. Jaime set her up with an appointment with Mike Lagrone – one of his very first students – who was doing a clinic in Kentucky the following weekend. So on the appointed day, we loaded up Toy and headed to Kentucky. Back to Susan –

Before the first visit with Mike, though, our vet caught wind of us taking Toy to a barefoot natural trimmer from someone up in Delaware, and he called me at work and told me that I was making a huge mistake. He said that if those shoes and pads were removed from Toy’s feet, he was in grave danger of the navicular bone completely crushing, and he would have to be put down on the spot. I chose to take my chances, as his only option was to put him down. I felt I had to try everything before that decision was made. This horse had carried my little girl as an infant, and taught her to ride and never made a wrong move with her. He was one of the most important things in her life at that time.

Everyone reading this probably knows what a “three-legged lame” horse looks like. Toy came off the trailer barely able to bear weight on his left front foot. He was wearing what I call “the usual hardware” in these situations: wedge bar shoes with full wedge pads, with silicone poured in between the pad and the sole. I’ve since taken this same combination off many, many horses – particularly those with laminitis or navicular syndrome/disease.

Mike looked over the radiographs and remarked that he didn’t see anything particularly problematic. He then removed the shoes and cleaned out the soles; so far, pretty routine stuff. His next move, however, was truly astounding.

After examining Toy’s left front hoof, Mike picked up his nippers and proceeded to cut away hoof wall from the lateral heel quarter to the toe, about a third to half of the way up the hoof! When he was done, we were looking through the side of Toy’s hoof at his coffin bone. Although Susan was practically beside herself, Toy never reacted and there wasn’t a single drop of blood. You see, in spite of the veterinarians and farriers telling her otherwise, and in spite of their willingness to put this horse down, Toy didn’t have anything wrong with his navicular bone. Instead, he had a raging case of white line disease, and the disease had absolutely decimated the lamellar connections holding the hoof wall to the coffin bone in the area that Mike resected. And because the bottom of the hoof had been sealed up with the full pads and silicone, the anaerobic organisms present in white line disease had “gone to town,” wreaking havoc on the lamellar connections.

Mike told Susan to take Toy home, buy a wire brush and her favorite hoof cleaner, and scrub the affected area with the wire brush every day. He stressed how important it was to keep the area absolutely clean, and assured her that Toy would be fine! Here’s Susan again –

After being off for a year and doing the barefoot natural trim, Toy and Aubrey went on to win the State Championship in English Equitation out of 70-some horses. That day he was not on Isoxsuprine or bute, and was barefoot.

Today he is almost 27 years old. He has arthritis – probably from the ignorance of shoeing him and keeping his weight on his toes for all those years. I often wonder if we had gotten the correct information right off the bat how much better he would be today. But at least he is still with us, and my daughter had many more wins, trail rides, and her best friend, through junior high, high school, and college.

What a story! From death’s door to state champion, only because Susan was willing to go against the advice of her veterinarians and farriers and give Toy the chance she knew he deserved. I’ve not seen Susan, Aubrey, or Toy since that day. But I’m excited because Aubrey, now grown up, has relocated to my area and, by mere chance, found me through a referral. So I’ll get to take care of her new horse’s hooves!

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this was a key learning experience for me as well. Up until this point, I, like most horse owners, thought veterinarians had a generally good grasp of the equine foot. Toy’s situation really shook my confidence in that belief. How multiple veterinarians and farriers could miss such an obvious problem was, at that time, simply beyond my comprehension.

I’ve since found out that veterinarians typically don’t learn much about horse hooves in school, but instead rely on the knowledge of farriers and other veterinarians. That revelation, just so you know, was “straight from the horse’s mouth” from multiple sources, although I can’t go into details. This is an unfortunate circumstance; one that I sincerely hope will change in the near future. Until then, the horse owner has very few options when it comes to accurate, up-to-date knowledge of the equine digit and its unique problems.

All the best to Toy, Susan and Aubrey for their courage!

UPDATE: According to his owner, Toy passed away in 2020 at age 34 – 22 years and a good life after his near-death experience at the hands of incompetent equine health care providers!

Liberated Horsemanship

Posted by Steve on August 8, 2012. 2 comments.

I’ve mentioned Liberated Horsemanship in passing before, but I thought I’d take this opportunity to discuss our upcoming clinics at the end of next month (9/28 – 10/2).

From my perspective, what’s offered a couple of times a year in Warrenton, MO (an hour west of St. Louis) is of immense potential benefit to every horse and owner, regardless of breed, discipline, or hoof care philosophy. Every presenter has many years of education and experience in his or her particular area of expertise, and each offers a science-based look at an ever-increasing array of subjects related to the management of the whole horse. Although all of us share our love of horses and our commitment to natural hoof care, each of us also has one or more areas of specialization that combine to form an education program that I believe is unparalleled. Where else can you hear a board-certified veterinary surgeon give you the “straight story” on what veterinarians are (and aren’t!) taught about hoof care, or a PhD research scientist at one of the top medical universities in the country discuss the effects of physical and psychological stress on horses? Get advice about forage and feeding from an agronomist, not the guy down the street. Learn about laminitis and founder from the veterinarian who funds the top laminitis researchers in the world, not from a magazine article. Dissect a cadaver hoof and gain a real appreciation for the marvelous design of the equine digit. The list goes on and on, but I encourage you to visit the website and read the biographies for yourself.

I always have a great time there. It’s a warm, inviting atmosphere that fosters learning and encourages questions. And provides answers. Consider that in this one location, you’re in immediate contact with trained natural hoof care professionals with a (rough estimate) minimum of forty thousand natural hoof trims under their collective belts! Every location, every breed, every age, every discipline, every health problem. If you need answers, I can’t think of a better place to get them!

And…there’s a good barbeque place nearby! 🙂

Half a Trim?

Posted by Steve on July 31, 2012. 11 comments.

A client of mine recently pointed me to the website of another “natural” hoof care practitioner. Always hoping to learn something new about the equine foot, I visited the site and did some reading about her trim philosophy. Wow! What a disappointment. Although what she describes definitely has some elements of proper trimming, her philosophy is marred by an incorrect understanding of the forces at work on the hoof. She builds a series of arguments in defense of her philosophy upon a flawed premise, throwing in bits and pieces of “scientific facts” that are anything but scientific in an attempt to rationalize a trim that’s anything but natural. Most amazingly, she offers up as “proof” a series of photographs of a hoof that, to me, clearly show an increase in hoof distortion because of her trimming! And so, at the end of the day, like countless others who’ve jumped on the “natural” bandwagon, she’s advocating a trim distinctly at odds with true natural hoof care and potentially harmful to her clients’ horses.

Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the space here to address all of my concerns with her approach to trimming, but another client’s delay in getting her horses’ hooves trimmed ended up giving me a convenient way to describe what I see as the major flaw in this trimmer’s philosophy. This fault, which is shared by many others, centers on the notion that “natural” hoof care involves not trimming some particular part or parts of the hoof. For some, it’s the sole; for others, the bars or frog. In this person’s case, it’s the heels. She states: “While the advice of many is to trim the heels, my advice is to leave them alone.”

The role of the natural hoof trimmer is to provide the trim nature provides; specifically, to trim the hoof as nature would trim it given the right circumstances. We have very clear examples of the end results of nature’s trimming, and can see the effects of the abrasive forces at work on a consistent, whole-hoof basis. Yet, somehow, these folks manage to separate out various parts of the hoof to trim or not trim, based on criteria that are frankly beyond me. I’ve heard some very well-known trimmers make remarks like, “If I trim a hoof and part of it grows back quickly, then I figure the horse must need that part to be long, so I don’t trim it again.” Huh?

In this particular trimmer’s case, some of her comments lead me to believe her “no-heel-trim” philosophy is based on the fact that different environments produce different hoof forms. Take a look at the illustration below –

– from New Hope for Soundness, Second Edition, by Gene Ovnicek

Given sufficient movement over suitably-abrasive terrain, every horse’s hoof will look like the bottom illustration, just as documented prior to Mr. Ovnicek’s efforts by Jaime Jackson. As the terrain gets softer, less and less abrasive forces are at work on the heels, and so they grow basically unchecked. But, as noted in the illustration, the hoof maintains the same functional angle because the heels penetrate the softer terrain. So one might conclude, as I suspect this trimmer did, that since many of our horses are kept on softer terrain, the heels should be left alone.

Examine the two photos at the start of this post. In the second photo, the red horizontal lines on the left half of the photo mark the ends of the toe and heel buttresses (“heels”). The red lines on the right are equidistant from the left-hand lines, and mark the trimmed position of the heels and an equivalent distance back from the untrimmed toe position. This helps illustrate the important concept that trimming isn’t just about shortening the hoof in the vertical direction; as you can see, the trimmed “footprint” of this hoof has actually moved towards the back of the horse approximately 10% of the length of the foot, correctly placing the weight of the horse forward over his heels. So excessive length of the entire hoof, even if it’s balanced front-to-back (A-P) and left-to-right (M-L), is ultimately harmful. For a better look, check out the accompanying illustration – a revision of the one that appeared in Hoof Angles – Part 3 from Dr. Deb Bennett’s Principles of Equine Orthopedics. Incidentally, note that the contact point of the toe, indicated by the green line, has actually moved even farther back, somewhat shortening the “footprint.” Most, if not all, of that decrease is due to the “mustang roll” around the outer hoof wall. You can also, by the way, get a pretty good idea from the photo about what would happen to the “footprint” if we trimmed the toe and didn’t trim the heels!

That’s enough about why we trim the hoof, but I need to say more about why we trim the entire hoof. There’s a reason why there aren’t, and shouldn’t be, region-specific “natural trims.” And the reason is quite simple –

Trimming the hoof as if the horse lived in the extremely abrasive environment of the U.S. Great Basin, traveling many miles per day, will always offer every horse the best chance at long-term comfort and soundness because the worst-case riding environments we subject our horses to most closely mimic those conditions.

To say it another way: when we ride our horses on pavement, hard ground, or even well-packed sand, the heels cannot adequately penetrate the surface. So if the hoof isn’t properly balanced for a flat landing on an unyielding surface at the walk, the foot will be subjected to the damaging forces of jerk and concussion, as described in Hoof Angles – Part 4. So the practical form of Mr. Ovnicek’s illustration should look like this –

Hooves kept on soft terrain and ridden on medium-hard or hard terrain

We cannot – we must not – pick and choose what parts of the hoof to trim or not trim, because the U.S. Great Basin feral horse model, combined with a bit of common sense, shows that to be wholly improper. And deliberately unbalancing the hoof, as advocated by the aforementioned trimmer, can have very dire consequences for a horse unless the horse is always used in exactly the same environment the trimmer has catered to in his or her trim (highly unlikely, I might add!). The safest and healthiest trim for your horse will always entail removing all excess growth, and not a bit more, as demonstrated by the U.S. Great Basin feral horse model.

In closing, I want to share an excerpt from a video I’m working on. The first clip is of one of my clients’ horses, chosen only because of the wide concrete barn aisle. As you’ll see, the horse lands flat at the walk. The second clip, which I did not record, is of a horse whose trimmer had been mimicking the trim style he saw in a well-known book on natural hoof trimming – or so, at least, he and the owner believed. Note how the hooves, most notably the front ones, literally slam into the ground heel-first. Ouch!

– excerpt from an upcoming video about proper versus improper landings, showing the flat landing of a properly-trimmed horse followed by the heel-first landing of an improperly-trimmed horse

More soon…

Hoof Angles – Part 6

Posted by Steve on June 19, 2012. No comments.

In the last installment, I introduced you to one of my clients with very mismatched front hooves, with a promise that I’d explain the “why” of her radically-different hoof angles in the next article. Well, it’s time to do exactly that!

One of my best early lessons on cause and effect with respect to hoof form came from Carol Brett, co-founder and co-owner of BALANCE saddles in the UK. In her saddle-fitting clinics, Carol pointed out that any restriction in a horse’s shoulders will cause a hoof to become more upright i.e. “clubby.”

Newborn Foal Hoof

That really struck home with me, because before that time, I (like most of the horse world) had fallen into the trap of believing that hoof form dictated movement, rather than the other way ’round. But what she said was logical; if the hoof spends more time “under the horse,” rather than experiencing its full range of motion, it makes sense that it’ll compensate by changing form into something better suited to supporting a smaller range of motion. The foal shown above, born just a few hours before this photo was taken, has a very upright hoof because she’s not yet moved enough to have the hoof start showing changes in form that optimize her movement. Form always follows function!

I’ve now seen examples of Carol’s statements countless times. That’s not to say it’s the only reason a hoof may be more upright, but it’s definitely one very common reason. The same idea applies to M/L (side-to-side) balance as well; the more a horse carries his or her hoof towards the mid-line of the body, the more upright the lateral (“outer”) wall will be and the more angled the medial (“inner”) wall will be.

In the case of my client’s horse, there are several forces at work that cause one hoof to be more upright. For one, she paws with that hoof, and pawing seems to promote an upright hoof capsule. She also grazes in the same position every day: the upright hoof behind and the other hoof in front. Again, that stance makes for mismatched feet. And, she has some stifle issues on one side, which probably cause some degree of asymmetry to her gait, and, therefore, to her hooves. Could there be other factors at work as well – maybe a congenital tendon and/or ligament condition causing a more upright hoof? It’s certainly possible, but since I haven’t known the horse since birth, I can’t really say.

Regardless of the causes, this horse’s feet are sound. And any attempt to “fix” what amounts to a cosmetic – not a functional – problem by trimming into live tissue is only going to make her lame until she regrows exactly the same hoof again!

It’s not always the case, however, that a pair of hooves like this is supposed to be mismatched. That has to be sorted out over the course of several trims. I’ll give you an example of what I mean…

A few years ago, I started helping the trainer at an American Saddlebred farm transition all of their horses to barefoot. One horse in particular stood out because he had horribly mismatched hooves – probably worse than the horse we’ve been discussing. The trainer explained to me that it’s common for Saddlebreds to have radically different feet, and that he used a wedge pad to make the hooves match and the shoulders the same height. My only response was “uh huh,” which is short for “Steve doesn’t yet have enough data to either agree or disagree”! And so I proceeded to trim each hoof as an individual, just as I always do.

A few months and trims later, along with a lot of instruction, the trainer took over all of the trimming, which was the original goal. I visited him about 6 months after that, and he pulled out the same mismatched horse. Except now, the horse’s feet were obviously a matched set. “You know,” the trainer said, “there really wasn’t anything wrong with his feet after all! They’d just been mis-trimmed before you started doing him, and you got him straightened out!”

I just smiled.

Hoof Angles – Part 5

Posted by Steve on June 5, 2012. No comments.

Sorry for a bit more of a delay in getting this posted than I’d intended, but between managing clients, the end of the school Quarter, and attending the Berkshire International Film Festival with Annie last weekend, time has been tight. But hopefully you’ll find it was worth the wait!

I’ve discussed some of the effects of deliberately manipulating hoof angles before – particularly in Hoof Angles – Part 4, where I described some of the consequences of imbalance on bones and joints. And while I firmly believe proper balance and length are absolutely crucial to the long-term comfort and soundness of a horse, that doesn’t mean appearances can’t be deceiving. Take a look at the following photograph of a client’s horse –

: Differing Hoof Angles

At first glance, you might conclude this horse is out of balance. After all, a 10° difference in a pair of hooves is pretty significant! But in reality she’s not. Remember: hoof form is the consequence, and not the cause, of movement. So when we see this situation in a horse that’s properly trimmed, we have to look at what, in her stance or movement, might be causing this particular asymmetry between her hooves. Now, a logical question at this point would be to ask how I know this horse is properly trimmed. And the answer, at the clinical level, is because her hooves grow straight, without any flaring, thickening, or other distortions, and because she lands flat at the walk. That confirms proper balance; it’s not subjective, and it can’t be faked.

As further evidence of proper balance, let’s take a look at a radiograph of the upright hoof, which the veterinarian labeled a “club foot” –

Radiograph of the Upright Hoof

It’s generally acknowledged that the plane defined by the bottom of the coffin bone should form a 3° – 5° angle with respect to the ground surface. As you can see on my protractor overlay, this angle appears to be just a bit higher than that – about 6°, or 1° higher than what’s considered correct. Not 10°. Not even close!

To be fair (to both the veterinarian and myself), we need to acknowledge several things about this radiograph and the conditions under which it was made. First and foremost, this hoof needs trimmed, and doing so will almost certainly drop the angle another degree or two. Second, note the very slight divergence in the toe angle; while the upper part of the wall is growing out nice and parallel to the dorsal surface of the coffin bone, the lower part still has some growing to do. Third, you can see where the tip of the coffin bone has deformed, taking on what’s usually called a “ski tip” appearance. More on that later. And fourth, I had to tip the image slightly because the horse wasn’t bearing weight on the foot when the radiograph was taken; the heels were off the ground. The implication of that is an almost certain decrease in the hoof angle, because the digital cushion (a shock-absorbing mass of fibro-fatty tissue – see below) at the back of the hoof compresses slightly as the hoof is loaded.

Weighted vs. Unweighted Foot - from Dr. Deb Bennett

All of this adds up to a hoof angle that’s darned near perfect, regardless of how different it is from its mate!

So why is it steeper than the other hoof? Well, that’ll have to wait ’til next time. But let me just say that the veterinarian’s recommendation for this horse was to lower the heels on this foot – into living tissue, I might add – to make them match and “fix” the problem. No way was that going to happen!

More soon…

Hoof Angles – Part 4

Posted by Steve on May 15, 2012. 11 comments.

There doesn’t seem to be an end to what I can find to say about hoof angles! Several of my previous posts have mentioned the consequences of hoof imbalance, and it’s now time to start being more specific about the problems that can, and do, arise from an improper landing due to an out-of-balance hoof. This installment will touch on consequences involving bones and soft tissues.

Ringbone - from Dr. Deb Bennett

The severity of any particular problem is directly related to a number of factors, including: the horse’s conformation, the type and degree of hoof imbalance, the length of time the hoof remains out of balance, the work the horse does while unbalanced, and the type of terrain the horse moves over while unbalanced.

First of all, most horses do not suffer immediate and catastrophic ill effects from hoof imbalance. If that were the case, there would be far more lame horses than sound ones, since, in my experience, more than 9 out of 10 horses have some degree of imbalance. Instead, the effects of imbalance are often not seen until later in life, similar to human health problems associated with things like smoking, poor diet, and exposure to loud sounds. But since my objective in hoof care is the long-term comfort and soundness of your horse, I believe it’s important to understand and address these issues before they become problems at the clinical level.

The immediate problems that do occur from extreme hoof imbalances are lamenesses due to strain on tendons and ligaments. These sorts of issues more often appear to be connected to large and sudden changes in hoof length and/or angle that can occur when the horse is trimmed, rather than to absolute balance. When a large amount of hoof wall is removed, the abrupt change in tendon and ligament tensions can leave a horse uncomfortable for a few days following trimming.

The more serious problems stemming from long-term imbalance are those related to jerk and concussion. Once again, Dr. Deb Bennett in Principles of Equine Orthopedics –

The dirty little secret of all connective-tissue cells is that they really “want” to become bony. This is because, like bone, their ultimate structure is strands of the protein collagen, which has a great affinity for calci-apatite, the mineral substance which makes bones hard. When they detect strain, connective-tissue cells respond by coating collagen strands with calci-apatite….To “talk” connective-tissue cells into depositing calci-apatite requires only a little stimulation. This normally comes from gene signals, but stimulation by electric impulses, chemical irritants, or allergens can also start it. More importantly for real horseshoeing situations, so can vibration. Vibration comes to horses in two forms: as jerk, which occurs when ligaments or tendons are sharply pulled on; and as concussion, which occurs when something pounds on them (or when they pound on something).

In other words, if a hoof is out of balance in the front-to-back direction (A/P balance), the weight of the horse will immediately force the foot flat to the ground at the onset of the stance phase, and the ligaments and tendons will undergo a sudden change in acceleration. This rapid change is called ‘third-order acceleration’ or ‘jerk,’ and, as Dr. Bennett states above, it stimulates the conversion of the connective tissue – ligaments and tendons – to bone. Check out A Ringbone Study above for a good look at what happens (this example shows what is usually called high ringbone, and is also a case of articular ringbone since it involves the joint), and think about the consequences of those pronounced heel-first landings so many farriers claim are ‘normal!’

A very pronounced (and destructive) toe-first landing...

On the other hand, if the hoof is out of balance in the side-to-side direction (M/L balance), it undergoes unilateral concussion when it lands, hastening the conversion to bone of the lateral cartilage i.e. sidebone. And remember: as I pointed out in What Makes it “Natural Hoof Care?”, unilateral concussion is practically synonymous with ‘corrective farriery.’ Deliberate imbalance can never fix a conformation “problem” at the ground level, because it originates much higher in the limb – in the shoulder or hip. It can only cause long-term (and sometimes short-term) damage.

...and a more typical, but also destructive, heel-first landing

Why am I mentioning imbalance in a post about hoof angles? Because, as the last post mentioned, the horse does not adjust the flight arc of his hooves based on what’s been done to the bottom of them. So if his heels are too long (high), they’re going to hit the ground first. Likewise with toes that are too long.

For now, I’m going to leave you with the following four points:

Hoof angle is not arbitrary; the only proper hoof angle is the one that properly aligns the bones/joints of the lower limb.
To minimize the forces of landing – jerk and concussion – the hoof must be properly balanced.
You cannot see a bad landing, unless it’s really bad, without the proper equipment.
Given sufficient movement over suitably-abrasive terrain, the barefoot horse will quickly remove any minor hoof imbalances; however, a shod horse has 0% chance of fixing his own feet.

More later…

Success!

Posted by Steve on May 13, 2012. 4 comments.

Classroom instruction

The clinics of the last two Saturdays are now behind me, and I’m very pleased with how things went. There were literal gasps “from the crowd” as I showed them slow-motion video of unbalanced landings and the consequent vibration in the hoof and lower limb.

"Seeing" balance

They were long days, though; we spent from 9AM ’til 8PM yesterday, for example, talking and trimming. But I find the whole process very rewarding. With so much misinformation in the horse world, including about the hoof, I find the opportunity to help “set things right” through photographs, video, and just plain “common sense thinking” invaluable to both myself and (I hope!) the students. It’s always great seeing those light bulbs turn on!

But my real concern, of course, is with and for the horses. They, after all, have the most to win or lose in this.

Happy with her work!

I hope to be offering more clinics, and more advanced clinics, in the near future. Thanks again to everyone who participated in making these last two weekends a success!

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