111. Shedding Soles

A few days ago i noticed that one of the soles of Spices hoof which had the abscess was starting to shed, i thought this was a good sign because it was probably making way for the new replenished sole to come through and having read about it on this site it seems i am right.

http://www.hoofrehab.com/horses_sole.htm - this is an absolutely brilliant site.

One of the most interesting sections i found on the website was about trimming...

'All we have to do is understand how deep the grooves are naturally, and we will immediately be able to tell if the inner structures are too close to the outdoors or too far away. This applies to the front of the foot and to the back. We can’t put exact dimensions to this, because different coffin bones have different amounts of solar concavity, and of course it varies by hoof size. A little bit too much sole bothers horses far less than having too little, so I tend to begin by erring on the side of caution. Wild hooves and healthy domestic hooves with uniform sole thickness tend to have their collateral grooves (at the deepest part) about ¾” off the ground at the apex of the frog, and about an inch off the ground toward the back (Near the termination of the bars). These measurements can be taken by laying a rasp across the foot and measuring down to the bottom of the groove.

If this measurement is ¼” deep at the apex of the frog, you can very safely assume that there is not enough sole between the coffin bone, its sensitive corium, and the outdoors. It must be allowed to build. If this measurement is 1 ½” deep, you can very safely assume material could be removed. The same exact logic applies to the back of the foot as well.

These measurements are far more critical to the horse than toe length or heel height measurements. The coffin bone and lateral cartilages often descend into a lower position in the hoof capsule and this leaves a hoof capsule that is longer than natural. This is unhealthy, of course, but trimmers and farriers who ignore this fact and trim to heel or toe length dimensions add injury to injury by overexposing the nerves in the corium on the bottom of the foot. Thinning the sole tends to cause the inner structures to move lower and lower, lengthening the overall hoof capsule. The flip side of this, is that allowing the sole to build and callus at optimum thickness drives the inner structures upward. The coronet moves down the skeleton, shortening the hoof capsule to natural proportions as the callus builds. The center and right pictures below show the natural sole thickness and concavity of a wild horse's foot.

The more i read about horses hooves, the more interested i am in learning how to care for them. I'd love to learn how to trim Spices hooves myself - the more i read the more sense it all makes and the more wonderfully robust i realise (if given a chance) horses hooves are.

If a horses hoof (when fully grown and conditioned) is naturally capable of baring at least 500lbs of the horses weight to assume that it would be incapable of doing this on hard ground just doesn't stand to reason. Unless there is a genetic/pathological reason why the hoof is compromised (which is probably very rarely the case) in my mind it stands to reason that a very good percentage of our riding horses could go barefoot.

Of course, i might well be wrong... i am only coming to this conclusion from what i have read and of course not everything i read could be true but it sure makes for a compelling argument.

I wont lie, i'm sick to death of having a horse that i can't ride and can't do anything with but walk in hand. It completely sucks which is probably why i am probably trying to convince myself that i am doing the right thing right? The inconvenient truth is it may well take Spice another 6 months to be sound but to go back to shoeing would at this moment in time be for myself rather than Spice. The only issue i have is lameness. I would be lying if i didn't say that Spice's lameness worries me as i wonder what the effects of this lameness are on the rest of her body? I can't help but wonder if i am compromising the rest of her body for the sake of her hooves?