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Thursday, 24 February 2011

Wonky feet at work

I posted a couple of weeks ago about hooves and symmetry, and how sometimes, when horses are allowed to grow the hooves they need, they can look odd to us even if they are in fact balanced for the horse; usually, it seems that this happens when horses are having adapt to conformation issues or compensate for injury.

I put lots of hoof photos on that post but I thought today I would show you the horses on the top of those wonky hooves, and how they fare in action.

Here is Angel, who has done over 450 miles out hunting this season, out on a day when he did 17 very fast miles, including a long gallop along the road...(!)

Angel's hooves look like this:
And the grey horse is Jacko (who hasn't done quite as much mileage, as he fell in a bog in October and took several weeks to recover, but he is now back on form)...
whose hooves look like this:
Their hooves may look odd, but - for these particular horses - asymmetry gives them the best chance of functioning correctly.  Remove the asymmetry, and you instantly have a less sound, less capable horse. 

Its very important to realise that the hooves haven't been trimmed like this - they grow like this ;-)

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5 comments:

  1. amandap24 February 2011 at 13:05

    Thanks so much for this, real eye opener.

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  2. Cristina24 February 2011 at 15:31

    Just wondered - is there anything obvious if you look at their conformation that they are compensating for?

    Btw Frankie still happy with his odd feet, fairly symmetrical when viewed individually, just not a matching pair :)

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  3. smazourek24 February 2011 at 16:47

    Again, thanks for this. It's got me thinking seriously about my mare's front hooves. She doesn't have the straightest legs and when she came to me (wild and untrimmed) she had massive flares on the outside of her hooves. Even though her frogs and feet look more symmetrical than your guys I'm wondering if I should have left her with some of that flare...

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  4. Nic Barker25 February 2011 at 10:16

    Cristina, I will try and get some comparative photos of straight feet and legs - its usually obvious when you look at front limbs - and its always (or seems so far) front legs, never back ones...

    Smazourek and Amanda - you're welcome :-) Glad its useful, and as always listen to the horse.

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  5. cptrayes25 February 2011 at 22:43

    When I mentioned this to my vets they said "but how long will they stay sound?" in a very aggressive fashion. My reply was "I don't know, and what does it matter? They were unsound in shoes, they are sound now and every day they stay sound is a bonus". They conceded the point with good grace :-)

    C

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