The 3D hoof

I apologise up front for the fact that these photos aren't taken at the same angle. If I can, I will get a better comparison shot but here is the important thing: the feet are the same horse a few weeks apart and can you spot the difference?

If we are judging hooves on the basis of a single photo you might well prefer the hooves at the top. They've obviously been recently trimmed and "balanced".

The same hooves in the lower pics are much less "text-book" and you can imagine that if these photos were posted online many people would think the hooves at the top were much better than the hooves at the bottom...

...which just goes to show that you should never judge hooves in two dimensions, and definitely never when they are standing still. 

As far as I am concerned, the most important thing about hooves and limbs is not how they look, its how they perform.

Soundness and good biomechanics are the absolute bottom lines not just for me but (more critically) for the horse and with that in mind, appearances can be deceptive (especially when its photos in 2D).

I will be banging on about this quite a lot over the next week or so and in the meantime here is another 2D photo to put the cat amongst the pigeons :-)