So often I hear that there is no ability to change the shape of a horse's hoof by way of trimming or shoeing.
I ve asked certain farriers their methodology...what they are going for...what they believe is possible by shoeing or trimming. The responses are either I don't know, or I just do what the client asks for, or I trim the hoof the way it grows.
When I tell people it IS possible to affect and change the hoof shape, size, and angles I feel as if I'm telling people the world is Round for the first time after the general population has fully accepted the notion that the Earth is flat(I hope you know, what I'm referencing here).
I guess I should say why it is important to change and monitor the way the hooves are on a horse. It is important because if you have a part of the hoof that is Blocking the movement of the horse, the weakest part that is involved in that movement will start to break down( i.e. Joint, ligaments, tendons, etc.). As horse people all know there are endless leg problems with horses that are actively being worked and in some that aren't as well. This is no mystery. It just takes some deductive reasoning, observation, and an openness to looking at the horse as a whole; an ever changing being in motion.
I am going to compile as many before and afters of the cases I have collaborated with my farrier Dawn Jenkins on. Even she said you just trim the hoof how it grows. I disagreed. I have a background in dentistry and one of the specialty offices I worked in was orthodontics. This is all about moving bone with pressures. You move teeth over by creating relief(space) on one side and putting pressure on the other. Osteoclasts break down the bone and Osteoblasts build bone on the newly created space.
Physiology works with it's environment moving and changing as it has to because of environmental pressures.
The reason we have to do this through essentially equine podiatry is because they don't live natural lives of running at top speeds breaking away the feet naturally. We keep horses in extremely unnatural environments so we have to recreate optimum health to the best of our abilities.
I'm not a person that thinks that all horses should just be wild again. It's not realistic. There are downfalls to that too. Like dying on the range. Our domesticated horses are far too thoroughly bred to handle the conditions. Besides, the blm and nps would round them up for horse meat anywho.
I have been loving and studying horses for 28 years. I have been riding and teaching professionally for the last 15 years. One thing I see over and over is that the client, the horsey mommy(or daddy) usually has a gut feeling about what is happening with their horse or how their horse should be treated and it is canceled out by the supposed professional; trainer, farrier, vet, etc. so the intuition of the person who knows the horse best is disempowered. The one person that has the horse's best interest in mind and is not jaded by income in relation to that horse is shut up. I would like to empower the horse advocates that speak up for horses personal rights; that speak up for new and innovative ways of doing things.
