flat soles



3 comments:

  1. Pantz has flat soles. 12 weeks ago, a barefoot trimmer thought to knife out some of her soles and around her from...she's been dead lame ever since. Good thing she has a pea gravel paddock, no mudd, and a girl who puts poultice on every day- with diapers!

    It is getting somewhat better now...what say you about flat soles???
    KacyK

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  2. Heleen, from the Horse Hooves Info blog, and I were discussing this a while ago. Her theory is that strong laminae connections between the hoofwall and corium "suck" the coffin bone higher in the hoof capsule and that pulls the sole up with it- similar to squeezing a credit card. The longer I think about it, the more I think she's onto something. Both of the horses pictured above had poor hoof wall connections from long-term peripheral loading of the hoof wall and you can see how flat their soles are. Unfortunately I only got two trims in before I had to stop because of my pregnancy. I'll have to see if she'll have me back this summer.

    Obviously the trimmer made the wrong call with Pantz, you can't make a sole concave, it has to happen on its own. With the horses above I just rolled the wall off the ground and trimmed the bars back and neither one was sore afterwards. But I've learned to be very conservative on the first trims with a new client.

    Make sure Pantz doesn't have any sugar issues- that will affect the laminae connection too.

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  3. My ex-racer Tb came to me with flat soles and shod, after 6 months barefoot and regular and often trimming the toe back the frog now gives more support and the hoof angle is less pronounced. There has been no rasping of the wall to get rid of flare and no paring of the sole, the bars have to be trimmed just as often. But we are now seeing some concavity on the front. The hinds have come much quicker but were not any where near as bad.

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