There are many practical farriery options available to the clinician when an alternative to a horseshoe may be necessary or preferred. The wooden shoe is a simple, practical and effective farriery option for treating not only chronic laminitis but many other foot problems (Figure 1).^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}

Among those that may benefit from the wooden shoe are acute/chronic laminitis, extensive white line disease, fractures of the distal phalanx/navicular bone and horses that have feet with poor hoof wall growth combined with thin deformable soles.

The wooden shoe is used as a transitional device to stabilize the hoof capsule, promote hoof wall growth at the coronet and increase sole depth. Once the structures of the hoof capsule have improved with sufficient mass to achieve stability and realignment of the…