Farriers do a lot of things on the level. They shoe horses standing on mats. They evaluate a horse as it’s walked on level ground, toward and away from them. If they look at a radiograph, odds are every effort was made to make sure the horse’s foot was level when it was shot.

Scott Lampert says there’s only one problem with that. A lot of the work horse’s do isn’t done on level ground.

That was the message at the heart of the presentation given by Lampert to the audience at the 4th annual International Hoof-Care Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio. Lampert, a long-time horseshoer, lecturer and owner of Lameness Solutions, delivered a common-sense lecture he called “Shoeing Off the Mat,” that not only demonstrated some of the possible causes for hoof injuries and distortions, but also emphasized the importance of thinking practically.

More To It Than Shoes

Lampert encouraged farriers to look at shoeing issues situationally, taking into consideration each horse’s everyday circumstances. Keeping that in mind when you examine a hoof will make it easier for a hoof to tell you what may have occurred, he says, as it’s usually the horse’s job, training or its preparation that leads to problems.

“You may not be the cause for many problems or lamenesses,” said Lampert. “But you will often be presented with the…