In modern brain research, scientists say it takes 10,000 hours to become really competent to where your hands and your mind are all working together, where you don’t have to think about every move you make.

This is something we’ve known for centuries, haven’t we? The average apprenticeship is 4 years long. If you take about 40 to 50 hours a week over 4 years, it adds up to 10,000 hours. That’s 10,000 hours to learn how to properly shoe a horse. That’s great, but there’s so much more to learn.

Limb Deviations

When you first start out, you’re getting good at it. You can get through a horse in a short amount of time. You’re feeling confident. You want the bigger barns and you want the better horses, but you forget to look at the rest of the horse. You forget to look at what else is going on.

Limb deviations have been talked about for centuries, but you have to be careful when talking about them with clients who become very sensitive when you tell them, “Your horse is carpal valgus, fetlock varus, with an axial rotation.” Every horse you work on is perfect in the eyes of the owner. Don’t forget that.

It’s important to look closer at these animals. Look at them from a lot of different directions. Look at the compound deviations. They’re not all the same. They don’t have straight lines that we can put through the limb as in a textbook or on our computer. They’re all very different. The right foot is different from the left foot. One limb is different from another limb. A horse can have multiple deviations in the same limb.

Altered gait because of limb deviations can lead to interference injuries. A Belgian that was bowlegged resulted in a medial flare and interference injuries with the limb.

The hoof is a road map to what’s going on up above. Look at the wear on the hoof. Look at the distortions in the hoof. Look at the wear on the shoe. Look at the distortions in the shoe. Those will help you as you put all this information together.

We want to bring so much science into what we do, but there’s a great deal of art in it. If you take the time to look, you can see what it takes to form a piece of metal or a piece of plastic to the bottom of that horse’s foot. You have the ability to judge measurements and angles. Use that information to help you out, even if it is communicating with the veterinarian or the other members of your team.

There are terms that we use to define some of these deviations. For example, tarsal valgus — from the hock, that limb goes out commonly referred to as cow hocked. Carpal varus, the limb goes in from the knee. There are also other deviations within those limbs. Does that mean that the horse isn’t going to be able to pull a plow or race around a track? No, they have lots of deviations, but many still get around pretty fast.

It’s interesting to study. Can we fix them? Not necessarily, but we can help them do to the best of their ability with what they have. Deviations don’t just happen — there’s a reason. It might be a conformational deviation. It might be the way the horse is going around the ring. It might be the person who is riding them. Take all of that into consideration.

Interference injuries are created by altered gait due to limb deviations or body deviations or muscle atrophy or old injuries.

There was a big Belgian, and it was so bowlegged that it flared to the inside because of its conformation. Those flares got larger and the horse was cutting its opposite legs off as it was walking because it was so close. It couldn’t do anything about it. The owner had the money to pay for skin grafts and things like that, but never had it trimmed on a regular basis.

It might be a subtle interference problem. You might just see scratch marks or the hair is trimmed. Note these things. There might be cuff marks on the front of the back hoof where a horse is scalping — the toe of the front foot is hitting the front of the back foot. It might be some wear on the front shoe where the horse is forging. Paying attention to all these small things is so important. The effect you have as a hoof-care provider is phenomenal. It may be that you can help that horse do a little bit better in competition or last a little bit longer or be a little more comfortable. We want to leave these horses better off than they are when we arrive.

Deviations are not always in a joint. Sometimes, they’re in a long bone, and knowing the difference is important. You’re asked to put on a shoe to help a horse out, to change the conformation (Figure 1). Well, look at it. No amount of surgery or shoe or anything else is going to help these animals out. Look at how the hind limb bows in the metatarsal. How does the hoof capsule look? Does that look all right? I think it’s all right. That’s pretty well conformed. That’s like a textbook back foot. It tells you that I’m all right, stay away from me. If you try to do anything, you’re just going to mess me up.

Learn what the different deviations are. Learn the terminology so that you can communicate with veterinarians and the others on your team. I worked at a veterinary school for nearly 20 years. Farrier training for veterinarian students was very limited. Anytime you take on a new occupation or a new hobby, you have to learn at least 1,800 words. Those veterinary students have to learn terminologies that you use. So when in Rome, speak as the Romans do. Learn the terminologies that vets use.

Rotational Deviations

Learn a little bit more about what’s going on. Rotational deviations are a twist. Axial is toed-in; abaxial is toed-out. A horse can go in/out, in/out all the way down through the limb. When you’re standing and evaluating a rotational deviation, stand in the direction of that rotational deviation. If that animal is toed-out, stand in line with that knee so that you can look at that animal so you can take out the rotational component to look at the angular component, the bends.

Rotational deviations affect hoof shape and rollover patterns. It’s important to look at those, because a horse that is severely toed-in will breakover or rollover to the outside toe quarter. That’s important to know, because a veterinarian might say, “Well, because this horse has a sagittal lesion, you need to ease the breakover. Put a shoe on with a square toe.” If you put it at the point of the frog, you created a disservice. You put a leverage point on that corner where that horse naturally breaks over. So if you’re putting an eased toe or a rocker or rolled toe; you need to put it where that horse is breaking over.

If you look at the hoof conformation (Figure 2), you’ll see that one heel is in front of the other one. You’ll see that it’s broken away in one quarter. It’s giving you an indication of what’s going on up above — how that horse is moving, how it’s landing.

It’s no different for us as farriers. You’re standing there all day long with your back bent and you’ve got a foot between your legs. You’re going to wear your outside heels. As you wear the outside of your heels, you’re walking closer and closer. It changes your posture. As you change your posture, you get different stresses on your limbs. You’re elongating the soft tissue on the outside. You’re compressing the joint spaces on the inside. Over time and repetitive use, you’ll have pathologies and you’ll have pain.

Watch horses when they move, because a horse that has a rotational deviation in the stifle and/or the hock will twist just before breakover. When it’s just the right hind, that’s important because that’s the way that horse is built. If I put a big trailer, a big calk on there, a lot of traction, I’m stopping that twist. I’m creating stress within the hock or the stifle. I want to allow it to spin. That’s the way that horse is made. Allow them to do to the best of their ability with what they have.

Flexural Deviations

Pay attention if they’re upright, if they have a broken back or a broken forward hoof-pastern axis. It’s telling you something. Work with your team — the veterinarian, owner, manager — and try to figure out whether it was acquired, is it new, what can we do to help this animal out? Because that all creates stresses.

Question the origin of the deviation. Did it just occur or has it been there for a long time? When you’re working with retired Thoroughbreds that have been around the track a few too many times, you might notice that they’re starting to buckle at the knees or starting to become carpal valgus or varus. These changes occur from repetitive work injury and damage.

We see more pathologies with horses that are back at the knee. In some horses, though, some of these conformational deviations are normal. If you have a reining horse, you want it to be a little sickle hocked because that horse can get down there and slide. My draft horses are often back at the knee. That’s OK, because that horse is going 3 to 4 miles an hour pulling a plow on soft ground. It will last forever with that. But when I get a client who says, “This Clydesdale is beautiful. I’m going to take it and I’m going to jump it.” People have bred that horse for thousands of years to pull a plow, not to jump. It’s back at the knee, it’s not going to last jumping. It wasn’t built for that. It wasn’t bred for that.

Knowing these conformational deviations will help you out as a hoof-care practitioner. Deviations affect the entire animal and are reflected in the hoof. We tend to put our blinders on and just look from the hairline down. What we do with the hoof can affect the whole animal. It takes a whole team to help these horses out and keep them going.

The type of shoe that you might put on for a soft tissue lesion in the back part of a limb, which a sickle-hocked horse may end up with in time, will be very different, whether they’re straight in the hocks or very sickle hocked. You’re going to have soft tissue lesions in the back part of the foot or the limb with a broken back hoof-pastern axis.

You might put a bar shoe on or an extended heel. You start wedging these heels that are collapsed on a sickle-hocked horse, you’re just going to collapse them a little more and prematurely break that horse down. All this information is important. We have guidelines as to what shoes to use for what process that might be going on. Open up your mind, expand your vocabulary and speak to the veterinarians and look at the conformation to help you define exactly what you might be doing to that horse.

Consult with the owner, rider, manager and vet to learn whether an upright foot, a broken back or broken forward hoof-pastern axis is acquired or new.

Hoof Shape And Growth

Often, there are multiple deviations in a single limb. Look at the hooves, look at the hoof capsule shape. That’s going to tell you a lot about the stresses applied upon that. Look at the wear in the shoes. Look at the distortions in the hairline.

The hoof shape is influenced by conformation. One foot might be very different than another because of the difference in the conformational deviations.

Stress influences the hoof shape and growth. When a horse has a pushed up hairline on the inside, it’s often associated with a fetlock varus and an axial rotation. That horse goes in at the fetlock. The way the horse loads and lands will affect how that hoof grows and which way it goes in.

Hoof-care schedule influences hoof shape, as farriers run into this all the time. It takes a regular schedule to help these horses out. How fast does the hoof grow? That consistency might change. You’re in the cold, dark Northeast, they may not be growing as much in the winter. You can go 8 weeks. In competition season in the summer, you may have to shorten it up to 4 or 5 weeks. So evaluate the environmental conditions, the rate of the hoof growth, who is taking care of it?

Diseases or pathologies influence hoof shape and hoof growth, and that can change rapidly. You have a horse that you’ve been working on and the tools that you’re using are all of a sudden working or the horse is healing on its own quite nicely. The hoof growth just gets going. It takes 9 months to a year for the hoof to totally replace itself. In some of these horses, it will totally replace itself in 3 or 4 months after there’s been an injury, disease process, or pathology.

Evaluating The Horse

When you bring out a horse, walk around it and look at it from a lot of different angles. Look at those limbs, because every direction you look at is going to be a little bit different. Evaluate it in a static position, but keep your mouth shut and just take that information and use it.

Do a dynamic evaluation; watch the horse move. The first few steps out of the stall door, maybe the first few steps out of the trailer, will tell you a lot. Just ask your significant other what you look like when you stand out of bed on Monday morning. You don’t look so good.

There are so many cool things available to us these days to slow it down. You have smartphones that will slow down video frame-by-frame so that you can watch it carefully.

Lots of people talk to animals, but few listen. Listen to what those animals tell you. Look at them. Feel down their bodies and feel that muscling. Look at that muscling in those limbs to tell you what’s going on and whether they have issues going on. You’re not diagnosing. Get the team together and then you can get some more information with the help of a veterinarian. Get the team together for positive results and communication.

It’s important to lift limbs in a natural range of motion. Where does it go? How does it feel? Over time as you’ve been working on it, you can feel those things. You might not know it consciously, but subconsciously your body knows. When you pick up that leg and pull it forward and that horse is pulling back, instead of spinning around and kicking him a few times in the ribs, think about what that horse is telling you. There’s some pain associated here. It might not be comfortable extending way out there. It might have a flexural issue going on. There might be a difference in the size or the shape of the hooves that are also telling you that. The horse may be reluctant to pull it in one direction, but is good pulling it in another. All of those things are messages that you need to pay attention to.

If you pick up a horse’s back limb that you’re used to saddling him right on your knees, does it slide off? Do you walk over a little farther and it still slides off? That’s a bowlegged horse. It’s telling you a little bit about the conformation of that horse. It’s telling you a little bit about how that horse feels.

Flex the limbs in the natural range of motion. If that horse has no mobility in that joint, it might be telling you we need to reduce the amount of rollover stress or we might want to reduce the amount of concussion. When you’re tapping the nails in and the horse pulls away, there may be an arthritic lesion going on. It’s telling you, “Dude, back off.” Listen to what the horse says.

Look for past injuries, like in Figure 3. That horse is never going to walk the same no matter what you put on the bottom of that foot. There are issues there. There’s scar tissue. There are things that are going to create differences in that horse’s gait.

Manage Expectations

It’s important to consider the expectations of all the people involved. If you have a horse with a poor conformation and they want to go to the Olympics, it might not be a possibility. If you have observed the conformation, muscle atrophy or any problems with that, you’re not going to be able to fill their expectations no matter what you do. Sometimes, we can get along great with the horses we work on, but those involved around the horses aren’t so easy. Their expectations are very different from ours. We’re trying to help the horse out. They want to win a blue ribbon. Our expectations aren’t the same. We’re not going to be able to communicate on the same level.

If you’re told, “I want an egg-bar shoe on that with a pour-in pad, and I want that egg-bar shoe to stick out so far and this and that.” That isn’t proper communication. Proper communication is when you can sit down together — be together, face-to-face — and talk about what’s going on with this horse. Look at all the conditions around. Know the expectations. Have all the information that you need to help that horse out. That’s communication.

Do Your Best

When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt. Do the best you can on every horse that you’re working on, no matter if somebody’s looking or not looking. Your work will speak for itself.

It’s not that hard to have a good business in this industry. You show up on time, you treat the horses and the owners with respect, and you do the best you can every time. Over time you’ll learn, but expect that it’s going to take 10,000 hours before you’re competent getting around that horse. It’s going to take another 10,000 hours studying conformation and deviations and vocabularies that you need to learn to help these horses out more. It’s a long time, but it’s important for the horse.

May/June 2017 Issue Contents